How to win in 2014: Stop Obama, promote the farm team
This is probably the GOP’s number one danger moving forward. It cannot allow President Obama to create the impression that Republicans are too radical or dangerous to govern. Without sacrificing its veto power over the liberal agenda, the best approach for the GOP is a strategic withdrawal from the battlefield. If there is no forcing this president to be responsible, and if the GOP is hopelessly outgunned in the PR war by the partnership of the White House and a pliant press corps, then the only sensible move is to demur. Republicans should pass whatever symbolic pieces of legislation are necessary to stake out the GOP’s position, but when it comes down to a choice between some kind of crisis (be it a government shutdown, the “fiscal cliff,” or whatever) and letting Obama have his way, Republicans should choose the latter.
Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as speaker in 2007 and 2008 is actually a good model for Republicans. The Democrats won in 2006 on a wave of antiwar sentiment, but so long as George W. Bush held the veto pen, there was relatively little they could do. Sure, congressional Democrats could have cut off war funding, but that would have been a PR disaster. So Pelosi and her leadership team passed symbolic bills to end the war, then acceded to President Bush’s requests for funding.
While avoiding unproductive confrontations in Washington, Republicans should turn their attention to the states as the main arena for conservative reforms. Which state leaders have been successful? Why have they succeeded? How can these lessons be translated to the national stage? Republicans should be optimistic about their future because, with so many leaders on the state level, it is possible for the GOP to get answers to these questions between now and 2016. Put another way, the GOP is like a baseball team that just missed the playoffs, but is fortunate to have an excellent system of farm clubs.
Blowback
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How the heck is Jugears going to get people to worry about how the GOP governs when he doesn’t govern at all? That’s like accepting a blind man’s opinion about masterpiece paintings.
The GOP better start realizing that Jugears isn’t the problem – limp spines and no core principles are the problem. Jugears wins because he shows up and acts like the donkey party he represents. The GOP comes in late and behaves like apprentice Democrats. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Weeper of the House.
platypus on February 23, 2013 at 9:56 PM
Right, and do this, GOP must fight back, not demur.
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Agree. The action is with the states. Get it done at the state level, then do it to the feds.
petefrt on February 23, 2013 at 10:00 PM
Yeah I’m sure it caused Pelosi great pain to pass more government funding.
What the Republicans need to do is demonize the hell out of an unchecked Obama White House. Run on the balance of power, the second amendment, the debt crisis, China, oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing, soaring healthcare costs and let the American people decide whether they want to make Obama King.
Daemonocracy on February 23, 2013 at 10:01 PM
As far as promoting the farm team, we also need to make sure that we take acceptable risks with the talent we already have established. Cotton, Ellmers, Gardner are valuable enough in the House, but they’d be even better bouncing out lefty Senators. We can allow our best chances to take a seat go by because we’re protecting our most electable candidates from leaving their R+9 districts.
Gingotts on February 23, 2013 at 10:14 PM
I’m more partial to my plan: associate every D with every gun-grabbing state measure being bandied about now.
crrr6 on February 23, 2013 at 10:39 PM
Wouldn’t it be nice to see Republicans strongly and coherently make the conservative case… and get a little passionate about it? Where’s the fun and excitement?
MT on February 23, 2013 at 10:45 PM
Whittle’s VSOTU’s are VERY good. Every R in (or running for) office should be forced to watch and learn.
MT on February 23, 2013 at 10:48 PM
That’s a very large “if”.
MT on February 23, 2013 at 10:54 PM
I think Jay’s kinda right here, but I would argue that the GOP shouldn’t just “give Obama what he wants” (that will just hurt the country) but play a kind of “four corners” basketball, where the goal is to slow the pace of the game, to draw everything out, so that Obama may get some of what he wants, but he’ll get less of it, and the GOP will have time to amply make the argument against his horrible proposals.
Robert_Paulson on February 23, 2013 at 11:03 PM
Cost is absolutely right and this is sort of what Rush has been saying this week. Don’t play Obama’s game. Don’t be the villain in the morality play he wants to stage for 2014. The people elected him and now they must be punished.
The problem is, how can the two strategies Cost is advocating (stopping Obama’s agenda and at the same time demuring) coexist? That’s a fine line to try and walk.
It’s basically a modified Let It Burn strategy, with the objective that our side not get blamed for the Burning.
commodore on February 23, 2013 at 11:55 PM
I have written up a preliminary list of goals for the various parts of the GOP to work on between now and 2016:
1. Cause a groundswell from the left side of the Democrat Party. 2016 is an open primary. Let’s see if we can get their nuts to nominate someone unelectable, like Kucinich or Gravel—someone the Dem Establishment will be forced to shut down, to massive butthurt
2. Let the Democrats nominate anybody, as long as they are Caucasian. The old warhorses who know where all the bodies are buried can be turned into the Mitt Romneys of 2016. Melowese Richardson seems to have voted twice for herself, and for four other Cincinnati voters–Would she have bothered to vote six times (negating five suburban votes) for a white person?
3. Now is the time for states to quietly pursue VoterID and take steps to improve accuracy and accountability in elections. Without a specific minority officeholder for whom to wave the old bloody shirt, and with enough time for all legal challenges to wind their way through the courts before the voting starts, we may just stop the next Melowese Richardson.
4. Nail 0bama’s leadership Jello to the tree. Catch the heroic fireman with the lit match.
5. Understand that as of November 5, 2014 Democrats and their media pets will be less interested in continuing to protect 0bama than in jockeying on behalf of his hoped-for successor. Plan to take maximum advantage of this to try and have Democrats at one anothers’ throats.
Sekhmet on February 24, 2013 at 12:24 AM
SO Jay Cost advice is to repeat 2012 and hope for a different result?
Idiots. the bunch of them. the way to win 2014 is to repeat 2010 not 2012.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 6:43 AM
Its the ostrich strategy and has about as much chance of winning as it did in 2012.
the way to win 2014is to repeat 2010. nationalize the election tell the people what you will do differently how you will stop Obama not “let it burn” If your goal is to punish the voters the voters will figure it out. The GOP needs to be the adults in the room. they need to tell the people why Obama is wrong, what his policies will do and why they are trying to stop those polices with everything they have. then they need to use all their political capital and stop everything they can that Obama is pushing and promise to repeal everything they can’t stop.
Either fight OBama or get off the stage.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 6:48 AM
If the people don’t see the GOP fighting Obama why would they vote for the GOP? You can’t rally people with a delaying action. You get only the diehards fighting to the last man. You want to win you go on the attack. Stop the advance and rally the troops. 4 corners is the most boring strategy in basketball. When teams use it the ratings and viewership goes down people tune out. they leave the game. Its when the teams are battling fighting each other that the viewers tune in pick sides, rally for their team. Either give people a reason to support your team or go home.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 6:56 AM
yeap sure would be. If I wanted to support cowards then I would be supporting the GOPE. Nobody rallies around cowards and sopineless men.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 6:59 AM
It’s better than Jay Cost’s plan. You should get a job in DC. then at least one person will have the ability to think in that city.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 7:00 AM
If ellmers follows Jay’s advice there is a good chance she won’t be in the house come 2015. She won on repealing Obamacare I.e figthing Obama. Not demuring.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 7:02 AM
pretty much sums up 2012 results.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 7:03 AM
the problem is the GOPe does not trust the people to govern. they would rather have Obama as King then allow the people to live free. China? the GOPe agree with Obama, oil drilling many in the GOPE think global warming is true, debt crisis? The GOPe doesn’t believe there is a debt crisis they will just print more money. 2nd Amendment? many in the GOPE want to take the guns as much as the dems they just don’t want to take the blame for it….Healthcare? GOPE per Mitt don’t want to repeal Obamacare the main driver of the increase in costs they just want to tweak it….
The GOPe problem is they don’t disagree with Obama on policy they just want to be ones calling the shots. Call it power envy.
The second problem with the GOPE is they would rather be governed by Obama then the hicks in flyover country.
before thinking about winning 2014 and 2016 the GOPe will have to decide which is better for them. Allow the people to govern themselves or be governed by the dems. if they decide they would rather have the dems then the people we might as well give up on the GOPe as a national party and seek real fighters who believe in the concept of self goverance and freedom.
unseen on February 24, 2013 at 7:12 AM
If the GOP wants to start getting traction then it needs to cut off the Party apparatchiks in the RNC via the States getting together and changing the by-laws and structure of the party. A distributed system of checks and balances with no central funding ability means that National candidates must really take the States into account instead of trying to leverage off of the centralized apparatus. You want to end the ‘next in line’ Republican venues? End the RNC as it is today and rework it with term limits and no funding, make those volunteer positions and accountable to majority assent by the State Parties.
Basically start to become a local and distributed party, not a 19th century machine party. Show how federalism works within a party and then promote that as the key to being competitive in the 21st century and removing the roadblocks of government to a free people. Better short-term, no-name, no-power functionaries rather than the cabal system that is currently in place that serves the Elites.
ajacksonian on February 24, 2013 at 7:38 AM