Posted on 03/25/2013 10:12:07 AM PDT by jazusamo
Many ideas presented as "new" are just rehashes of old ideas that have been tried before — and have failed before. So it is no surprise that the recent "Growth and Opportunity Project" report to the Republican National Committee is a classic example of what previous generations called "Me too" Republicanism.
These are Republicans who think that the key to winning elections is to do more of what the Democrats are doing. In effect, they say "me too" on issues such as immigration, in hopes of gaining more new votes than they lose by betraying their existing supporters.
In the wake of last year's presidential election debacle for the Republicans, the explanation preferred by "moderate" Republicans has been that the GOP has been too narrowly ideological, and needs to reach out to minorities, women and young people, rather than just to conservatives.
In the words of the "Growth and Opportunity Project," the problem is that conservative Republican candidates have been "driving around in circles on an ideological cul-de-sac."
But the report itself says that the Republicans' election problems have been at the national level, not at the state level, where a majority of the governors are Republicans. Are the Republican moderates suggesting that the reason Mitt Romney lost in 2012 is that he was driving around in a conservative cul-de-sac? Romney was as mushy a moderate as Senator John McCain was before him — and as many other Republican losers in presidential elections have been, going all the way back to the 1940s. The only Republican candidate who might fit the charge of being a complete conservative was Ronald Reagan, who won two landslide elections.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
You know I hate to bring up the Whigs but it took the death of a failed party to produce a revitilized one. I like to think we can rebuild the GOP from the inside but it is looking dimmer now. I think 2016 is the make or break year. If we don’t have a real conservative nominee the party is going to die.
T4TP!
He’s correct for the most part, but the Kodak analogy is not an exact one. Kodak’s competitors did not invent digital photography, but they did a better job of adapting to the outside develpoments, hence no Kodak no mo.
Great amalgamation of Sowell’s wisdom. I copy and pasted it to my Facebook page. Thanks.
Use the historically accurate nomenclature, Red or Trotsky or Roosevelt Republicans. They are the worse sort of scum except for 90%+ of the Drats!
Bwwaahahaha!
Actually I like my acronym better
Falsely
Usurping
Conservative
Causes
Elitist
Republican
Scum
It’s pretty accurate considering these self labeled conservatives have screwed us.
Add my tagline to your list
The way for the Republicans to look like they are trying to win IS to promise more and better goodies seized from other Republicans. The reason people should vote for us is that we will bring Socialism, but of a much better kind, since we are nicer people. Our slogan? "Hey, We're Not as bad as the other party and have family values, too."
Who said we are supposed to win? The role of the GOP is not to win national elections, but to protect safe seats in carefully constructed Republican districts so that the establishment RINO group maintains a good seat at the table where the swag is divided up. Running the government is the Democrats' job. We make sure they keep it and they take care of us and our corporate constituents. Very good care indeed.
There is another crucial role that must be played by the GOP in elections. In primaries, the GOP must savage Conservative Extremists; rip them to shreds, outspend them 20-1, withold party funds from them; and make sure they go down to ignominious defeat. Furthermore the GOP must then ensure that those who voted for them stay home on election day.
Sowell's sort of thinking is preposterously out of line. Ask Karl Rove.
Yep, Dr. Sowell’s line of thinking is definitely out of line with Tokyo Rove’s. ;-)
Wow, Jaz! He hit the nail on the head this time. He went to the heart of what bothers me about the GOPe dopes, and articulated it perfectly. Thanks for the ping, my friend.
*Snort*
I see what you did there.
Big Bump, TOL! My pleasure as always.
No, they do know .... I think the real problem is, their actual motives they cannot talk about, and so they put up this other stuff instead, which if it is silly and fatuous, at least keeps the Main Street Republicans looking the wrong way.
They're doing something completely different from what you think they are, is my best answer.
I love how Sowell points out that Republicans are doing well at the state level. It’s the national level where the problems lay. For sure, at the national level, too many Republicans break the way of the Democrats when push comes to a vote.
Ironically, I think there may be an odd effect of the success of talk radio at the national level for Republicans. Basically, national-level Republicans have become lazy and rely on conservative celebrities like Rush, Hannity, Coulter, Ingraham, and Buchanan, to preach to the choir and secure the party base at crunch time.
This allows national-level Republican candidates to stand apart from conservatives when it becomes convenient (”I’m not like _that!”_), pursue liberal-leaning policies, and even govern in ways that they hope will bring over Democratic voters.
“Bipartisan government,” “reaching across the aisle,” “sharing power.” These are all buzzwords that mean Republicans doing what Democrats want in the face of the constituents that put them up in office.
It never works. All that happens is that Republican Senators and Congressman do the bidding of Democrats with nothing of substance returned, while Democrats receive all the credit for getting laws passed and take none of the blame—because it was all done through “bipartisanship!”
This and everything else in your post may not be what the GOPe says. But it sure sounds like what they do!
"Polls and focus groups are not a substitute for thought."
SO FUNNY you pinged me on this...I just finished reading Sowell's piece on RCP before coming over to FR. And yes, the line about polls and focus groups was the key quote.
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