Posted on 01/08/2010 4:34:30 AM PST by Kaslin
This is one of those rare moments when the conventional wisdom in Washington is right. The Democrats are poised to have a bad year; the only argument is over how bad it will be. And that question rests on whether or not the Republican Party crafts an agenda voters will support
So far the GOP has shrewdly been the "party of no." Since I disagree with so much of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda, I happen to think that "no" is the correct position on the merits. But that's not the point. Saying "no" has worked because that's what most Americans say, too.
The trick for the GOP is to figure out what it will say yes to. Republicans are a bit like the Democrats in 2006 and 2008. Americans were sick of Bush and the Republicans back then, so they threw their support behind the Democrats by default. The Democrats over-read this support as a sweeping mandate for their agenda.
This has given the GOP an opportunity many Republicans feared just a year ago might not come for a generation.
Now comes the hard part: seizing the opportunity. Fortunately, I'm not a political consultant. But if I were giving my two cents -- and whaddya know? I am! -- I'd tell the GOP to look not to Reagan in 1980 or Gingrich in 1994, as so many pundits suggest.
I'd look to Domino's in 2010.
You may have seen the commercials or the four-minute YouTube video touting the iconic pizza-delivery chain's reinvention. But if you haven't, Domino's new campaign can be summed up easily enough: "We blew it."
Focus groups and consumer surveys revealed something pretty much everyone outside of Domino's has known for years: Their pizza stinks. It tastes as if aliens tried to copy real pizza but just couldn't capture its essence.
In their four-minute video (search YouTube for "the Pizza Turnaround") executives, employees and chefs at the company confront their harshest reviews head-on. They talk about how much it hurts to hear that their product "tastes like cardboard" and is worse than microwave pizza. But they admit the truth and commit themselves to starting over with more flavor, better crusts, and cheese that doesn't taste like discount weather caulking. Domino's says that the American palate has improved, and they want to update their recipe to take account of that fact.
The appeal of the campaign should be obvious: honesty. Domino's admits they lost their way, and they want a second chance. They're confronting the criticism head-on rather than denying it.
Obviously, the analogy to the GOP isn't perfect. For example, last I checked, Domino's didn't get bogged down in an unpopular war.
But the GOP's troubles over the last decade have a lot to do with the fact that Americans didn't stop liking what the Republican Party is supposed to deliver. They stopped liking what the GOP actually delivered.
As a conservative who cares more about policies than partisan success, I would hate to see the GOP abandon conservative policies in order to be more popular. That would be like Domino's listening to critics and then deciding to get into the Chinese food business. Indeed, by my lights, that's what George W. Bush tried to do with his "compassionate conservatism." He surrendered to liberal arguments about the role, size and scope of government on too many fronts. In effect, he said you can have your pizza and Kung Pao chicken all in the same dish. That's not a good meal, it's a bad mess.
Moreover, abandoning conservatism would be silly. According to Gallup, Americans identify themselves as conservative over liberal by a margin of 2-1, the same proportion as just after 9/11.
So what would a GOP-turnaround recipe look like? That's a subject for any number of other columns. But for starters, I'd look to young political chefs like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). He's been the leader in attacking "crony capitalism" -- the corrupt merger of big business and big government, a hallmark of the Obama administration. For too long Republicans confused supporting big business with supporting free markets, when big business is often the biggest impediment to fair competition. Other fresh new ingredients would almost surely include pro-family tax policies and the de-linking of legal and illegal immigration as interchangeable terms.
But first, the GOP needs to admit it screwed up. That's what Democrats did with Bill Clinton, and it gave the "New Democratic Party" a new lease on life.
F. Scott Fitzgerald couldn't have been more wrong when he said there are "no second acts in American lives." More than any nation on earth, America is about second acts. We love contrition and redemption. We love it in pizza companies and politicians alike.
The connection is that Domino’s and the Democrat’s target market is children who don’t know better.
LOL!
You’re preaching to the choir, gs.
The ‘Pubs might consider creating a fund to buy TV time after the election to (bypass the media and) explain to the American people directly what policies they are promoting and why. I know that it’s quite expensive but otherwise the mainstream media will skew the message.
I tend to agree with this author. I used to complain that the Dems just hated everything the Repubs were trying to accomplish, but had no real suggestions of their own to solve the problems addressed. Now I see the party of “no” doing the same thing. The GOP needs to be putting intelligent plans together to solve the problems the Democrats are addressing.
Examples:
The GOP did nothing to address the rising cost of health care when they had the floor.
The same could be said for illegal immigration.
Both are being addressed by the liberal govt recently installed. They are taking control of the health care system the way their party would handle it by making the govt even bigger and taking more liberty away from its citizenry. They are making “illegal immigration” an oxymoron.
I worked for them many decades ago back in the early 60s when they had the old stores...the meat was real, the bread was flour, the cheese had real milk in it, the fries came from store cut 100 lb sacks of potatoes that had to be carried up from the basement.....THAT food was excellent, because it was real...I don't know what they have now.
I second your observation. There is a noticeable decline in their numbers in the past couple of years.
Domestic & offshore oil drilling
Nuclear power plants
Fair Tax
A return to ethical & open gov’t, which we haven't had in a very long time
Spending & deficit reduction
smaller gov’t
a proactive, “get them before they get us” strategy in the WOT
More suggestions welcome!
Well said, Jonah.
For years we told Bush "Secure the borders first" but he refused to do so, preferring to ram amnesty down our throats. But the people remembered the 1986 legislation of amnesty now, secure borders someday, maybe, never, and were adamant that that never happen again.
If Bush had been serious and secured our borders, I believe he could have gotten a workers plan and perhaps a bit of amnesty, but he couldn't be bothered to work with his fellow Republicans and base voters.
Very true. Bush sure squandered his opportunity.
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