Stop talking and spend some time thinking

Here’s the thing that a lot of people don’t seem to understand. All those that keep pointing at Romney, that keep saying that his GOTV machine was poor.

Well guess what, Romney’s campaign was one of only a small handful of races in the entire nature where better GOTV may have mattered.

The fact of the matter is, we embarrassed ourselves this year. We had numerous opportunities to present ourselves as a mature serious party, perfectly capable of tackling the problems of the country. Instead, we put on performances that would embarrass any circus clown.

Yes, the media set out to do it, they hammered us every chance we had, but we made it easy for them! The media wasn’t the one that elevated a man whose entire platform consisted of yelling 999. The media wasn’t the one who for a time seriously considered Donald Trump a serious candidate. The media wasn’t the one to briefly elevate Gingrich, a man whom many apolitical individuals still detest for his antics in the 1990s, as a primary frontrunner. The media didn’t elevate a man who couldn’t resist stepping into social wedge issues every chance he had, the media didn’t nominate numerous candidates whose views on abortion are fringe even within the pro-life camp. The media didn’t prompt Limbaugh to use highly inflammatory language to describe a college student. The media didn’t insist on bringing up Birtherism over and over, again and again and again.

Yes, the left has its crazies, in fact its fair to say that they’re far nuttier than we could ever be. But we media isn’t fair, and we made it extremely easy for them to pain us as a bunch of whack jobs. Since the election I’ve got in touch with a couple old friends whom I know voted for McCain and Bush, and they emphatically told me that they just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a party so out of touch as ours.

So it should hardly be any surprise, that one of the races that came closest to winning, was Romney, one of the few candidates we ran this year that was somber, serious, and kept to the core issues every chance he could!

Yes, the establishment wing of the party doesn’t run enough candidates that are true advocates of the parties true principals, and thats a real issue. But being a true advocate for conservatism isn’t enough, we ran plenty of those during the primary, and each and every single one hurt the party.

So if you want to run a true con, you better make darn certain they can campaign their way out of a paper bag first, because they can’t do a thing to advance our cause if they can’t get elected in the first place!

Not that I want to be over critical or anything.

WolvenOne on November 12, 2012 at 10:12 PM

Think of it this way.

At the beginning of 2008, Bush wasn’t wildly unpopular for his policies. Remember that during Obama’s campaign, he promised to keep many of these policies intact, and that once in office he adopted many of Bush’s most criticized policies with no ill effect.

No, Bush was unpopular because the media attacked him relentlessly for years. After awhile, it stuck, despite the fact that Bush was actually a fairly effective campaigner, and personally likeable.

Well, the media just did that to us, and this time it only took one year.

The difference, as I stated earlier, is that this time we made it easy for them.

WolvenOne on November 12, 2012 at 10:21 PM

faraway on November 12, 2012 at 10:25 PM

Whenever Romney was allowed any period of time to talk about the core issues of our party, he surged in the polls. Whenever the story became about Akin, or Mourdock, or any of the other embarrassments I mentioned above, not only did Romney sink in the polls but EVERY Republican did.

The democrats effectively portrayed the Republican party in the worst possible light, and ran against it. Yes, it’s inevitable that every once in awhile, somebody is going to screw up and have a little gaffe.

We’re not talking about the occasional little gaffe though. Donald Trump and Herman Cain, aren’t LITTLE gaffs. Implying that there is legitimate and illegitimate rape isn’t a LITTLE gaffe.

Again, the occasional little slip up is fine, so long as its little. But unfair as it might be, the media isn’t going to cut us any slack, whatsoever. Our side, our candidates, has to be as media proofed as possible, simply because the media is never going to give us a single break.

WolvenOne on November 12, 2012 at 10:34 PM

Wolven, the other side had a fake Indian… and won.

They stood by their candidate.

faraway on November 12, 2012 at 10:38 PM

Yes, in Massachusetts, where only 15% of Registered voters are Republican. Do you realize just how absurdly well you have to perform among Independents to win office in Massachusetts? During a Presidential election year, when Democrats are going to be out in full force to vote down the party line, its almost impossible for a Republican to survive in Massachusetts.

So, whats your point exactly? That democrats can get away with being utterly horrible campaigners? Yeah, that was kind of my entire point. They can get away with it, we can’t.

WolvenOne on November 12, 2012 at 10:48 PM

It’s the media. No Republican can win a national campaign any more so long as the supermajority of the media is Democrat.

Not exactly, it’s important to keep a few things in mind.

Look at the 2010 midterms. The media was just as biased against conservatism then as it was now, but there were a few differences.

First, social conservatism very much took a back seat. That isn’t to say that there weren’t socially conservative candidates, but the focus was on the issues of taxes and the size of the government.

As a side note, candidates that kept getting caught up in social issues in 2010, lost.

Second, in 2010 we spent a lot less time attacking ourselves, and our own candidates. Scott Brown for example, was known even then to be a fairly liberal Republican. However, instead of criticizing our various candidates for their flaws, we circled the wagons kept in formation to protect them..

Third, for the most part, Republicans that WERE simply too far to the right, or who had spent just too much time in Washington, were largely challenged during the primary season. This kept what infighting there was largely out of the public eye, and give the movement some credibility.

In other words, in 2010 we ran an excellent campaign and swept all races save for a couple senate seats. Those senate losses were largely blamed on either bad candidates, or on their opponents better GOTV machine.

As a result of winning those races however, two things happened. First, the mid term acted as a pressure release valve. A lot of the anger against the incumbents was vented, and some tea party supporters became less active.

The second result, is that we as a party became a little cocky. We saw how low Obama’s approval rating, and assumed we could run anybody and win. So, when it became clear the front runner was somebody that activist portion of the party did not approve of, they pushed other far more flawed candidates instead. Instead of rallying around a single candidate for the sake of victory, we spent the better part of six months caught up in bitter ugly infighting.

I don’t mean to be too critical here, because a lot of people were frustrated by the fact that we ran a man like McCain, and did want a more solidly conservative candidate. However, we should have realized a lot sooner than there was no viable candidate like that to choose from, and moved on. Getting stubborn about it changed nothing, and the resulting temper tantrum destroyed a lot of the good will the American people had put in us.

In other words, while it was understandable, is was ugly and childish, and hurt the party.

Third, the media realized after 2010, that demonizing the tea party for small government activism wasn’t effective. This is why they spent so much time hammering away at the socially conservative wing of the party. They so how socially conservative candidates performed poorly in 2010, and the negative reaction many Americans had to Santorum. They put two and two together, and attacked us on this front. Worse yet, anybody who pointed out that we were being hurt on this front, was deemed a traitor to social conservatism, which made our party look even more out of touch.

Basically, in 2010, we attacked each other less, and we were far less preoccupied with social issues. If we had not been, it is likely that we’d have two more senate seats right now, AND may have succeeded in booting Obama.

I hate to be too critical of the So-Con wing, cause I do empathize with a lot of their positions. At the same time though, they hurt us tremendously and NEED to realize that their strategy doesn’t work. When we run on real issues, we when, when we’re distracted by social issues we lose, end of story.

WolvenOne on November 13, 2012 at 12:02 AM