Priebus to run for another term as RNC chair

Seeing as I generally dislike the idea of immediatly tossing people under the bus, and that he did most aspects of his job well, keeping him on for another two years is fine.

I will state however, that during these next two years he needs to rebuild the GOP GOTV machine in several states, and start prepping some good candidates for the midterms.

The later is especially important to start on now. We were REALLY hurt by bad candidates, and my understanding is that it really does take awhile to build up a good bench of potential players.

GOTV is important too, but at least some infrastructure for a good get out the vote machine is in place from this years national election. Obviously it needs a lot of work, but at least we’re not starting from scratch here.

WolvenOne on November 17, 2012 at 12:27 AM

FloatingRock on November 17, 2012 at 12:24 AM

Okay seriously, I’ve been hearing this occasionally in the past week, and I’ve just got to say, the sentiment is pants on head stupid.

In America your options are, to vote for a major party, vote for a third party, or don’t vote. Voting for a third party doesn’t work because of the spoiler effect, most third parties fall closer to one of the primary parties and so generally take votes from one of the two. If we used an automatic run-off voting system this wouldn’t matter, but as of yet this hasn’t happened.

The other option, is not to vote, which all in all is another even dumber thing to advocate. Simply put, elections only represent those that have showed up to vote. If you do not vote, you have zero say over who represents your congressional district, state, and country. In other words, if you do not vote you have zero say, zero representation, and zero influence. Even voting for a failing candidate is better then that, as at least there your disapproval is at least on record.

Finally, if you do not like the leadership of a party, then work to change it. This doesn’t mean ad hominem criticism either, it means voicing your concerns, trying to convince others of the validity of your arguments, and supporting candidates you feel are more representative of your views.

What you are doing in this case, is convincing people whom may agree with you on some issues, to “stop,” voicing their opinions, and to withdraw whatever influence they might have.

Not only is this foolish, but it is ultimately self defeating, it is the one and only way to absolutely guarantee that your views and beliefs will never gain serious political traction in any forum.

In other words,

WolvenOne on November 17, 2012 at 12:45 AM

FloatingRock on November 17, 2012 at 12:39 AM

This again.

Dude, I’ve talked to multiple people that were on the floor at the convention. The vote was there, the Ron Paul folks were merely being disproportionally loud.

Besides that, I heard that the Ron Paul backers broke several rules of their own, and engaged in all sorts of mischief in the days leading up to this. You can pretend that your side is all righteous and innocent, but the truth is that backers of Ron Paul have engaged in all sorts of underhanded bull crap this year.

To be clear, as I’ve said a few times before, I actually do like large swaths of Ron Paul’s platform. However, there is a certain cross section of his supporters that I have absolutely no use or respect for.

WolvenOne on November 17, 2012 at 12:50 AM

This actually brings me to an important subject.

Many Ron Paul backers did their platform a tremendous disservice this year. During the primaries I met many people whom initially had a good impression of Ron Paul, and agreed with many aspects of his platform. Many of these same people would have been fully willing to support somebody with a similar platform in the future, at least initially.

Later, a lot of this good will was destroyed when Ron Paul supporters came through the state after the caucus, and tried to use the more arcane party rules to directly elect Ron Paul delegates. It actually didn’t work here, but regardless the anger afterward was such that many individuals I talked to outright forgot why they liked Ron Paul in the first place.

I’ve heard similar stories in other states where this happened as well, where ever this tactic was employed the Ron Paul campaign completely burned through their good will, and offset much the the influence they had managed to build up earlier.

To be fair, I understand that you were trying to nominate Ron Paul for president, but tactics matter. Either way your candidate was going to lose, it was a foregone conclusion well before the primary was over. However, had backers of Ron Paul respected the initial votes and conducted their campaign with greater integrity, they would have ultimately exercise far greater sway over the direction of the party.

Take a look at Romney for example. While he was a losing candidate, it is widely accepted that he was extremely effective at talking about economic issues. Future candidates will likely look at his, and particularly his first debate with Obama, as the gold star benchmark to reach when talking on the subject. In that regards Romney’s campaign will have influenced future Republican candidates for years to come.

Yes, winning is always better than not winning, but even in defeat you can exercise a great deal of influence over a political parties overall direction, if you play your cards right. Ron Paul’s career and campaigns will have an influence on the direction of the Republican party, but it would have been a greater influence had his supporters carried themselves differently.

Also, as long as we’re talking about the influence of failed Presidential candidate, I suggest taking a look at the career of Barry Goldwater. Despite failing as a candidate, he was ultimately very influential. His presidential run in particular is often cited as having had a great influence over Ronald Reagan.

WolvenOne on November 17, 2012 at 1:14 AM