(Above: Democrats booing God during their 2012 convention)
Posted on 09/30/2014 2:52:56 AM PDT by markomalley
In the wake of a second presidential election loss in 2012, Republicans went back to the drawing board looking for a more effective way to present themselves and their message. Now a brand new ad campaign has been launched which demonstrates that Republicans are even more clueless about selling themselves today than they were two years ago and four years before that. The pathetic message this disastrous ad seems to be sending on behalf of Republicans is this: “Hey Democrats, please like us – we’re just like you!”
The 97-second ad, part of a campaign from GOP strategist Vinny Manchillo, a former member of Mitt Romney’s team, seeks to dispel hateful stereotypes of the right by humanizing Republicans and presenting them as victims of liberal bullying. Here is the message at the campaign’s website, republicansarepeopletoo.com:
It isn’t easy being a Republican these days.
There are people who will stick up for Genghis Khan before they’ll defend a Republican. (“Genghis was just misunderstood.”)
We love political discourse. We encourage political discourse. But when did “Republican” become a dirty word?
Here’s the deal: before you post another bullying comment, think about this:
Republicans are people, too.
The ad itself is backed by an upbeat soundtrack of guitar and hand claps accompanying images of Republicans of all colors and walks of life – acting like Democrats. A man stands proudly beside his car, for example, with a legend underneath that reads, “Republicans drive Priuses.” So right out of the gate it’s cringe-inducing, and it doesn’t improve from there. “Republicans recycle… Republicans read the New York Times… Republicans put together IKEA furniture… Republicans shop at Trader Joe’s… Republicans use Macs… Republicans enjoy gourmet cooking.” And just when you think, This can’t get any worse, it gets worse: “Republicans have feelings… Republicans are people who care… Republicans are people too.”
Of course we do and of course we are. But the ad and the campaign reek of self-pity, weakness, defensiveness, and desperation to be liked by progressives who view us with hatred and contempt. In light of this ad, it’s no wonder they have contempt for us. The left has had the right on the ropes for so long that the only strategy we know is defense, and yet we’re too punch-drunk to do even that effectively. We’ve been reduced to begging leftist haters for crumbs of kindness and respect and mercy.
This is the same concept behind our government’s failed efforts to win the hearts and minds of Muslim fundamentalists. Trying to convince people who have sworn to annihilate us that Hey, we’re really nice and maybe we could be friends! accomplishes nothing except to inspire the jihadists’ contempt and embolden them to close in for the kill. This “Republicans are people too” campaign will have precisely the same impotent effect on the hearts and minds of progressives.
Trying to convince the brainwashed left that we’re not heartless, unsophisticated, old white bigots is a very misguided strategy. First of all, we’re not simply misunderstood – we’ve been relentlessly demonized. The left has very effectively caricatured us as monsters, not people, in order to marginalize and then annihilate us. Second, pushing back against this demonization just plays into their hands. It allows them to frame the debate, set the rules, and control our response. And it is a doomed strategy because nothing conservatives can do will cause progressives to feel all warm and fuzzy about us. We are the enemy and they will make no concessions to us because they don’t need to or care to.
This is war. We must regain our self-respect, get off the ropes and go on offense. To paraphrase General Patton, who knew a thing or two about kicking the enemy’s ass, no bastard ever won a war by pleading with the enemy to be treated nicer. You win it by making the other poor dumb bastard plead with you to be treated nicer.
Instead of presenting ourselves as lukewarm Democrats so that we will be liked, let’s brazenly embrace who we are and what we believe. In addition to going for the left’s jugular with ads that expose their collectivist, racist, big government, anti-liberty philosophy, how about a 97-second ad that sells conservative qualities and ideals, and makes them so appealing and compelling that liberals and independents wish they were us? The message should be, “Proud to be conservative!” not “I can’t be all bad – I read the New York Times!” The message should be “We can make America strong and free again,” not “I drive a Prius because I’m an emasculated conformist too!”
It’s long past time for the right to snap out of our punch-drunk daze and take the fight to the progressives. We either stand unapologetically for our values and our beliefs, or surrender.
The Democratic Party has been irreversibly transformed into a front for CPUSA. I am afraid that this time around you will not find anything along the lines of the “Reagan Democrats”, that was 34 years ago. This transformation became obvious during the 1972 McGovern campaign, which I noticed even when I was in high school (I considered myself to be a Scoop Jackson Democrat at the time. Too young to vote, but would have voted for Nixon).
The GOP may take the Senate this year and expand in the House. Not because of love for the GOP, but because of the country's disgust with all things Obama. The GOPe will take that as a sign they need to go further left.
(Above: Democrats booing God during their 2012 convention)
With GOP strategists like this, we are doomed to 8 more years of Hitlary and the Demoncrats. I don’t want any liberal to “like” me, because I am the total opposite of what they stand for. Would you ever go on a date with Debbie Wasserman Shultz and snuggle, same difference.
One of “Mitt Happens” aides is doing this campaign. Figures.
The next stop for the Uniparty train isn't just tyranny, it is a police state.
DC Republican leaders are pathetic. Work hard on electing and supporting local and state conservatives. These people are our farm team who can eventually replace the GOPe scum. What else can be said?
The problem with the country club Republicans is that the writer is correct. They ARE just like the Dems, they just use different language and answer to the Chamber of Commerce instead of to SEIU, NEA, and La Raza.
This sounds like the GOPe is worried they might win and take the Senate in November. Therefore, they must pull out all the stops to make sure they lose.
/johnny
Yet another STUPID “campaign” by the STUPID Party. The ‘RATS must be tickled pink to have such “opposition” and must occasionally pinch themselves to make sure they’re not dreaming.
The GOP needs to be for America.
Right now, neither party is for America first. Everyone is building in, and buying from China.
China is a massive communist country.
Bring back jobs. Right here.
And Dems are calling themselves Independent in their political ads.....I saw one last night. Kyrsten Sinema (proudly the first bi-sexual Congressperson [this was announced AFTER her election to the House in 2012], who only won because the Libertarian candidate in the race siphoned off enough votes from Vernon Parker)had Kyrsten Sinema, Independent, on her ad. No mention that she’s really a far Left Dem. LIARS!
In the past I voted for McCain, and Romney nationally, and for Scott Brown in Massachusetts. But I guess it depends on your belief in how far gone this nation is, and what it will take to restore it, assuming that is even possible at this point.
Personally, I now believe that the only way to save America at this point (assuming such a thing is still possible) is to put conservatives in political offices and enact an agenda based on free markets, limited government and the rule of law. As long as we have a Republican party that actively opposes those ends (and we do, obviously), then I believe our only (slim) hope is drastic action.
As long as the Republican Party establishment believes that it can continue to survive by being Democrat-lite, and that it can continue to maintain power while actively fighting against the core principles of liberty, free markets and Constitutional law, it will never make the necessary change of direction.
Only when the Republican party understands that it must change or die can we hope to turn this country around. Our too-long-serving entrenched establishment politicians can still enjoy their comfy lifestyles, their wealth, power and prestige as members of a minority party. So why should they bother to change direction?
Surely a John Boehner (or an Eric Cantor -- had he not been defeated -- or a Mitch McConnell) would be just as happy to be minority leaders if the election cycle didn't go their way. Yes, they would prefer to be majority leaders, but what good would it do them if a conservative Republican Party won the majority and then threw them out of their cushy positions and all those perks, replacing them with real conservatives?
Ask yourself -- which do you think Mitch McConnell would prefer -- a majority Republican party in which he was stripped of his position by a conservative majority, or a minority Republican party in which he could remain Senate minority leader because the majority of Republican senators were RINOs?
You may argue that we have no time to wait for the Republicans to realize that their only choice is to change or die as a viable party. But if we don't have time for that, then what makes you think we have time to wait for the RINOs and the GOP-e to pursue a "moderately marginal" course of action designed only to maintain their personal fiefdoms at the expense of a free America operating under the rule of Constitutional law?
The GOP had majority power in the House and Senate, and occupied the White House, 10 years ago. What did all that power do to move the agenda of liberty forward? Answer: nothing.
A GOP that cannot even sell liberty, limited governments and free markets to the American people is worse than useless. It is a party of tyranny enablers, and I will have none of it.
Unbelievably, today we once again face the stark choice between liberty and death.
Once again, these are the times that try men's souls. Conservatives need to be waging aggressive war against the totalitarian leftist tyrants on all fronts -- in the branches of government at the federal and state level, in academia, in the media, through public demonstrations, and in the voting booth.
Many argue that we must continue to vote for "the most electable conservative," which means "vote for the RINO if no conservative is running." But I respectfully disagree with that choice. I am done enabling.
If we really are to lose the greatest country in the history of the world, then let's at least be fighting for it when it goes down.
And who knows, maybe -- just maybe, if we show sufficient resolve and conviction -- divine Providence will once again provide the support that gave our founders their unlikely victory in 1776, and grant us once again the "new birth of freedom" that Lincoln called for a century later.
If you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. The RINOs have managed to own the Republican party because they know that conservatives have nowhere else to go.
To continue voting for RINOs is to play right into that strategy. The RINOs have become so certain of your vote that they actually believe they can continue to stay in power by declaring outright war on the conservative base.
And when they do that, they are actually declaring war on core American principles -- war on liberty, war on free market economics, and even war on the Constitution.
The RINO Republicans cannot even make an appeal to the traditional American love of those principles, because they have lost the credibility and historical awareness to articulate them, let alone promote them.
Yes, having Harry Reid continue as majority leader is a horrific scenario. But having RINO Republicans win that office is only a marginally better short-term outcome.
And in some ways it is even worse, because as the RINOs “reach across the aisle" to promote marginally modified Democrat policies, they give the Democrats cover from the well-deserved blame for the horrific damage that they have unleashed on our country in the last five years.
America is out of time now. We cannot continue on the current path. And as things continue to deteriorate, who do you think the voters will blame if the Republicans are in power when the 2016 elections come around?
You think Mitch McConnell's senate will repeal Obamacare? You think it will take the right position on immigration? You think a Republican Senate will vote against Obama’s left wing Supreme Court nominations?
America needs clear, passionate and articulate voices to advocate and defend our founding principles, to secure our borders, to preserve our nation, and to take legislative and administrative steps to turn this country around, assuming it still can be turned around.
Majority leader Mitch McConnell will NEVER provide that voice or leadership. He is not the guy to turn things around for our formerly blessed nation.
But in 2016 a newly terrified Republican party will be forced to court instead of alienate the conservative base, and come 2017 will be in a position to put the party and our nation on the proper path. Such a duly chastised party has a real chance of nominating a Ted Cruz, instead of a Mitt Romney who, according to last night's panel on Fox News, is at this point the likely Republican presidential nominee.
So in November, for those whose only choice in the mid-terms is between a RINO and a Democrat, I urge them to stay home on election day, or vote third-party -- anything to prove the RINOs wrong in thinking that they can stay in power by literally declaring war on conservatism.
Think about it.
Bump!
And yet, the GOP, given evidence of the lies/falsehoods, RARELY fight to expose the same. More of the ‘hands across the aisle’ which gets THEM everything.
Lastly, the (L) didn’t ‘siphon’ vote one. The voters, given a choice, chose their candidate. Seems to me, the (L) candidate did a better job of explaining how they were different from the DemLite brand; for if the choices were stark and Constitution debated/upheld, I presume the (R) would have one
/johnny
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