Tearing down the conservative echo chamber
The Romney team was so isolated deep inside this conservative media bubble that they continued to believe victory was theirs well into the evening.
That embarrassing political tale proved that conservatives had finally become what they had once mocked: an insular movement so lost in its own echo chamber that it rarely made contact with those who didn’t share their world view. This is, of course, the same trap that liberals fell into in Manhattan newsrooms and on college campuses throughout the 1960s and 70s during the rise of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the Silent Majority. And yes, there was a silent majority that liberal newspapers and TV anchors were blind to for the better part of a generation. …
Conservatives should celebrate the gains they have made in the media world over the past two decades. But their greatest challenge moving forward is to begin breaking down the walls they have built that keeps them locked inside a comfort zone that distorts political reality and cedes great advantages to Democratic candidates. What conservatives must do instead is dare to think different, apply eternal truths to current realities and then start spreading their gospel of conservatism to the swing voters who have rejected them in five of six presidential races.
Blowback
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Get bent progressive stooge.
darwin on February 20, 2013 at 8:35 AM
The concept of a “conservative echo chamber” actually existing is preposterous considering that all the major networks, major cable news outlets, major newspapers, etc. all have Left-wing bias of varying degrees.
In other words, it’s impossible to not get the Left-wing viewpoints if you have eyes and ears. We’re inundated with it.
visions on February 20, 2013 at 8:37 AM
Coming from someone who lives in the msdnc echo chamber
Shut up
cmsinaz on February 20, 2013 at 8:37 AM
Um, yeah, take advice from self-described “conservative” Joe Scarborough.
rbj on February 20, 2013 at 8:38 AM
The irony of publishing this at Politico is almost too much…and coming the day after Mike Allen blamed the Master Puppeteer…
*sigh*…oh Joe…
EastofEden on February 20, 2013 at 8:38 AM
I will say this:
Conservatives can learn from libertarians – especially on social issues.
Everyone else can learn from conservative on fiscal issues.
jake-the-goose on February 20, 2013 at 8:39 AM
Blind nut finds squirrel, film at 11 (but since it’s on MSDNC, nobody will see it).
Steve Eggleston on February 20, 2013 at 8:43 AM
Who’s this Joe guy?
beatcanvas on February 20, 2013 at 8:45 AM
Uh, were you in a coma last year, Joe? That was the central focus of Romney’s entire campaign. Appealing to moderates and indies. And it worked considering he won them by about 5% which usually means a comfortable general election victory(hence why they believed well into the evening they were going to win as you pointed out).
The problem is that in going out of his way to woo middle of the road voters, he assumed he had the base’s votes in the bag and then ended up not being the case. Juxtapose that with Obama who ran arguably the nastiest, most partisan Presidential campaign in modern times, but it worked. He got his base to the polls(several times in certain instances) and narrowly won 4 key swing states that handed him his reelection.
So I ask you, Joe, going forward. Should the next Republican Presidential candidate follow the McCain/Romney path of trying to appear moderate by focusing on independents and Democrats and taking it easy on the opposing candidate? Or should they run the Bush 2004 campaign where they first and foremost ensure that their base turns out? I think I know which one I’d go with.
Doughboy on February 20, 2013 at 8:46 AM
Fixed!
bannor on February 20, 2013 at 8:47 AM
The reason the Romney campaign and many of us believed Romney was going to win was because we believed Gallup and other major polling organizations that did not correctly predict the electorate that actually showed up at the polls, and because we believed the fundamentals of the economy and Obama’s poor job approval ratings meant a sure loss for him. It’s ridiculous to suggest that a major presidential campaign was in some kind of conservative media bubble.
The only thing we did really miss was the impact of Obama’s juvenile pop-culture campaign. The problem we have now that such a campaign has proven successful, is how to get conservatives to stop talking about the really important stuff like the exploding debt and the birth dearth and start talking more about stupid stuff like Big Bird.
rockmom on February 20, 2013 at 8:48 AM
Romney got beat on the ground game. Though he was also murdered by low information voters, but look on the bright side his campaign spent 100′s of millions on TV adds that did absolutely nothing.
bannor on February 20, 2013 at 8:51 AM
You must have some sort of agreement with Joe. Let him go elsewhere for his readers. I am sick of these links to him.
djl130 on February 20, 2013 at 8:52 AM
How do you get to five of six without going through two of four?
Dusty on February 20, 2013 at 8:58 AM
I think they link him to piss people off. Why else would you link guys like Frum, Brooks, or morning Joe. There’s no intellect there, just a bunch of junk for us to rip on. Look at Frum the guys unemployable he’s nothing more than a petty internet troll now.
bannor on February 20, 2013 at 8:58 AM
Romney abandoned the conservative base in favor of the moderates/indies. You do not win elections that way.
gryphon202 on February 20, 2013 at 9:06 AM
I understand – and even appreciate your comment – but life is not a rose garden here – we have to understand and deal with our rivals.
Be patient – I often feel the same as you
jake-the-goose on February 20, 2013 at 9:07 AM
I’m not saying it’s the correct way to analyze it, but the left and Scarborough see Bush’s 2000 win as a win for Gore because Gore won the overall popular vote.
BuckeyeSam on February 20, 2013 at 9:09 AM
This sack of sh1t is from my hometown where he fled from once a dead girl was found in his office and our local government law enforcement botched the investigation.
Joe, you should be in prison.
http://patdollard.com/2013/01/did-msnbcs-joe-scarborough-murder-young-intern-he-was-having-an-extramarital-affair-with/
ClassicCon on February 20, 2013 at 9:09 AM
What, Rush, the rest of talk radio and Fox News?
To what other media gains can conservatives point?
gonnjos on February 20, 2013 at 9:12 AM
I laugh at anyone who suggests conservatives live in an echo chamber. That’s impossible, as we’re inundated with lib media all around us. If you watch the evening news, if you got to the Yahoo homepage, if you even scan your FB feed, you run into those “political realities” he speaks of, mainly that half this country is hell bent on getting their stuff while asking others to pay for it. I wish I were in more of an echo chamber, so I could avoid the likes of Scarborough and his ilk.
That’s not true. Besides, the base came out for Palin in ’08. How’d that work out? You cannot win national elections with just the con base…you need both, and we’ve not had candidates recently who got them in strong enough numbers to overcome the other guy’s advantage with his base.
changer1701 on February 20, 2013 at 9:16 AM
Joe forgets that Team Romney didn’t get to the nomination by having their finger squarely on the pulse of the Republican electorate during the primary season — they did it basically by money-bombing their far-less funded opponents to death one by one as they came up to challenge them during the primary season. They’d simply flood the field when a Cain, or a Gingrich, or a Santorum would come up to be the ‘not-Mitt’ of the field, and survived to get the nomination in Tampa.
So Romney was a flawed candidate going in, and once he got to the general, not long had the ability to money bomb his rival into submission. Combine that with the people he alienated on the right with the primary cash attacks who didn’t show up to the polls in November (a corollary here is the number of HA posters who were anti-Mitt who simply stopped posting during the general election season before coming back after the election), and you end up with a candidate who was extremely weak among the base to the point all his money couldn’t bring out the voters he needed in Novemver, when he had to compete with Obama’s GOTV operations.
jon1979 on February 20, 2013 at 9:16 AM
Of course it’s true! The base “came out” for Palin in the sense that they, like I, hoped she would run. She didn’t. Romney did. And once again, the base got shafted by the greater Republican Party. I can say the sky is purple but that doesn’t make it true. Conservatism is what you do and what you believe, not what you say you are.
gryphon202 on February 20, 2013 at 9:21 AM
I think they link him to piss people off. Why else would you link guys like Frum, Brooks, or morning Joe. There’s no intellect there, just a bunch of junk for us to rip on. Look at Frum the guys unemployable he’s nothing more than a petty internet troll now.
[bannor on February 20, 2013 at 8:58 AM]
There is another possible explanation. As in boxing, one can be a puncher or a counter-puncher in the political ring. Linking for comment the people you mention would be akin to the counter-punching technique. This explanation comports with HA’s constant effort to highlight the NYT, the WaPo, LAT, and a the myriad of other liberal/progressive information outlets in spite of how egregiously partisan and wrong their output often is. A benefit is that should help to sharpen our arguments.
The problem with it is that while it’s punching up in class, it’s punching down in weight. It wastes time with the negative, while producing nothing positive. It also allows the opposition to define the debate as well as decide what to debate. Further, the method tends to limit our part in the debate to, “that’s not good” which tends to depress the effort to argue, “this is better”.
The problem with the puncher method is that consistently putting out stuff that people would agree with generates a lot less traffic and doesn’t generate half as many comments, even if it is a much better method for getting our message out.
Dusty on February 20, 2013 at 9:23 AM
Yup. And those low-info voters were reminded and brought to the polls by those on the Obama campaign’s payroll. Team Romney spent $$$ on some convoluted and centralized turnout system that malfunctioned on election day with little or no paid staff in the swing states.
Lesson: Organizing and decentralized paid politicos on the ground works.
The GOP — and the Right, in general — needs to adapt to 24/7 politics and start setting up the infrastructure to train, deploy, and pay career political organizers who will move the ball forward for the Conservative Movement. Expecting volunteers — with little to no political training — to win it for you going forward isn’t going to work anymore.
Punchenko on February 20, 2013 at 9:27 AM
Would Melowese Richardson find a way to vote twice or up to six times for a white candidate? More importantly, would many of her co-conspirators?
The one good thing I can say about the 2012 primary is that we seem to have gotten through it without having to cut a deal with anybody to make them bulletproof for ’16. A lot of conservative demoralization came from the foisting of Romney on us, and the inability to use the Tea Party for the ’12 campaign–primarily because the Tea Party didn’t exist back when the 2012 plan was put in place.
It’s beginning to look like 0bama might sabotage the amnesty plan–mostly to have something to beat us around the head with in ’14. But the joke’s on him. The birth rate drop among Hispanic immigrants in 2010 may be a preface to these families planning to leave the US once that youngest kid turns 5 and can’t easily qualify his family for TANF.
Al Gore found out the hard way: There are a whole lot of Democrat constituencies who dutifully will keep their mouths shut while a Democrat is in office and an open Presidential primary isn’t in the offing. Come 2016, there will be an open primary on the D side, and maneuvering for that open primary and being “heard” will outweigh protecting the current Administration—or that Administration’s designated successor.
Sekhmet on February 20, 2013 at 9:42 AM
The problem isn’t the “conservative echo chamber.” The problem is the way that conservatism has been redefined to mean something different than what it was. “Conservative echo chamber” is just a trope to get those of us who believe the redefinition was a mistake, to shut up and be good little Republicans.
gryphon202 on February 20, 2013 at 9:43 AM
That says it all. Dittos.
petefrt on February 20, 2013 at 9:53 AM
I’m not saying it’s the correct way to analyze it, but the left and Scarborough see Bush’s 2000 win as a win for Gore because Gore won the overall popular vote.
[BuckeyeSam on February 20, 2013 at 9:09 AM]
Okay, that’s a reasonable argument. I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks.
Dusty on February 20, 2013 at 9:55 AM
That would explain the cancelled radio show and the poor book sales, huh pretend-Conservative Joe?
mjbrooks3 on February 20, 2013 at 10:01 AM
Who are “we” referring to, Team Romney, Rove, Morris?
roy_batty on February 20, 2013 at 10:24 AM
Hey Cho Scard*uche you work for neo Pravda.
King Math will beat King Putt, glad you got your gig being house punching bag though.
How’s your intern?
harlekwin15 on February 20, 2013 at 10:35 AM
Im loving this thread because 1) My parents, who basically only watch fox news, thought Romney was going to win. 2) The comments on this thread look exactly like the comments on the 538 links, even though Silver proved to be more or less on the money 3) You dismiss the obviously true point he’s making and dismiss everything he says because it runs counter to your narrative.
snoopicus on February 20, 2013 at 10:36 AM
Right, by definition, the vast majority of commenters on this thread are in the echo chamber right now. But this is the oxygen they breathe, so what can you do? Poll after poll told America that Obama was going to win this election. And what did the majority of Conservatives do? They said that the polls were tainted, biased, and politically driven. In fact, they were spot on, and even under-represented Obama’s strength (who had Obama winning Florida?). And the answers/rationale about why they were correct to predict a Romney win when in fact he got slaughtered is laughable.
asc85 on February 20, 2013 at 10:43 AM
Even Jon Stewart thought that it was juvenile but hey low information voters are morons. This is why the Left is freaked about Rubio; he can definitely play patty cake with them on social media.
Yes.. This is the whole thing. Scarborough is a bit bitter, but even Ted Cruz has pointed this out.
Illinidiva on February 20, 2013 at 10:44 AM
Snoopicus King Putt went to Vegas while our people died in a nation he invaded with no approval but Fwance’s.
I hate the media bias that gives him more passes than a prom queen gets in a B grade prison lesbian flick.
He lies about his economic performance, he lies about his past, he lies about his goals.
You are to blame for what’s coming.
harlekwin15 on February 20, 2013 at 10:45 AM
AS*85,
Back home in Ohio we had Somalians voting and the Cleveland Fraud machine in overdrive. You got your Chicago Je$u$ a few million less votes despite the bias, the lies, the best you could do was ~3.5% give or take.
1 trillion new debt per annum for sh*tty health “care” take a bow moontards.
harlekwin15 on February 20, 2013 at 10:54 AM
Under “media-speak”, Joe Scarrrd-borrow could be considered the anti-Christ—a complete fabrication of conservative thought—and he is not even a RINO. Joe’s invested his thirty pieces of silver years ago.
Rovin on February 20, 2013 at 11:25 AM
WTF is he talking about?! I never thought Romney had better than a pipe dream at getting elected. The media bubble that was telling him and us all that Romney was the candidate to beat all candidates he was in was the statist, go-along-to-get along media bubble, including rubes like Scarborough, Frum, Brooks, Rubin, et al. The only supposed conservative telling us and Romney that he had it in the bag (that I can recall) is Coulter.
besser tot als rot on February 20, 2013 at 11:42 AM
I guess when I edit part of my post, I should see that edit all the way. Oh well.
besser tot als rot on February 20, 2013 at 11:44 AM
This is actually true. But I doubt it means what Scarborough thinks it does. Since his entire premise is based on an MSNBC lie (which I pointed out above).
besser tot als rot on February 20, 2013 at 11:45 AM
Agreed.
lucyvanpelt on February 20, 2013 at 12:45 PM