Posted on 12/01/2013 6:01:24 AM PST by SkyPilot
A Republican strategist is reminding his party that President Reagan is dead.
ADVERTISEMENT Ford O'Connell, who worked on Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential campaign, says if Republicans want to win the White House in 2016, they need to break free of the "obsessive Reagan disorder."
Rule #1 of the political analyst's newly released book, "Hail Mary: The 10-Step Playbook for Republican Recovery," is: "Ronald Reagan is dead. Accept it."
Such a sentiment is sure to be tough to digest for a party insistent on using the 40th president's legacy as a GOP litmus test to prove conservative credentials.
"The Reagan fixation is a drag on the future success of the GOP at the national level. It undermines the candidates because it becomes a crutch for their inability to articulate an actual agenda or a forward-looking vision," he writes.
In an interview with The Hill, O'Connell says he combines his "two loves: politics and football" into his work “Hail Mary,” a sort-of political manual for presidential hopefuls.
The native Texan contends that he is "not pushing a personal agenda" in his blunt "playbook."
He says it is aimed squarely at the 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls, whom he handicaps in a chapter entitled “2016 Republican Presidential Scouting Report."
"This was an honest attempt to say, 'Hey, if you want to win the White House, you've got to understand the obstacles and what it's going to take to get 270 electoral votes, regardless of who the nominee is," O'Connell explains.
The book is geared toward political success at the national level, not the 2014 midterm congressional elections, a point he makes in Rule #9 "The Preseason Doesn't Win You the Super Bowl."
O'Connell says that Republicans failed to capitalize on the 2010 midterm election success when the GOP regained control...
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
I never heard of this Ford O’Connell loser.
Who the hell is he to give advice to the GOP? He advised a losing presidential campaign. He’s an example of what NOT to do.
The physical body of Ronald Reagan is deceased, but the spirit he embodied lives on in all of us who aspire to freedom and liberty.
This Reagan spirit, in the present day, continues forward, primarily in the TEA Party.
O’Connell can go join hands with Karl Rove, Steve Schmidt, John McCain and all the rest of the clueless crew members on board that political Titanic known as the GOPe.
And apparently the GOPe wants the party to die with him.
They are Zombies! The polls say 20% liberals and 40% conservatives. The GOOP wants to dump 40% of the voters? They are too blind by their liberal Utopia.
Yes, he worked on the 2008 McCain campaign, with their wonderful record of blaming Sarah Palin (she was the only one who brought a spark to the mess). Mr. Consultant is a perfect example of the old axiom - “Those who CAN’T, Teach”. Reagan won 94 of 100 states in two presidential elections - how many did McCain win in his one election? Actually, you should add those won by Bush, Sr. in 1988 when he ran on the Reagan Third Term, and from his Inaugural Address onward, governed like a “moderate” Democrat.
Caving to Satan is NOT a solution.
Fight the enemy at every step and don’t spend too much time worry about the criticism from the media.
Stand for something and don’t waste your time trying to be better socialists than the Dems.
So this guy worked on the mccain campaign. I guess he’s drawing on his past record of “success” to show the gop the way to victory? Because john mccain came soooo close to winning?
In any case, I’m actually kind of glad to see gop cronies like this spout off: just makes it that much easier to make the case that there is no substantive difference between the gop wing of the uniparty and the ‘rat wing.
The GOP jerkwads boldly say Reagan is dead; move on.
What they also believe, but don’t have the guts to say yet, is the Constitution is dead; move on. If they did not already believe it, they would be defending it tooth & nail.
**** him.
Martin Luther King is dead, too.
Trybon Martin is dead, too.
Ford should change his name to Edsel...he’s a loser
Freegards
LEX
Taking any advice from this clown would be like taking advice on building a website from the people who brought us healthcare.gov.
..his name should have been Edsel, another loser...moron
If you only care about winning elections, go ahead and sell your soul to the devil and forget about doing what’s right. We don’t have much time left to turn this country around and avert disaster. With the GOPe in control, it will still happen, but just take a little longer than with the democrats in control.
FR has always had it’s share of gop bootlickers. A fair number are probably paid bloggers.
These Republican strategists have got to be the most stupid, tone deaf individuals in American politics. They might as well be DemocRats because all they push is right wing Progressives, kissing cousins of the left wing Progressives and Leftists in the DemocRat party, that control their mindless minions.
Pretty much, the equivalent of the Constitution is dead, move on.
The grasstoots Conservatives have spoken over and over, loudly and clearly, and in their face and yet...they still write stupid books no one wants and no one will buy and left wing publishers continue to pay them for it hoping to change our minds. They don’t get it. The harder they try, the more we resist, and the more attractive we become to others who have just had it with these losers.
Why should we listen to a strategist that got his ass kicked in 2008?
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