7 Things The GOP Needs To Do To Start Turning It Around

Townhall.com ^ | November 10, 2012 | John Hawkins

[Kaslin]

Let's not sugarcoat it: we got our teeth kicked in on Tuesday. Sure, we added governorships and held our ground in the House, but we went backwards in the Senate and lost to an out-of-touch, incompetent, petty man who centered his campaign around Mitt Romney's bank account and Big Bird. We didn't get beaten by Bill Clinton in a great economy; we got beaten by another Michael Dukakis in the midst of a terrible economy. On the upside, if people have ever wondered what Jimmy Carter's second term would have looked like, then they're about to find out.

Since that's where we're at, we have two choices. We can sit in the dirt for a couple of years, nursing the boo-boo on our collective knee while we moan about freeloaders and wonder what went wrong with America or we can stand up, brush ourselves off and get back in the game.

"Oh, but it's over, Hawkins! We've reached the tipping point! We're done!"

Really? It's done? It's over? What if the soldiers in George Washington's army who were suffering through a winter without shoes had that attitude? Suppose Andrew Jackson had looked at the ragtag band of pirates and mercenaries he had to defend New Orleans during the war of 1812 and said, "Screw this, it's too hard!" You think the Americans driving state-to-state, looking for work during the Depression had it easy? How about the American soldiers fighting for their lives in Korea against limitless waves of Chinese soldiers who were determined to push them into the sea so they could enslave South Korea? Remember when Reagan said, "Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose?" They laughed at him -- but, nobody's laughing now.

I can't speak for anybody else, but I have a very simple goal: I want to kick their ass.

We do that by taking back the Senate in 2014 (which is doable if we have a good year) and then, in 2016, we're going to beat whomever they run like a rented mule and step over their political corpse into the White House.

However, if we want to do that, the first thing we have to accept is that what we're doing right now isn't working and isn't likely to work if we keep doing it. There's a reason Albert Einstein said that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." It's time for the Republican Party to stop the insanity and go in a different direction. 1) We need a better get out the vote campaign: Did you notice that Romney's crowds were bigger than Obama's audiences down the stretch? Yet, Obama still won. What does that tell you? That tells me that Obama did a much better job of turning out low interest voters than Romney. It was well known that Obama had an incredibly sophisticated, well staffed GOTV campaign but the Romney campaign was supposed to match up to that with its own system, Project ORCA. Unfortunately, Project ORCA turned out to be the biggest disaster since the Hindenburg. Tens of thousands of volunteers sat idle all day because the system wasn't working and eventually it just crashed. It seems entirely possible at this point that the Romney campaign lost multiple states because of the complete and utter failure of his get out the vote campaign. This one factor alone could be the difference between victory and defeat in 2016.

2) The primary system needs to be reformed: Here's a thought: Maybe allowing our nominee to be chosen by two moderate, lily white states that seem to choose their favorite Republican candidates based on who shakes the most hands in diners and county fairs isn't the best idea. There are a lot of other workable suggestions that would break the tyrannical hold New Hampshire and Iowa have over the Republican Party's presidential nominations and it's time to start pursuing other options.

Additionally, Mitt Romney's dirty, overly negative campaign created an extremely poisonous atmosphere in both the 2008 and 2012 primary campaigns. Eventually, the other candidates and their supporters became tired of Romney's sleazy campaigning and fired back even harder, which made the entire primary season look like a piranha tank at feeding time. As primary voters, we need to punish candidates that do that in future elections instead of taking an "All's fair in love and war" approach. We also need to consider whether the long campaign season is to our advantage or whether we'd be better off having a candidate wrap it up early so he can begin defining himself and raising money for the general election.

3) The establishment doesn't get to choose the next GOP nominee: What have we been hearing over and over again from the D.C. establishment and the Old Guard in the Republican Party? We have to choose a moderate candidate who runs a bland, safe campaign and doesn't talk about social issues. Well, guess what? We just lost two straight elections against a weak opponent with candidates who fit that mold perfectly. Next time around, we need a full spectrum conservative who can actually inspire people to turn out to vote FOR HIM instead of just AGAINST the Democratic nominee.

4) Stop losing votes to fraud and count those military ballots: We have such a third grade, stick your vote in the shoebox style voting system in this country that it's hard to even figure out how much fraud is occurring. While it's important to make sure every eligible American has a right to vote, it's JUST AS IMPORTANT to insure that no one has his legitimate vote cancelled out by fraud. Making sure that both Democrats and Republicans are confident in the integrity of our elections needs to be a higher priority than leaving the system open to fraud in order to make it as easy as possible to vote.

Additionally, tens, if not hundreds of thousands of military votes aren't being counted every year because the same military that can coordinate a bombing run anywhere on earth within twenty four hours can't manage to get our troops' ballots to the polls in time for an election. It's a disgrace that the same soldiers who risk their lives to ensure our freedom can't even be sure that their own votes will be counted. The Democrats may not care about that because the military leans heavily to the right, but it's time for the GOP to start caring, not just because it's the right thing to do, but because we're leaving tens of thousands of votes on the table in every election.

5) We need to start doing some REAL minority outreach: For the Republican Party to continue to be viable over the long term, we're going to have to do better with minority voters. Period. Unfortunately, the primary way most people seem to be suggesting that we do that is by backing amnesty to bring in Hispanics or Affirmative Action to draw black voters.

Let me be extremely blunt: That is a desperate and stupid argument that flies directly in the face of reality.

Take an issue that conservatives care about dearly -- like the 2nd Amendment. If the Democrats suddenly became a pro-2nd Amendment party, would half of conservatives vote for them en masse? Of course not. Do Jews vote for the GOP because we're the pro-Israel party? No, they don't. So, why would anybody think Hispanics are going to go for the GOP if we support amnesty? The Democrats certainly don't think that. The reason they support amnesty is because they think it will bring in millions of new Hispanic votes for them. They're right about that.

The reason some Republicans take this dumb position is because the real fix would be playing the same game that Democrats do with minority voters and they've had decades to get ahead of us at it. The fact of the matter is that we need to create, fund, and support our own La Raza, our own NAACP, and our own NOW. Groups like that already exist, but they get minimal amounts of support. What we need are Hispanic Republicans on Hispanic radio shows making our case, black Republicans pointing out racism in the Democratic Party and prominent conservative women's groups slamming the Democrats as sexist for reducing them to nothing more than the sum of their "lady parts." The truth is that no matter how much Republicans may cherish the notion that we should all be "judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin," a lot of Americans don't agree and the GOP is going to die in the political wilderness waiting for everyone to come around to our way of thinking.

6) It's time to refresh our agenda and messaging: Principles may stay the same over time, but agendas should change.

For example, it may make sense to oppose tax increases for middle class Americans, but it no longer makes political sense to push tax cuts. The 47% of Americans who pay no income taxes certainly aren't going to be swayed by that and although we should certainly defend the rich on principle, fighting tooth and nail to make sure the wealthy never pay a dime more in taxes when we have a trillion dollar deficit is a dead dog loser of an issue.

Also, although I believe we should be doing more to promote our stands on social issues, not less, it's time to ask whether candidates that oppose abortion for victims of rape and incest are making perfect the enemy of the good. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock both lost on that issue and there's a better chance that the American people will make the cockroach our national bug than there is that they will go along with banning abortions after rape or incest. So, why shouldn't politicians focus on what's politically possible instead of taking a position based on what we'd like to see happen in a perfect world?

Last but not least, our messaging has gotten way too wonky as a party. We talk about Supreme Court cases to people who've never heard of Antonin Scalia, free trade issues to people who think NAFTA is a government agency, and we talk about the size of the debt to people whose eyes glaze over when they try to figure out how to split a check at a restaurant. We need to get back to basics with a much more simple premise when we pitch a voter: Here's what we're going to do to make your life better and here's what they're going to do to make your life worse.

7) We don't spend our money wisely: The GOP spent over a billion dollars on the 2012 campaign just to flip North Carolina and Indiana, hold our ground in the House, and lose seats in the Senate. Meanwhile, we're doing a mediocre job of voter registration, we do almost no minority outreach of consequence, we're doing very little to reach out to young voters and much of the conservative new media is withering away and dying for lack of funds. Consultant Sean Hackbarth and I don't see eye-to-eye on some issues, but his advice for conservative groups is spot-on.

Specifically to conservative groups here’s some additional advice:

* Hire consultants who want to transform current campaign approaches. Don’t accept tried-and-true. Or better yet, bring them in-house and let them play to their heart’s content.

* Create an environment where talented people want to join you in taking big risks and be willing to pay them.

* Scour America for savant tech-heads willing to work for the cause. Visit MIT, Stanford, and other top schools. Go to tech conferences and read tech weblogs to find top-notch talent.

* Quit expecting great content to be delivered for free from supporters. Pay people to write, tweet, make videos, make infographics, develop apps, etc. With the millions spent by super PACs we know the money is out there.

* Be willing to give credit to other groups. Don’t let your egos stop you from cooperating. We’re all on the same team.

* Share ideas that work.

* Find ways to amplify what allied groups are doing.

Maybe instead of expecting grassroots conservatives to produce miracles out of whatever pocket change they can pull out of their couch cushions, some of the deep pocketed donors could try funding them. After all, isn't it time that donors start demanding to see results out of conservative organizations, think tanks and TV ads just as they do out of government?

[JCBreckenridge]

Really, so the GOP should ignore 49 percent of the population in 2011?

[JCBreckenridge]

You do realize that only 25 percent of Americans support the present status quo of no restrictions on abortion - the position of the democrat party?

Why shouldn’t the GOP be the party of the 75 percent of Americans who do support abortion restrictions?

[TwelveOfTwenty]

A lot of these opinions annoy me, but this one is the worst. Let's go:

Of course you couldn't make your point without hurling insults, but OK.

First: Idiots voting is a terrible way to decide anything. In a final-choice election to fill a Federal or state office, especially with two and only two candidates running, I suppose it's at least as good as divine appointment or something else. But to NOMINATE one of many, with the BASIS that this is the strongest one, and the GOAL of winning that later, idiots voting contest? Absurd.

Was it the "idiots" fault that Bachmann, who was winning, gaffed herself out of the race? Or that Cain, who was winning later, either couldn't control himself if the accusations were true or caved under false and easily refuted accusations otherwise? Or that Newt had a woman problem? Or that Freepers so readily attacked each other's Conservative choices that when it was finally over, Romney was the only one left?

And how do you propose to Constitutionally prevent "idiots" from voting?

Second: Therefore, in a perfect world, I would do away with primaries. They are a novelty, historically, and they have not served us well. Since I can't do that, I would: ELIMINATE (or not allow the results of) "open" primaries. They can do nothing but harm. RESTRICT voting in a GOP primary to REAL (as opposed to enrolled) Republicans. A real Republican is someone who is active in campaigns, who signs or otherwise acknowledges the platform, or who has donated to the party in the last two election cycles. At a MINIMUM, require party registration for the last four years, consecutively.

I actually agree with some of that.

Third: Require 2/3 of elected delegates, and 2/3 of appointed delegates (Governors, Senators, and Representatives, State or Federal) to concur in a nominee. The role of the "House of Elected Officials" is to bring the experience of winners into the process.

That might be a good idea, but remember that those making the appointment will have been elected by the same "idiots" you lamented above.

Your assertion that Romney (who I love, and for whom I am very sad about the bum rap he is about to get) "won" anything decisively is absurd. More than 3/5 of voters in contested primaries, all across the fruited plain, wanted someone else.

Talk about polishing a turd. "Someone else" got 3/5 according to your figures. Divide that up among how many candidates, and they were all beaten decisively.

Also remember that when it finally came down to Romney and Newt, Romney still won handily.

THIS IS A BAD SIGN FOR THE FALL. Even if Romney had WON, rather than LOST, 60-75% of primary voters, IF THE ANTI-ROMNEY VOTERS COULD NOT BE RECONCILED, THEN HE WAS A POOR CHOICE. It appears that this is exactly what happened.

And what is you solution? "In summary, the GOP nomination process needs less "democracy", not more (I don't give two sh*ts what the Democrats do), and it MUSTMUSTMUST make it impossible for a plurality (another word for minority) to choose the nominee."? How do they go about doing that? I like you idea of getting "2/3 of appointed delegates to concur in a nominee", but how would that have resulted in a nominee other than Romney?

Romney won the primary. He wasn't my choice, but when it was over, he was who we had to go with.

[Utmost Certainty]

Hey :) Good seeing you again. I’m doing well, yourself?

Yes, no more ostrich head in the sand / bunker mentality re: polls and unfavorable evidence. I’d say the GOP needs to get way more data-driven, as well as start leveraging science and information as the Dems have apparently been doing.

There’s a way to craft a winning platform from all this wreckage, but it’s going to require thinking creatively and coming up with a coherent vision.

[sgtyork]

Confronting the media was not done by the candidates, they are the ones that can penetrate the media control (maybe). For example look at the way Newt parried a question about abortion by asking why ‘there are never questions about partial birth abortion’. If Akin and Mourdock had done the same it could have avoided some serious damage. Romney could have done the same about fast and furious and other topics. I don’t know how he avoided learning anything from Gingrich.

[Alberta's Child]

It's a parliamentary system, dude. The Liberals only needed 35% of the vote to win, too.

Trust me on this one. I've lived up there and I still do business on both sides of the border. Canada has a much better business climate than the U.S. right now ... by a wide margin.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

That is a good tactical list, but until conservatives regain control of the public education system, we are lost. For the past 40 years, most public schools do not teach our history or the reasons the nation was founded, the virtues of freedom and liberty, and why free markets create the greatest prosperity and wealth for all. Instead schools teach kids that America is evil, the cause of the world’s problems, that all businesses are bad, and government is good. This leads to an electorate expecting freebies from the government. As Rush said, a nation of children will vote for Santa Claus every time.

This has to be a multi-decades effort, but it is going to be very hard to wrest educational control from the leftists / statists. It seems that freedom-oriented people do not go into education and, for some reason, the field attracts people enamored with statism and totalitarianism.

[mo]

GOP isn’t gonna do anything with out We the People jabbing them with a cattle prob

The Republican “Leadership” is right next to all the wealthy, patrician Democrat “Leadership” at the DC watering holes..

thos eguys have so much..they have no NEED of their Constitutional Freedoms to provide for themselves and family.

This is a job for We the People.

The only thing that will make DC sit up and take notice is the threat to its revenue stream...and the bipartisan good old boys, whose own cash flow indirectly requires that stream, will then sit up and do something about it.

if We the People are to be disenfranchised .....We have no further obligation to pay Federal taxes. And we are the only ones paying them!!

“Direct” disenfranchisement refers to actions that explicitly prevent people from voting or having their votes counted, as opposed to “indirect” techniques, which attempt to prevent people’s votes from having an impact on political outcomes (e.g., gerrymandering, ballot box stuffing, stripping elected officials of their powers).

http://www.umich.edu/~lawrace/disenfranchise1.htm

And by not challenging it, fighting it..and getting in their faces about it...we grant permission for it to continue....and even worse...increase the probability of needing to resort to the cartridge box for resolution.

[Utmost Certainty]

I didn’t say the GOP should be pro-abortion. Only that it needs to moderate its position—the 2012 platform said abortion should be illegal, no exceptions. Clearly that’s not a winning argument to 80% of Americans according to this poll; however, it is also true that 75% of Americans don’t support unrestricted abortion-on-demand either. So, like I said, carve out a position on the issue that’ll be reasonable to as many Americans as possible.

[Alberta's Child]

Someone needs to figure out how John McCain and Sarah Palin received more votes than Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan!

I'll tell y'all exactly what's happening here, folks. More and more Americans are simply "checking out" of a lot of things in life ... politics, business, etc. I had a long conversation with someone in the insurance business a few months ago, and I was amazed at some of the things he's come across in his business over the last four years. He told me stories of people -- responsible, respectable, capable professionals -- who have simply decided that they don't care about things outside of their control anymore. They've cancelled insurance policies, stopped contributing to retirement plans, scaled back on their business expansion plans, and just generally stopped giving a damn about a lot of things. Remarkably, he says almost all of them seem to be living much happier and fulfilled lives right now.

This election wasn't decided by millions of voters who didn't like Romney or the Republican "message." It was decided by millions of voters who just don't give a sh!t which @sshole lives in the White House on any given day.

[Democrats hate too much]

I happened to know a lot about the Obama campaign in 2008, we'll leave it at that. When McCain had just won the primaries a State Senator from my state (who was actually one of McCain's only friends because McCain didn't have too many friends at that time) had me create a short document explaining things that Obama is doing. The State Senator hand delivered my document to McCain when he was in Georgia. They talked about it. I was told McCain seemed a little uninterested in improving his campaing technology wise... Months later someone pretty connected (won't mention any names) tried to get me in touch with someone really high up in the RNC and honestly I think it lead to me having a phone conversation with Michael Steele. Whoever it was, he wasn't the RNC chair yet. I know he was black and it was explained to me that he was something to the effect the highest ranking African American in the RNC at that time... Any ways, over the phone I read a list of things Obama was doing. Strangely, not till I got to the part that Obama's website was asking for cell phone numbers and zip codes, and that Obama would mass text people when he was near your area resulting in these HUGE crowds did finally I get the attention of the class. That was when he wanted me on a 11am Tuesday conference call so I could go over the list (which I could not do, I was too busy then and I thought an email with a document with screen shots and other things would be better anyways, which I emailed to my friend to forward on to this guy but I came to find months later that he thought I did the conference call and that he didn't need to forward my email, anyways he never got my email)... Any ways, I finished my list of things Obama was doing. The part that was disturbing was he didn't seemed too interested into what I was saying until I got to the text messaging Obama was doing. I was taken back that because I had already mentioned the two best things Obama was doing.. Here they are ...


1) They had email server groups. In 2008 there were something like 16,000 email lists that you could be apart of. Example "Atlanta For Obama" and "Cobb Women for Obama". Obama actually allowed for users to create any list they wanted. They would allow for you to search for email groups using key words like Atlanta, women, Fulton, Jews, whatever. Then you could be apart of an email group that when anyone emails it that you get the email. Groups ranged from 5 to 10 people to larger like 200 people. People made friends with many other like minded people. They talked real time over email about what is going on, what people are saying about their candidate and what people are saying to successfully refuting that. Everything. It was amazing and the RNC didn't do it.
2) Events!!! Obama allowed people to create events on their website. Whatever they wanted and whenever they wanted. Obama allowed these events to be tied into a donation system. You could create a fundraiser at your house called "Cookout This Saturday For Obama" and whoever signs up can only sign up after giving a $10 donation to the website... Things like Debate watch parties. Anything! It was amazing and a lot of fun for these people. Obama supporters came to create many friendships from it with like minded people... The RNC did not do this! They only displayed "events" that had to do with where Romney and Paul Ryan were.

Notes:
* The website must allow the user's to be private. Their name and their activity can not be searchable on the internet (like facebook).
Gingrich's website tried to a couple things Obama was doing but the users were not private. * “Project Orca” Cost Romney the Election because they didn't test it enough. This would have made the difference. The election was so close, that several single things would have made the difference...

[WILLIALAL]

“Stand down. Let the dems fail without any obstruction.
Shortest path to victory.”

I’m in agreement on this strategy, as long as we can insure the Dems will be held accountable.
Its the approach we took with Obamacare.

[sgtyork]

You help to advance the me me that this is the republican position. Romney disavoyed the the Senate candidate that stepped in the media minefield. The republican position is with the 52 percent but this is one of the medias most powerful weapons. Newt Gingrich needs to give seminars on how to turn abortion questions into partial birth and infanticide answers.

[JCBreckenridge]

How many people know that the democrat party supports unrestricted abortion?

[Utmost Certainty]

Dunno. My guess is: not very many.

[sgtyork]

Not true that the platform said this. You are falling for the media spin. What does the Declaration of Independence say?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

You didn’t put Obama in the MOST AWFUL category? Honestly, can you think of a MORE awful candidate in the history of the Republic? A communist agitator, no work experience, no record of any accomplishment, consummate liar, and clearly not very bright. He’s nothing but a tough gay Chicago / Cook County race-baiting political thug who happens to benefit from a dark skin tone that appeals to white guilt and reads words others have written in a manner that a lot of people find appealing.

Seriously, Romney was better on every single measure, but he lost. It wasn’t our candidate; it was a nation that created an electoral coalition of children, minorities and women who want to keep free stuff and the baby-killing machine rolling along.

[Beagle8U]

Like Rush mentioned the other day...

He needs to start a radio show translated into Spanish.

Get it on in all the southwestern states and every other state with a sizable Hispanic population.

[linn37]

No we need to figure out how to get more then 100% turnout in some polling areas. Then you get to win.

[EagleInGA]

We need a charismatic, articulate candidate whose ideas are not already viewed as extreme before he even announces his candidacy.

Agreed. I have always believed, and still do, that Herman Cain was the best candidate in a weak field for exactly this reason. His inexperience and poor judgement regarding his staff sunk him, I get it, but he would have had the best chance to beat Obama. Why? Because, despite the "radical" nature of 9-9-9 he had charisma. His message was simple. He was funny and energetic and he could inspire.

We have an awesome bench for 2016 compared to a very weak bench for the Dems. I am very confident we will start to turn this around in 2 years. Of course this assumes that we stop nominating idiots who make stupid that sink their campaigns. I mean if there is a dumber politician then Todd Akin I have yet to meet him, and following that fiasco Mourdock's comments are nothing short of bewildering.