Posted on 11/13/2008 7:22:11 AM PST by SLB
How bad off is the Republican Party right now? Ask Newt Gingrich.
“The Republican Party right now is like a midsize college team trying to play in the Superbowl,” Gingrich told me Wednesday. “It is pretty hard to say our losses were because of John McCain’s campaign. McCain performed way above plausibility compared to where the Republican president was in the polls. We have to look honestly at what went wrong.”
Gingrich, Republican speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999, declined say who he wanted as the next chairman of the party. He said his main concern was the rise of what he called the “modern left,” which just a few years ago was thought to be moribund in this country but now looks alive and kicking.
Gingrich said the fundraising capacity of the left in the last election proved astonishing and far outstripped what Republicans were able to gather. “The modern left has gotten that large,” Gingrich said.
The question now, Gingrich went on, is whether Barack Obama intends to govern from the left or not.
“Does Barack Obama want to govern from the center, which his Grant Park speech implied, or govern from the left?” Gingrich said. “Does he want to govern through (Harry) Reid and (Nancy) Pelosi or govern through a centrist majority, in which case he will get a substantial number of votes in the House and Senate but he will make the left unhappy.”
Gingrich said that the best thing the Republican Party could do right now is stop worrying about the Republican Party. “We need to worry about the nation,” Gingrich said. “Wal-Mart doesn’t get ahead by attacking Sears but by offering better value.”
It wasn’t all that long ago that the Democratic Party was going through the same kind of agonizing re-appraisals, bemoaning the fact that it couldn’t raise as much money as Republicans, build as impressive a ground operation or field as compelling candidates.
But Barack Obama’s election to the presidency and increased Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have swept all that away and now Republicans are wondering how to get through their wilderness years.
Greg Mueller, a political consultant who specializes in conservative candidates, said that the next chairman of the party must be an “ideological conservative.”
“We need full-throttle conservatism,” Mueller said. “We have governed as lighter versions of liberal Democrats. We went to Washington to be fiscal conservatives and we became profligate spenders and big-government bureaucrats.”
Mueller went on: “It is very unpopular to be a Republican right now, but it is very popular to be a conservative. The conservative brand is the most popular brand in the country, but we didn’t run as conservatives.”
As to who, if anybody, will replace the current Republican National Committee chair Mike Duncan, Republicans are split, though Michael Steele is being mentioned a great deal.
Steele, an African-American, is a former lieutenant governor of Maryland and currently the chairman of GOPAC, which trains Republican candidates (and was once chaired by Gingrich).
While Republicans are still maneuvering — the election of the next chairman will be by the 168 RNC members and won’t take place until January — Steele already has a band of admirers.
“Steele would be excellent,” said Duf Sundheim, former chair of the California Republican Party. “I am hearing Michael is definitely interested and that Newt is not going to run.”
(Gingrich issued a statement Tuesday that could be seen as bowing out of the race — though it left a small amount of wiggle room. “A number of people have asked me to consider running for Republican National Committee chair. They have been very flattering, and I am very honored by their support,” Gingrich said. “However, my job as an American first is to develop a tri-partisan approach to developing solutions for the challenges we face. I use the word tri-partisan to designate the concept of attracting Democrats, Republicans, and independents to solutions that unify most Americans.”)
Sundheim said of Michael Steele: “He understands where the party needs to go, he has got a strong set of principles, he is well able to articulate a message in all the media forms, and can take that message to the growing areas of the country — youth and minorities — and he does very well with women. He is the future of the party.”
But one influential Republican believes that RNC members are going to insist that the next chair come from the RNC.
“As to the new chair, don’t pay any attention to people who aren’t on the RNC,” he told me. “This is not a good thing, but the current RNC believes only one of their own should be chair. Maybe a dozen have a clue politically — and that’s being very kind. None (as chairman) could be an ideas leader or command the substantive respect of Republican senators or representatives.”
A current member of the RNC told me that few who are now serving in that body have ever gone through what they are now going through.
“There are currently only 31 members of the committee who have been on the committee to elect a chairman without a Republican in the White House,” he said. “When you have the White House, the president tells you who to have as chair and you make that pick.”
The RNC member also said 76 members “have only been on the RNC for a couple of years” and it is a “relatively young committee in terms of service.”
He named six current members of the RNC who are seriously considering running for the chair: Katon Dawson of South Carolina, Jim Greer and Shawn Steel of Florida, Saul Anuzis of Michigan, Ron Nehring of California, and Tina Benkiser of Texas.
But he also cautioned that the seat might not change hands at all. “There is a lot of sentiment to keep Mike Duncan,” the RNC member said. “He did a fabulous job in a tough environment.”
One well-connected Republican e-mailed me: “The chair should be someone who has run/knows/appreciates grass-roots and ground game, has the capability to pull us out of the tech/Internet ditch we’re in and has the substance and knowledge to turn the RNC into an ideas factory that can forge the new GOP platform with our elected officials.”
But he was also pessimistic of that happening if the RNC insists on an RNC member as chair. “This election will be one huge wasted opportunity,” he said.
Who gives a rats a$$ what Newt thinks ... just another has been that thought with the head of his crank. So what happens to people like him ... the retired useless generals ... the toe suckers ... (morris) the internal wannabees’s (huckaphony) .. every single one of them losers. They become the media darlings ... consultants ... people like Hannity thrive on them.
Worthless dirtbags
Who gives a rats a$$ what Newt thinks ... just another has been that thought with the head of his crank. So what happens to people like him ... the retired useless generals ... the toe suckers ... (morris) the internal wannabees’s (huckaphony) .. every single one of them losers. They become the media darlings ... consultants ... people like Hannity thrive on them.
Worthless dirtbags
We are in the wilderness, to be sure.
Obama used every bit of media that they could find, from the Networks and newspapers to text messages, Facebook, and viral videos.
They understand the 21st century political campaign.
Conservatives thought that talk radio, and 1st generation blogs is all that we needed.
Wow! That's what I call takin' one for the team!
Obama had message writers, strategy checkers, distributed network admins for verifying actual transmission of msgs and management of the opt-out requests, and canvassers to create the core of the non-optin sms target numbers.
It may seem that SMS is free, but one SMS broadcast put out without campaign controls could turn into a scandal.
It's expensive to do things like that right. And if McCain tried to pully the whammy on credit card donations like Obama did, then what?
Don't blame it all on McCain. Look how many times FR has crapped out. You think DailyKos or DUmmy servers have ever been silenced by DDoS?
Our base is unreliable and our reps in congress are hogtied by conflicting single-issue voters, our public message is mixed and muted, and all of the movement's great communicators died over the past decade (Reagan, Buckley, etc.)
Of the few remaining popular voices for conservatism, one is a canadian and one is a hot-water heater salesman. (Steyn, Rush)
What went wrong: "W"orse!
The Republicans need to choose strict conservatives as their candidates! Then we my have a party we can proudly vote for. All this other stuff Newty and others are jawboning about mean nothing if the conservatives don’t take over and run the Republican Party. Democrat beats Democrat Lite every time.
“How many times must someone place their hand on a hot burner before they “Get A Clue”?”
Now you are talking about George Bush. And he is still placing his hand on a hot burner.
My thoughts exactly. Newt has some good points about needing to be better at campaigning, but the real problem is a “Party that stands for Nothing”.
The GOP head sent me an email yesterday asking for money and this is what I sent in reply:
“For decades Republicans promised voters that they would reduce the size and power of government if only they controlled the White House … if only they controlled the Senate … if only they controlled the entire government. Beginning in 2001, they did.
And instead of smaller government, Republicans delivered a trillion dollars in new federal spending, exploding earmarks, massive new entitlements, expanded federal control over schools and marriage, and a surge in executive power. After a great start on dealing with the war in Iraq, Republicans managed to screw it up almost beyond recognition. Finally, Republicans in Congress and the White House were complicit in creating and delivering a financial meltdown the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression.
And you have the gall to ask for MORE money? You’ve got to have lost your mind!”
It's coming, probably sooner rather than later. DemocRats absolutely love power and the temptation for them to overreach in the next year or so is huge. They will, it's just a matter of time....
Yeah, I'm not able to be a give a lot, so the emails they send out almost discourage one from giving small amounts, though I gave more to this campaign than any before.
“Mueller went on: “It is very unpopular to be a Republican right now, but it is very popular to be a conservative. The conservative brand is the most popular brand in the country, but we didn’t run as conservatives.”
BINGO!!!
As for the RNC having any influence in selecting its leader - the RNC screwed up - BIG TIME. If we don’t get a Steele or a Gingrich or some kind of conservative OUTSIDER, the GOP is dead, and we, as conservative should do our very best to clean house by expediting its funeral and replacement with a party which more closely reflects the views of most Americans and opposes the radical leftists in the Democrat Party.
What went wrong?! McCain's campaign is what went wrong. That and his foolish idea worrying about what the friggin' MSM had to say about it every step of the way.
If McCain had had any smarts at all he would have run an ad showing the two planes crashing into the World Trade Center with a voiceover saying, "If this happens again, who do you want in the White House?"
Of course the MSM would have gone apesh!t but so what? They would have known it was effective and that's why they would have ofjected.
McCain's problem was he let Obama and the media dictate the discussion instead of doing so himself.
Thanks Captain Obvious
They do, and they do it all the time!
But with the media and the education system in their pockets, the vast majority of Americans will never know.
Tell Newt to go in search of several pairs of gonads! They’re in short supply in DC. Bush’s numbers are where they are because of a lack of gonads for the past eight years at all levels of the GOP. What an American disgrace!! These morons disgrace American patriots going back to 1776 and they turn my stomach.
Barack Obama is a wholly owned subsidiary of the hard left. He is also extremely arrogant. I do not believe for a moment that he will want anyone to tell him to violate his own principles and "reach across the aisle". Remember, this is a guy who defended being friends with bomber Bill Ayers by saying he was also friendly with (gasp!) a conservative! They are that foreign to him. He will feel no pressure to move to the center to work with them, anymore than I would feel a need to reach out to, say, Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator, if I were president.
Which is why I think he will overreach. He won't be able to help himself. Bill Clinton did it but he was willing to basically abandon his principles in order to stay elected after the 1994 congressional loss, after which he stood for basically nothing. Barack Obama is an idealogue and will never do that. A man like Obama would have spit in the faces of conservatives before he would have signed the Welfare Reform Act that Bill Clinton signed. And so he ignore the right and the center. He will embrace the left and cram through a liberal agenda.
He has just two years, because he will sustain massive congressional losses if he does this.
“They understand the 21st century political campaign. Conservatives thought that talk radio, and 1st generation blogs is all that we needed.”
What the Democrats had was close to FOUR BILLION DOLLARS to spend, much of it from questionable sources, and overseas.
The Democrats BOUGHT this election, plain and simple.
They violated campaign laws from beginning to end. Remember, not even HILLARY could compete against the power of Obama’s untraceable cash machine.
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