Don’t shoot the messenger, Republicans, shoot the message
Senate Republicans insist that their efforts aren’t directed against conservative activists in the party. They say they will consult with Tea Partyers and others to generate a consensus about future candidates. The newly elected vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee is Senator-elect Ted Cruz of Texas, who won conservative trust during his own insurgent campaign against the party establishment earlier this year.
Maybe the new tactics will improve the Republicans’ showing in future elections. Yet it is hard to see how they would have changed the outcomes in any of the races during 2010 or 2012. And the defeat of Republican Senate candidates of every type this year suggests that choosing better candidates is not the party’s principal problem.
That’s a second way the focus on Akin and Mourdock is misleading: It makes candidate selection in general look more important than it is. Better candidates would have made a very good election night for Republicans in 2010 even better. This year, unlike 2010, Republicans lost most of the closely contested Senate races. Choosing the wrong candidates made those losses slightly worse, but didn’t cause the night to go sour in the first place.
Republicans have now lost seats in three of the last four Senate elections. The party’s message isn’t sufficiently attractive to win a majority of the votes, it appears, absent highly favorable circumstances. No change in the process of picking candidates can possibly fix that problem.
Blowback
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I’ve got plenty of ammo to shoot both.
Flange on November 27, 2012 at 4:48 PM
This is rich coming from someone who pumped Romney relentlessly for 4+ years.
Ponnuru has ZERO credibility.
Norwegian on November 27, 2012 at 4:50 PM
What is the party’s message and how is it distinguishable from the Democratic message?
sharrukin on November 27, 2012 at 4:54 PM
Maybe he meant that we should shoot his message.
Stoic Patriot on November 27, 2012 at 4:57 PM
This is one of the stupidest things that Ponnuru has ever written (which is a pretty high bar). He’s treating these candidates as mere messengers of … whose message? Some nebulous GOP message maker? The message just comes out of the ether and the candidates then deliver it to the people? Simply asinine. The candidates have a message which they then convey. If the message sucks, it’s the candidate’s fault. If the messenger sucks, it is also the candidate’s fault.
besser tot als rot on November 27, 2012 at 5:02 PM
I think it’s time for Ponnuru and other discredited beta males of Conservative Inc. to find a new profession.
Punchenko on November 27, 2012 at 5:02 PM
Romney never should have gotten the nomination. Since he did.
Romney should have been beaten to the edge of his political life at the very beginning of the post primary period and forced to conceed ground to the conservatives.
The people giving the money should have told him point blank that he either becomes significantly less severely conservative and significantly more actually conservative, or they will stay on the sidelines.
The people of the party should have done the same with letters to him and his election officials. If you do not change your message, forget getting our votes.
This could have been done long before the the actual nomination. Romney was given the idea that he was granted a free ride on conservative values and remained far to the left. Sure he said a couple nice things. In reality they were carefully caged to sound conservative while leaving wide open the actual meaning.
astonerii on November 27, 2012 at 5:08 PM
So what’s the new message? We’ll be the Easter Bunny to the Democrat’s Santa Claus? I guess we’ve become Steyn’s nanny state Great Britain, which argues over which party presides over the management of the welfare state. Hurrah.
Tacitus on November 27, 2012 at 5:12 PM
Nope, the message of Romney was;
I will make the slaves more productive so they can pay for far more presents than Obama is capable of doing.
It did not seem to work all that great. This is why I do not understand how Romney can moan about Obama winning due to promising more gifts. It is just not true. Romney promised to make Social Security and Medicare and food stamps and welfare and medicaid all last for eternity at a time when people are scared that they are about to be cut do to a poor performing group of slaves!
astonerii on November 27, 2012 at 5:19 PM
The Dems run national campaigns with a broad message about what they believe in.
Thanks to the Karl Roves of the world the GOP runs campaigns that try to turnout 2 voters in x district of a certain swing state at 4pm on election day but only if there is going to be a half moon that night.
Karl Rove’s election strategy ruined the GOP. End of Story. Get rid of the Roves.
Pick a conservative candidate, explain why conservatism is better than socialism, campaign and compete all across the country (particularly in the urban areas) and do your best to “win the game.”
Joey24007 on November 27, 2012 at 6:05 PM
Republicans have lost in Senate races because the state parties have retreated from urban areas. Urban areas have a large percentage of a states’ population.
Time for the state parties to get back into the fight.
Its not as if they don’t have any material to work with considering that these urban areas are largely in terrible shape and are all run by Democrats.
Joey24007 on November 27, 2012 at 6:07 PM
It’s not the message, it’s the ground game. Republicans will continue to loose until they can herd non-voters as effectively as the Democrats — who have now learned that they can always will that way, no mater how badly they are doing.
Count to 10 on November 27, 2012 at 6:54 PM
And this clown will be right back in 4 years touting the latest RINO as the only viable option for president.
Dack Thrombosis on November 27, 2012 at 6:59 PM
Step aside RINOs. We’ll take it from here.
faraway on November 27, 2012 at 7:04 PM
I’m trying but that just does not give me confidence..
Dire Straits on November 27, 2012 at 7:08 PM
One has to ask, what was the message that was rejected?
I read somewhere that trying to send a message with a vote is like a semaphore waving a flag. You first have to decipher the waving and colors and such before you can act. The messages that I saw that were rejected were “Let’s outlaw birth control” (yes, Akin did say that) and “tax breaks for rich people!” which no one was pushing but no one really pushed back against, either. Considering neither is a message I agree with or promote, I don’t see why I need to change my message. Socons, stop complaining about birth control and keep the focus on abortion where it matters. Fiscons, a dash of populism now and then in your rhetoric is not going to kill you. Some large, national corporations have taken advantage unfair advantage of customers and government to get where they are, and that should be stopped. You can be pro-market without being pro-cronyism and market manipulation.
alwaysfiredup on November 27, 2012 at 7:25 PM
Yet, somehow Dems manage to elect fake Indians.
We need to stop assassinating our own candidates.
We will never have perfect candidates.
faraway on November 27, 2012 at 7:29 PM
No one assassinated Akin. He committed suicide. He did a very thorough job of it too; we all knew right when it happened that the race was over. Slow motion train wreck. It wasn’t a mistake either, he really thought that what he said was true. There are imperfect candidates, and then there are proponents of magical uterus theory. The public will only tolerate so much.
alwaysfiredup on November 27, 2012 at 7:36 PM
Romney and the other weak politicians killed Akin.
Any smart politician would have said he misspoke, and was taken out of context, and the economy is the most important thing, and the media is on a witch-hunt.
But RINOs are not smart politicians. That’s why they lose.
faraway on November 27, 2012 at 7:43 PM
No, Akin was snuffed out. We should have backed him immediately after the error. Instead progressives in the party saw a chance to take out an R 97% and replace with an R 50% or less.
astonerii on November 27, 2012 at 7:47 PM
Again, with feeling: No one but Akin killed Akin’s candidacy. He lost by more than 15 points. That’s not “on the margins”. That is widespread repudiation. It is exclusively because of his “legitimate rape” comment. No one here cares whether Mitt approved of Akin or not. People were not swayed on Akin by comments from outsiders. They were swayed on Akin because he opened his mouth and shot himself in the foot. I cannot emphasize this enough. I’m from here, I know why what happened, happened.
alwaysfiredup on November 27, 2012 at 7:48 PM
What on earth makes you think that? Missouri is not a red state except on a presidential level. We still elect Democrats statewide; in fact, the Dems nearly swept the statewide races in 2012. No one here cared what people were saying on a national level, we were all horrorstruck by WHAT AKIN SAID. Why won’t you guys listen?
alwaysfiredup on November 27, 2012 at 7:51 PM
Akin shot off his foot, then the party let him bleed to death. This ain’t beanbag, man.
faraway on November 27, 2012 at 7:53 PM
No one knew whose knife had killed Caesar for they all had blood on theirs.
But hey, it is OK to go ahead and get your stabs in, nothing immoral at all about it.
Then to claim that they had nothing to do with his loss? They were hoping he died! They were ensuring he did not win. Now that it is over, rewrite the history books. What happened was totally everyone else’ fault. Akin shares the blame, the lions share even. Then again, the back stabbing by the party certainly added to the problem, and might even account for 20% of the 15% loss. 5% above the threshold for victory. It is what they wanted, before the election they were hell bent on hoping he got 10% of the total vote, now they do not want to take credit for the outcome they demanded!?!
astonerii on November 27, 2012 at 7:56 PM
the MOST important Message for Republicans to remember is;
“READ MY LIPS.”
jaydee_007 on November 28, 2012 at 2:57 PM