Posted on 01/20/2014 3:15:25 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Get specific.
That’s the message conservative intellectuals and strategists have for the Republican Party as it faces an assault from President Obama and Democrats on issues resonant with struggling voters such as the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits.
Obama’s income inequality push comes as the tide appears to be rising for the left on economic and social issues, something evident in everything from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s election to the legal selling of marijuana in Colorado.
Some conservatives fear that the party has failed to make its case on how its policies can improve the lives of less well-off voters. This, in turn, makes them vulnerable to being dismissed as the party of the rich, and having deaf ears turned to their arguments.
“Too many conservatives think that the benefits of their economic policies are self-explanatory; they make such sense to them. But they’re not,” said Kate O’Beirne, the longtime National Review writer who now works as a consultant.
“It’s too abstract. They might say, ‘I’m against excessive regulation.’ Well, how does it hurt the individual? It’s not some abstract burden. It lowers wages for workers and raises costs for consumers.”
There are a number of signs of Republicans trying to strengthen their flank on issues relating to poorer people in particular.
Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) has put forth a plan to help alleviate poverty by consolidating funding for many federal programs and then devolving power for how those funds are spent to the states.
Other prominent Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have been trying to get the party onto the front foot when it comes to explaining how its policies might help people at all strata of society.
But more needs to be done, some conservatives argue.
“Republicans trumpet ‘free enterprise’, ‘personal responsibility’ like a college fight-song but they never explain how it is going to better the lives of people outside the conservative echo chamber,” strategist Ford O’Connell says. “It’s a major problem.”
Strategists like O’Connell worry that this tendency is putting their party behind the eight ball in presidential elections, making it increasingly difficult for Republicans to win the electoral college.
Exit polls show that when voters were asked in 2012 directly which candidate would be better able to handle the economy, they went for Republican Mitt Romney, albeit by the tightest of margins, 49 percent to 48 percent.
But when asked “who is more in touch with people like you?,” President Obama had a ten-point advantage, 53 percent to 43 percent. Sixty percent of voters with an income of $50,000 or less voted to reelect the president, as against just 38 percent who chose Romney.
Obama is now pressing Congress to pass an extension of federal unemployment benefits and to hike the minimum wage, one of several economic issues where Democrats argue public opinion favors them.
A Quinnipiac Poll earlier this month indicated that 71 percent of registered voters supported raising the minimum wage. An ABC News/Washington Post poll in December put the number slightly lower at 66 percent of adults — but that figure was still more than double the 31 percent who were opposed.
Republicans are, as a general rule, opposed to increasing the minimum wage. “Why would we want to make it harder for small employers to hire people?,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) asked rhetorically late last year.
Still, some GOP consultants worry that a policy like raising the minimum wage is more effective in attracting voters than are complicated conservative arguments.
Dan Judy, a strategist whose firm North Star Opinion Research has included Rubio among its clients, noted that there is considerable support among academics for the idea that cutting taxes on the most well-off people would boost the economy generally.
But, he added, “for middle-class voters, it’s not that they don’t understand that; it’s that they don’t really care. What they are worried about is the taxes they have to pay or the job that they lost. They don’t always connect it to the idea that the policies that help people at the top help us all. That’s not an easy argument to make, even if it’s not necessarily untrue.”
The debate is intensifying at an intriguing time. The midterms elections are just over nine months away, unemployment has declined but is still at a historically high rate of 6.7 percent, and wages have stagnated for many workers.
Republicans believe opposition to the healthcare law will be the wind behind their sails this year.
“In terms of income inequality versus the failure of ObamaCare, there is no doubt that Republicans are on the right track,” said longtime GOP strategist Ron Bonjean, adding that the Affordable Care Act’s problems “would likely trump the income inequality argument.”
Yet Boehner this week also said his conference is confident the economy will be a strong issue for Republicans. He pointed to GOP polling that shows more voters now blame Obama for the state of the economy than President George W. Bush, a finding that suggests frustration with the slow recovery.
Liberals are confident that the rise of DeBlasio and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) is a sign of things to come, but not everyone is so sure.
One veteran observer of New York politics, Professor Doug Muzzio of Baruch College’s School of Public Affairs, believes that issues of inequality have found a new life since the Occupy Wall Street movement arose. But he is reluctant to extrapolate much from that in terms of the national political picture.
“De Blasio caught that zeitgeist in a sense,” he said. “But there is a lot of wishing and hoping on the part of the left and progressives. When they point to de Blasio and to Elizabeth Warren, I point to everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line and all the way across the heartland to California. There ain’t no progressive moment.”
Conservatism resonates when it's stated boldly and clearly.
>> get specific
In other words, stop bull-pooping...
But the current leadership is damaged goods. We need to clean house.
Vote out the RINOs in 2014 — Do it!!!
Right says Republicans must get specific to roll back liberal tide
___________________________________
“specific”
as in DO IT...
No more GOP nominees who are liberals...
No more Romneys, Christies, McCains..
Roll back the liberals,, way back to oblivion...
GOP-e Candidate: In new film, a dramatic look at Mitt Romney's loss of confidence ".....[Mitt] Romney wasn't buying it. Instead, he went into an extended monologue on how his father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was a better man than he will ever be. As he spoke, Romney held the notes he had made during the debate (candidates are not allowed to bring any notes with them to the stage, but are allowed to make them during the debate). Romney pointed out that in every debate he began by writing "Dad" at the top of the paper.
"That's what I start with: 'Dad,'" Romney explained. "I always think about Dad and about I am standing on his shoulders. I would not be there, there's no way I would be able to be running for president, if Dad hadn't done what Dad did. He's the real deal …"
"You're the real deal," said one of Romney's sons.
Romney didn't pause. "The guy was born in Mexico. He didn't have a college degree. He became head of a car company and became a governor. It would have never entered my mind to be in politics, how can you go from his beginning to think, I can be head of a car company, I can run for governor, I can run for president?"
Romney wasn't finished. "The gap — for me, I started where he ended up. I started off with money and education, Harvard Business School, Harvard Law School. For me it's moving that far" — Romney held two fingers close together — "for him, it's like that," Romney said, holding his arms wide apart.".......
Democrat Candidate: Frustration Brews as de Blasio Drags Feet on Remaining Appointments "Two weeks after taking office, Mayor Bill de Blasio has yet to fill a long list of top administration positions, leading to frustrations and confusion in some corners about how long holdover staffers are supposed to stay on. Despite a flurry of hires in the days before he took office, which seemed to quell public criticism, Mr. de Blasio hasn’t named a single new appointment since last Tuesday, when he rolled out his press team, leaving a long list of agencies without permanent leaders, including the New York City Housing Authority, responsible for housing more than 400,000 residents, the Department of Buildings, which oversees building inspections at nearly 1 million properties, and the Department of Correction, which oversees the city’s jails, marking the slowest rollout in modern mayoral history.........
................ a long list of agencies await appointments, including the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Department for the Aging, Department of Consumer Affairs, Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Human Resources Administration, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Design and Construction, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services and the Department of Small Business Services, as well as the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the Health and Hospitals Corporation and numerous boards.
“There’s a lot of anxiety in a lot of different places,” he said. “People sort of looking at each other.”
:)
I just finished “Public Opinion” by Walter Lippmann. It was written in the early twenties. According to that reading a politician who is plainly spoken and says something precisely and unambiguously will most likely lose. As an example of brilliant winning ambiguity Lippmann analyses Wilson’s fourteen points. They were an example of vagueness wherein each point meant something different to the man who read it because they were written is such a way as to let that man project on them his preconceived notion of what they meant. To a Democrat they were interpreted one way and to a Republican another. To a Frenchman they meant one thing to a Brit another. They were brilliantly crafted so that each faction could accept them but only with their interpretation.
Obama used simply hope and change. To each person who heard them those words were imbued with the listener’s interpretation of what they meant. The right is so fractionated that a precise and unambiguous speech will inevitably alienate one or more of the many factions. Such a speech will inevitably also lose the middle ground voter as well. Any precise statement of intent will also be picked up and amplified by the opposition.
We must elect good men of good character and then trust that they will do what we consider the right thing. Sorry about that. But ambiguity is the only way to win an election.
I really think it is too late. We have allowed what was a small minority of misfits and users to become the majority by giving them subsidies and entitlements. How do you tell someone things will be better once we take your money away? It makes sense to do so for economic reasons for the country but how do you educate the uneducatable?
That stuff is old hat. Dems no longer screw around with pedestrian "vote-tampering." They mobilize the full force of the government to harass and destroy conservative opposition.
In fact, Dems openly attribute that they did not do worse in 2012 b/c of their ability to use the IRS to suppress these groups.
One WSJ writer pointed out, the Dems used “reverse engineering”...analyzing what was most successful in destroying conservative groups, and then writing it into current law.
And what's more astounding is that Dems are heralded by the Entitlement Crowd for this so-called "ability"----it's why Boobamba seems unconcerned as 2014-16 approach.
>> a politician who is plainly spoken and says something precisely and unambiguously will most likely lose.
Of course, and those politicians do indeed lose. This is not the request.
The term “specifics” is expressed in the vein of “accountability”.
That's odd (cackle). Nancy plumb forget to mention "Obamacare"--- the signature legislation of their president. Dems said they were so s-u-r-e Americans would love Obama's wonderful healthcare plan, that O/Care's a winning Democrat issue.
=================================================
But lately, Dems seem to have gotten the heebie jeebies about Obamacare. Is this why? (cackle)
As far back as 2008, at the presidential debate in Nashville, Democrat candidate Obama advanced his signature plan that was ultimately enacted (by an historic straight Democrat party-line vote) into the "Affordable Care Act :
OBAMA: "No. 1, let me just repeat, if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. All I’m going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You’ll still have choice of doctor.”
Repeated over and over ---- with the promise that every American family would be saving $2500.00 on healthcare costs.
LOCK-STEPPING PARTY LOYALTY NOT SEEN SINCE 1940's ERA EUROPE Obama And The Dumbos marched in lockstep. The persistent Dumbocrat drumbeat ---- in obeisance to Obama ---- kept ringing reassuringly in our ears: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."
=================================================
Nanzi Pelosi sap-happily told Dems told they had to pass O/Care to find out what was in it. Then she distributed kneepads and Talking Points.
THE PAPER TRAIL IS HUGE: The similarity of the Dem "keep it" assurances shows it all came from the same place. Clearly, obeisance to Obama was at the top of the agenda....lock-stepping party loyalty was the order of the day. Discouraging words were not to be tolerated.
One can almost hear the Dems lock-step marching---redolent of 1940's-era Europe. Only thing missing was the salutes.
What a motley sick bunch – Dems all snuggled up in our White House hoping Americans will forget we’ve lost four brave Americans in Benghazi due to blatant lies and negligence. Obama lied, Hillary lied, Panetta lied, Carney lied and the Liberal MSM CYA'd the Obama team's filthy **ses.
All of 'em colluding to cover up the ugly truth---the Commander-in-Chief was too dam busy resting up so he could campaign in Las Vegas the next day, rather than save Americans under attack in Benghazi.
The problem we have with politicians would be largely settled if they were subject to the same laws they imposed on others.
There are about 500 Congressional representatives to about 50 million participating voters. I’m estimating 1 rep to 100,000 constituents. And we beg for their mercy?
Our ground-game must really suck.
“I’m estimating 1 rep to 100,000 constituents. And we beg for their mercy?”
People who run for office, like the guy in your company who would kill his mother to be the boss, live for power over others.
Get specific and start taking on job killing regulations regulations. Its also way past time to start cutting payroll and income taxes.
Then again, there was the American Revolution and then, there was the French Revolution - 2 different animals.
Time for some clear talk. Otherwise the opposition will continue to define us and put words in our mouths.
Speak the truth.
Being specific is less than half the battle.
Republicans MUST LEARN TO FIGHT!!!!
I have commented on that myself.
Dems demand all these employer mandates and the elected GOP when asked about them sound like they are just repeating the failed campaign lines for the Romney/Ryan campaign.
They are so predictable that Dems have 10 comebacks memorized for each GOP line ("No it creates jobs").
Do these folks really believe those policies are bad or are they just repeating what they hear?
I’d love to hear how democrats oppose payroll and income tax cuts at the same time they’re pushing for a minimum wage hike.
If I take 100 Dollars from you do think your neighbors are going to truly care how it is spent?
What If I took $1 from everyone in your town, THEN they would care.
However I think the best solution isn't to have an Income Tax at ALL!
100 Years ago it was pitched as "Helping the Little Man". Every time I get my pay statement I sure as Hell don't feel "Helped"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.