Posted on 11/15/2012 10:48:44 AM PST by Bratch
But this is the “party of stupid” we’re talking about, so I won’t hold my breath.
In the wake of the disastrous 2012 election results, there has been a lot of discussion on the right regarding the GOP’s apparent “message” problem. Much of the conversations has focused on immigration issues as a way to bring in new voters. Recently, Charles Krauthammer wrote:
I’ve always been of the “enforcement first” school, with the subsequent promise of legalization. I still think it’s the better policy. But many Hispanics fear that there will be nothing beyond enforcement. So, promise amnesty right up front. Secure the border with guaranteed legalization to follow on the day the four border-state governors affirm that illegal immigration has slowed to a trickle.
Imagine Marco Rubio advancing such a policy on the road to 2016. It would transform the landscape. He’d win the Hispanic vote. Yes, win it. A problem fixable with a single policy initiative is not structural. It is solvable.
It’s going to take much more than that to solve the current issues the GOP has with voters. You can’t pander to one racial demographic and think that will solve all of your problems. The predicament that they find themselves in goes much deeper than a single issue, and it’s based primarily on trust. According to an election night survey released by Breitbart News, Judicial Watch, and Public Opinion Strategies:
Voters’ responses suggest that the American public agrees with conservative policies–but does not trust the Republican Party to implement them.
For example, voters dislike big government, with 71% agreeing (and 49% strongly agreeing) that: “The larger the size of government the more opportunities it creates for possible corruption.” In addition, 85% of voters said they were concerned about corruption in Washington, and 53% described themselves as “very concerned.”
Yet voters do not trust Republicans more than Democrats to deal with corruption. Only 34% said Republicans would do a better job of cleaning up corruption; 37% said Democrats would. That is an indictment of the permanent political class, regardless of party. And despite the President’s talk of cleaning up Washington, his party is not viewed as better able to do so.
So, the Democrats share much of the same issue with voters regarding corruption, but they’re able to squeak enough votes each cycle because they have more credibility on other matters. Here’s a thought. How about for starters, the GOP stop selling out their principles and try to gain some trust back with that 71% who dislike big government? And how does either party address the 85% of voters who are concerned about corruption in Washington, when both of them are compromised in that area? Considering all of the money wasted in Washington on cronies and corruption, these concerns by the vast majority are extremely legitimate.
As I watched the debate go back and forth on the GOP’s message problem after the election, an article written by Anand Giridharadas back in 2011 titled “Some of Sarah Palin’s Ideas Cross the Political Divide” came to mind. In it, he wrote:
[S]omething curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa…
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).
In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.
Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.
“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” she said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.”
Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.
Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks
and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs...“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”
Keep in mind that Sarah Palin was told to “leave the room” by none other than Charles Krauthammer, back in 2009. Yet now he tells the Republican Party that in order for it to save it’s hide, they must reward lawbreakers and anoint a man as leader who has engaged in illegally soliciting foreign donations, just as President Obama has also done.
That is not the answer. The answer for the GOP is to clean up its own act and address the real concerns of the majority of Americans, regardless of political affiliation. They can start by not shunning the members of their own party who have the credibility to speak on such matters. Reform in Washington is a winning message and has the potential to bring in voters from nearly every racial, gender, and economic demographic in the country. It isn’t too late for the Republican Party to jump on board, but time is ticking. American voters need a true opposition party to the big-government, tax and spend, corruption plagued Democrats. The GOP establishment would do themselves and the country a favor by allowing people into the room who can credibly push for reform, and by ceasing their own practices of big-government corruption.
Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Who initiated the 19 ethics complaints and lawsuits? How much financial assistance did Palin receive from the GOP?
LOL, I think you revealed too much in that post.
Did she ask the GOP for help?
What I revealed was the fact that Palin is a quitter.
No you showed yourself as hysterically anti-Palin, revealing a political agenda that you are working on here.
Luckily for we conservatives, she is the most influential republican in America, and has been moving the party right, for 4 years.
Instead what you have shown is a cult like blindness regarding her.
She is done in politics.
ROTFL, if this is “done in politics”, then give us more, Palin just finished up another election where she was the single most important positive influence on the election results, in 2010 she helped us make historical gains, and we are counting on her to lead us to gains in 2014.
Romney is “done in politics”, Palin is the dominant conservative politician in America, her endorsement shapes elections and moves the party right, and makes her the most effective endorsement in history.
Do you understand any of this? Do you realize that Palin is a 100 times more effective now, today, than as a sitting Governor in Alaska?
Who do you think will be the mover and shaker in 2014, Mitt Romney, or Governor Palin?
Palin talk already? Ugh.
I wonder if the GOP ever gave their major candidates instructions on how to handle certain questions from a hostile press. We know the GOP left them twisting in the wind when they got in trouble, something the Democrats don’t do.
Those gains were mostly due to the TeaParty, not Palin.
She isn't leading anyone in 2014, she had a chance to lead in 2012 but refused to get into the fray.
Do you realize that Palin is not influencing anything, and her followers are delusional?
She is never going to enter the primaries, she wants to be drafted.
In 2010, Palin was the single most important person of either party in shaping the election, and she had great success in the 64 races she lent her influence to and in helping to move the party right with winners like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, Nikki Haley, and many other more other conservative candidates and congress people.
In 2012, a repeat of the same as the “Kingmaker” continued her reshaping of the GOP in her image with 14 endorsements and victories like Ted Cruz over Dewhurst in Texas, and the incredible victory of Fischer over Bob Kerry for the open seat in Nebraska and of course, others, and house victories.
In 2014, as the leader of the conservative wing of the GOP and the nation, Palin will be in the thick of things again.
The most influential endorsement in America, and in history.
She had SOME influence, but the TeaParty was far more important then she ever was.
She is going to be less important in the coming years.
She quit her governorship and then played games about entering the presidential election, teasing people right to the last moment.
She is done in national politics.
YEP
Impy (Boehner for President - 2013)
LMAO!!
No one took the bait on that one.
Who knows? She may try it again. Big money in it.
Yes, note it says 2013, not 2016. ;-D
Duly noted, thank you : )
“Ted Cruz says Sarah Palin’s endorsement was ‘game-changing’ in his Senate win”
“”Sarah Palin might have been sitting out this year’s Republican National Convention, but that does not mean that she has been forgotten by the party faithful in Tampa.
Especially not by Ted Cruz, who credits her endorsement with helping him beat Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in the race for the Texas GOP Senate nomination.
While speaking with POLITICO’s Mike Allen this morning, the Texas Republican Senate nominee called Palin’s endorsement “game-changing.”
“If you look at the senate races across the country this cycle and last cycle, Governor Palin has had a game changing impact one after the other,” explained Cruz.
Palin endorsed Cruz, a Tea Party favorite who shares her philosophy of liberty and limited government, just days before a wide-open May 29 primary, helping to propel Cruz into a strong second place showing. The Cruz surge provided momentum for his runoff battle with Dewhurst.
“Fighters like Ted Cruz can lead the charge for us,” former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said in July when she came to Texas to campaign with Cruz, calling him a “a proven, common-sense constitutional conservative.”
The Tea Party favorite admitted that many have referred to his victory as “improbable.” He told Allen that the reason why Palin’s endorsement has had such an enormous impact is because voters consider her a true barometer of conservatism.
“In a Republican primary, everyone claims to be conservative and voters are pretty cynical. They are tired of these candidates that sounds great on the stump. They say they are going to cut spending, they get into the office and they become spineless jellyfish,” Cruz said. “I think conservatives trust Sarah Palin that if she says this guy is a conservative, that he is a real deal.”””
100
: )
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