Posted on 11/05/2008 7:26:34 PM PST by lasereye
When it comes to fundraising, organization and ground game, we Republicans got whipped.
Now, Republicans may criticize Sen. Barack Obama for breaking his promise to accept public funding and play by the established rules, but that doesn't take us too far. We shouldn't kid ourselves: Democrats breaking this precedent had nothing to do with their campaign-finance principles, and everything to do with the fact they could afford to. Mr. McCain could never have competed this fall without the federal funds and, in the end, Mr. Obama simply smothered McCain, outspending him in battleground states by three-to-one, with plenty left over to compete in even Republican-leaning areas.
For years, Republicans outworked Democrats at the polls. Democrats would have opulent fund-raisers with celebrities and would bask in the glow of a lapdog media. Republicans would go out on Election Day and beat them on the ground game. Their guys wrote checks; our guys wrote letters to the editor. They knocked our values; we knocked on doors. They spoke for the people; we actually got out and spoke with the people. Conservative organizations outside the official party apparatus understood their role in a large coalition: organize, energize, and mobilize. And then we won.
Victory is always the hardest thing for a successful political coalition. Economic, social and foreign-policy conservatives unite easily when brought together in opposition to tax-and-spend, pro-abortion, dovish liberals in power. After more than a decade in control of Congress and eight years in the White House, the coalition has worn thin. Conservatives of each of these stripes will always have some complaint to make against the Republican Party. But as odd as it sounds, we need not let our past victories continue to divide us.
Meanwhile, liberals of every sort are in a frenzy to get back into power, and especially to wrest the White House back from President Bush, who liberals have tried to peg as an illegitimate president all along. Democrats have not missed this golden opportunity to unite.
Liberalism's new and impressive network of organizations -- especially fund-raising, grassroots mobilization, and communications -- has left in the dust anything conservatives have ever put together. Organizations like America Votes and ACORN are so closely tied to Democrat politics that they might as well be arms of the party apparatus. The George Soros-funded Shadow Party of organizations run by former Clinton administration officials and liberal leaders -- the Center for American Progress, the Thunder Road Group, MoveOn.org, Media Matters, etc. -- has created a second left-leaning party free from restrictions imposed by official regulations -- including McCain-Feingold.
This liberal infrastructure, which now dwarfs conservatism's in size, scope, and sophistication, will be setting and helping to impose the national agenda for the coming years. The time has come for conservatives to wake up and smell the 21st century.
American politics as we know it ended the day Mr. Obama refused public funds for his presidential bid and unleashed a billion-dollar political giant. National campaigns will now operate not as individual operations designed to elect a single man, but as a cohesive, all-encompassing movement, well funded and certainly prepared for a political coup. In 2012, Mr. Obama -- whether as an incumbent or a seasoned veteran challenger -- will no doubt raise more than $1 billion for his campaign conglomerate. And that's not wrong. It's impressive -- and intimidating.
Between now and then, Republicans must come to terms with their organizational shortcomings and finally become again the kind of dynamic political party that won stirring victories in 1994 and 2000. Our party must expand its organization to include our coalition groups in the ways Democrats have with theirs. The Coalition for a Conservative Majority, an organization I helped start in 2006, is trying to pull conservative organizations back together after too many years of internecine squabbling. Only under conservative government will groups like the National Rifle Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and National Right to Life Committee receive a fair hearing of their views; it's time they started working together.
Conservatism's leading donors must look beyond contributing only to traditional channels like the RNC or campaign committees, and open up to also funding outside organizations that can do what the Democrats' Shadow Party is already doing. New resources must be tapped, and just as importantly, coordinated.
And our leaders -- in Congress and in the states -- must develop and communicate a strong, conservative agenda of reform around which conservatives of all stripes can rally with a well-organized political communication strategy.
Luckily, we are still a center-right nation. We still favor conservative approaches to taxes, spending, regulation, foreign policy and traditional values. Americans have never lost their faith in conservatism. We need now a new, 21st-century political coalition to remind them of that fact, and to restore its faith in actual conservatives.
Former Rep. Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, served as House majority leader.
They have lost faith in the Republican Party as the vehicle for conservatism. Any idea about how that might have happened, Tom? I didn't think so.
“When Barak gets in I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car or paying my mortgage.” How do you fight that mentality?
I’d heard that clip played many, many times. And at one point, I wondered what the woman meant: did she mean that things would get better economically so that she didn’t have to worry about [spreading her own wealth] paying these things, or was she really thinking she would get something for nothing? The more I heard the clip, the more doubt I had she was a boasting freeloader.
Just a thought.
Sorry, I can’t help you there!
I was rather surprised that there was no mention of illegal funds from around the world. Maybe ALL candidates should do a “Magical Mystery World Tour” and just solicit funds from——everywhere!!
Sorry, I can’t help you there!
I was rather surprised that there was no mention of illegal funds from around the world. Maybe ALL candidates should do a “Magical Mystery World Tour” and just solicit funds from——everywhere!!
I am ready to dump the Republican party of weak kneed cowards and sart a real Conservative party.
I wonder how much we could accomplish in the next 4 years.
Were it not for hispanic and black support, Prop 8 wouldn't have passed.
Sorry. “sart” = start
Yeah, right. It’s all about money for politicians and gooey personality considerations. And we, the vast majority of unfavored, anti-feminist (i.e., real pro-family), heterosexual, real conservative constituents for a strong manufacturing base (i.e., pro-American, anti-Communist, anti-fascist) and small government will continue being treated as gullible, retarded “Neanderthals” to be insulted, ignored and fleeced.
...And the 20+ million new democrat voters they are about to create with amnesty. This will instantly flip many reliably republican states to comfortable democrat states with the stroke of a pen. When this happens, and it WILL happen, our country as we know it will be lost forever.
I agree.
I don't think it is that simple.
To those "undecided" or "independent" voters- the ones who REALLY determine elections- they saw McCain as the hero he is but with a significant health problem and a VP pick without a law degree who they had little confidence in.
I live with these people. They are pro-choice to the bone but would overlook that if they saw a vital charismatic conservative. Unfortunately this time around they saw Bob Dole and Dan Quayle.
Don't shoot the messenger here. I'm telling you like it is here in the burbs.
I heard that a majority of blacks supported Prop 8 too (I think Rush mentioned this today).
It also passed in FL, though I don’t know the margin.
Here in Colorado, most of the ballot initiatives involving tax/spend got voted down.
Are we? 62 million Americans just voted for a corrupt third world socialist authoritarian autocrat.
Everything came together for them this time...EVERYTHING. And they still underperformed. 3M fewer voters this year than in 2004. Obama only picked up 400K more votes then Bush in 04. The GOP did not get out the vote, that happend due to a weak sister candidate (John, not Sarah).
In 2004 the 21% identified themselves as libs, 44% as Conservative, in 2008 it was 22% Lib, 42% Conservative.
Now that the powers of evil are in power, the money will keep pouring in with no end and voter fraud will increase. That leaves one thing.
How is the republic to stand if people don't know the basic facts? When did Palin’s wardrobe become more important than being best pals with domestic terrorists or being a closet commie? When one can't tell the difference between the Onion and the NYT anymore, something is beyond being very wrong. My personal feeling is to take a baseball bat to any member of the media I ever see again and administer justice for their treason; but as satisfying as that would be, it wouldn't solve the issue. The media must be infiltrated if this nation is to survive.
We consider it to be patriotic for a young person to enlist the military, and rightly so. Might it be patriotic as well for a young person to go into journalism—and just do what real journalists are supposed to do: what, when, where, how, and who? Conservatives tend to go into the professions that actually make the country work: engineers, business men, builders, etc., but that don't have anything to do with informing the public or shaping opinions. Then we sulk and threaten to “go John Galt” when the C- students who went to journalism school convince the voter next door that the stuffed shirt junior senator from Illinois will be their personal Jesus. Conservatives who go into journalism should be able to whip up on the brain-dead dope-smoking zombies in journalism school and start a revolution once they hit the news rooms. It is not enough to have a sort of, some times, conservative-light network like Fox that can, at best, put some spin on what is already in the news cycle. The reporters in the field, the ones filing for the AP and such, need to be replaced. Right now, 90% of journalists became journalists to convince the rest of us to be liberals. We must take them on one on one on their own turf and fight lies with truth if we ever hope to have anyone not anointed by the liberal establishment elected again. An advantage of this attack is that they haven't suspected it and as clever as they are, they don't react well when the game is changed.
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