Posted on 03/02/2009 7:53:12 PM PST by DBCJR
In the New York Times magazine, Matt Bai has an interesting profile of Newt Gingrich and his attempts to repair the GOP's malfunctioning idea factory. Here's the most interesting selection from my point of view:
Gingrich is all about offering, as he puts it, a “better value” for the American customer — constructive solutions Republicans can take on the road during the next midterm election season and beyond. “Most Republicans are not entrepreneurial,” he lamented to me. “They’re corporatists. They like the security and the comfort of a well-thought-out, highly boring boardroom meeting in which they do a PowerPoint once. And it worries them to have ideas, because ideas have edges, and they’re not totally formed, and you’ve got to prove them, and they sound strange because they’re new, and if it’s new how do you know it’s any good, because, after all, it’s new and you’ve never heard it before.”
This hits on something I recently blogged about in a completely different context: To be an entrepreneur means, at some point, going against the conventional wisdom. How do you know when that's a good thing to do? As Newt points out, there is a safety and security to groupthink. It's not easy for us to go against what's safe and familiar.
If Newt is right that most Republicans are "corporatist," then it would seem that even the recent electoral losses have not been enough to push them away from the security of well-worn ideas. Bobby Jindal's speech was certainly support for Newt's argument. If that speech had been delivered four years ago, how much of the substantive content would need to be changed?
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.com ...
Entrepreneurs apply conservative ideology practically toward real world solutions.
To make a football analogy— everybody loves the guy on the bench. Sometimes, it’s Steve Young. But most of the time, the 2nd stringer is the 2nd stringer because he sucks.
So Americans wanted the Democrats in— now they got them. Let’s see what happens. I mean, besides the economy collapsing and the tripling of the debt.
They need to stop listening to the media and get out of that Washington DC mentality.
Is Newt done making commercials with Nancy Pelosi? So now he’s back to posing as a conservative again?
yeah, Newt cuz we’ve got time for this. It’s two seconds to midnight from where I sit.
Gingrich is SO 15 Minutes Ago
Newt telling Republicans to be entrepreneurial needs to start at home.
Newt was in the RNC Chair race.
Newt dropped out when Steele got in. Newt endorsed him immediately.
Saul Anuzis stayed in the race through the 4th round of voting. He dropped out and Steele won.
Steele immediately put Anuzis in charge of “tech” transition.
Anuzis holds tech summit which gets intl. media attention.
Newt puts Anuzis in charge of new anti-card check new media campaign on Friday.
This all happens in the last 3 weeks, and the only thing entrepreneurial about it is that it’s the same three guys in and out of state parties and think tanks.
Bottomline, Steele needs a Manhattan Project type group to solve their problems. Not just with the “advising” work, but with real power to change a failing internal party disaster in the making since 1989. Shame on them for being weak. Shame on them for turning away from fact.
Right now!
Where was this AHOLE when we really needed his ass!
Oh, I forgot, snuggling up to global warming!
***NOTE TO SELF***
Newt will screw you just as fast as Obama!
There is no mentality in DC. You’ve got to be kidding. Not one brain cell can be found amongst any of the politicians in DC. God help us all!
And who is going to hear these dandy new ideas?
The problem is, has been forever and continues to be into the unchcarted future, that there is no platform for these views, Republicans do not have their own microphone, they don't have any way of communicating these great new ideas effectively if they had any.
They have complained for years about media bias, but they have done nothing about it. The media isn't biased, the media is Democrat. It is the core constituent of the Democratic Party and it is the core of the party's leadership. You can not separate the print or electronic media from the Democratic Party.\ because they "are" the Democratic Party.
So whatever you do, as long as you are depending on them to get your message out you grant them the power to decide what gets passed along and what gets deleted, and they get to choose the words and the emphasis. spend $50 million dollars on a multi-city speaking tour and all anyone will see of it will be a 10 second mention on the evening news, some video of your man waving his arms and the anchor talking over it giving the one-sentence synopsis of the speech you spent millions to deliver.
So, entrepreneurs, solve that one. Or get used to losing. As long as you're begging the use of your enemy's mic, schleeping onto The View or whatever, you're setting yourself up to lose.
Would be nice if I could spell.
I agree with Newt; we shouldn’t change our principles, just come up with creative new ways to implement them (even if we have to go back in history to do so).
Very insightful point. Fox News and talk radio are our only forums. Fox has killed the competition with a differentiated product, an entrepreneurial approach.
This would make a good vanity post.
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