Posted on 12/24/2012 7:07:23 PM PST by CutePuppy
To Chairman Reince Priebus,
Thank you for inviting me to present an analysis for the Republican National Committee about the current challenges Republicans face at every level.
Our working together goes all the way back to your early years in politics. I enjoyed doing events with you in Wisconsin and admired the work you did in helping Scott Walker become Governor.
I was delighted when you became RNC Chairman and I know how much you accomplished in the last two years rebuilding RNC finances and developing a better ground game.
Your creation of the Growth and Opportunity Project chaired by Henry Barbour is a very important step toward assessing what we have to learn from 2012 and what we have to do to succeed in 2014 and 2016.
I look forward to working with Henry and his team and hope this paper provides some useful thoughts about both the GOP's past record of responding successfully to election challenges and to the changing nature of American society and politics.
Reforming the Republican Party so it can create a governing majority is an enormous challenge which includes every element of the party. However as you have observed the RNC has a key role to play in bringing together the ideas and the critiques and helping shape a clear vision of a successful GOP.
I begin with three famous quotes about solving problems.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Albert Einstein.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." Einstein
“When I couldn't solve a problem I would always make it bigger until I could find the solution. I never solved it by making it smaller,” President and General of the Armies Dwight Eisenhower on problem solving in World War Two.
PROPOSITION
The scale of strategic thinking Republicans need is vastly larger and deeper than any current proposal recognizes. The Republican National Committee will play a particularly important role in gathering information, encouraging analysis, hosting dialogues about key changes, and helping implement strategies for victory in 2014 and 2016.
This will require a deep, bold, thorough, and lengthy process of rethinking.
I was so shaken by how wrong I was in projecting a Republican win on election night that I have personally set aside time at Gingrich Productions to spend the next six months with our team methodically examining where we are and what we must do.
In that context I was delighted when you appointed a distinguished team to lead the analysis for the Republican National Committee. I appreciate your invitation to work directly with them on a process that will be important to the entire Republican Party and ultimately to the country.
This paper is a step in that direction.
This initial analysis is direct, tough minded, and daunting.
As you recognize, the Republican National Committee is not merely the junior partner of whoever becomes the next presidential nominee.
The Republican NATIONAL Committee has a key role to play in every level of party activity including Congress, Governors, state legislators and local offices and activists.
That key role has often led to profound improvements in the GOP at a time of electoral disaster.
.....
Discount the naysayers on this thread. They want a third party, have their head deep up Ron Pauls ass, and are too freakin’ lazy to even give $5 to their favorite GOP candidate.
And some here are liberal provocateurs...
Newt is right. There is of course the voter fraud and special interest group money, which he doesn’t and can’t address here. Nonetheless, what he speaks on is correct.
*bump*
Who did you see Romney run against? I saw him run against everything and everyone conservative he could find. But he rolled over for Obama. He was chosen precisely because he was least able to contrast himself from Obama. Then he ran as if he and Obama were best friends.
We lost because neither Romney nor the GOP-e ever had any intention of defeating Obama because they have the same objectives. It is the GOP-e that wants you to believe that unless everyone in the GOP becomes liberal, republicans will never win another election. Are you one of those?
This is a step in the right direction. Thank God we have Newt.
Gingrich lost all respect from me when he started flip-flopping in the breeze over many social issues. His own shortcomings morally aside - coming out with both barrels saying Republicans need to accept “gay marriage”, only to spin it back around the other way within “hours” is a sign - he has lost it.
"If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his friend" - Abraham Lincoln
"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" - Abraham Lincoln
To many young people (and many not so young), the "man-made global warming / climate change" is by now a matter of faith, even, as they might believe, scientifically-based "faith" - you will not get through to them about science or fraud or possible positive aspects of AGW (read recent article WSJ: Matt Ridley: Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change, 2012 December 18).
You will not even get to the first base with them, if you are considered a "climate change denier" - they simply will not listen to you or your arguments - you will be challenging their faith.
If you don't challenge their faith, it's very easy to provide the argument that the right "green solutions" (like "clean, cheap, green" nuclear energy, natural gas, filtrated oil and antracite, and even localized - not expensive farm-based - solar energy) will make their energy more plentiful, cheaper and will not require taxes, fees, more regulation and (most importantly for them) "sacrifices" that Democratic doomsday versions of "global warming"/"climate change" are requiring them to accept.
You don't need to change their faith in "climate change" to convert them from liberal drones demanding drastic actions (meaning more taxes, fees, subsidies for "green" technologies like expensive and inefficient wind turbines and solar farms, which are nothing more than crony socialism) into allies who will be on your side of the "green revolution" and leave Democrats in the dust on the issue, because their only interest in the hoax is government-doled money.
But to be able to talk to them about this, you have to shed the image of Republican "environmental denier" first, or you won;t ever get through the wall. You don't have to agree with them on the issue of AGW - in fact, that issue itself becomes irrelevant, a side issue - the solution and the price to pay are the only issues that are relevant and there you have much better hand than Democrats who only care to exploit the issue to take more money from them. Whether they will come to see the GW facts later or not is less important than getting them to do the "right thing" due to their own self-interest.
This completely undermines the Democrats "environmentalist" raison d'être. Winning the war without firing a shot, turning "enemies" into allies can be done with a little strategic thinking. Doesn't work when the radio hosts only look for "beating them with facts" - where did it get them, us? To quote Charlie Sheen, are we "winning"? If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it... what good is the fact that it fell?
Problem is that most people often only read the headlines and opinions about Newt (i.e., "Newt translated") instead of reading/listening/watching the entirety of what he himself actually wrote/said... and doing a little thinking themselves.
An example of an insuperable problem for today's Republican party.
There is only one "positive answer" for "lower cost, better outcome health care"...and that is to reduce government involvement in the process.
Today's Republican party establishment, however, cannot accept a reduction in government involvement. Anything that might reduce Washington's power is a non-starter to Washington Repubblicans.
It confines itself totally to technical and structural political questions. There is no mention of ideology.
One of the reasons for the Democrat party's success is that they all share the same ideology and are single-mindedly pursuing political victory so as to implement their agenda.
Beyond winning elections, the Republican party has no ideology, no agenda. There is no shared goal. No vision of the future.
More than anything, this absence of ideology has made the Republican establishment more vacuous with every passing election. What is their objective beyond a.) gaining the committee chairmanships and being in charge of spending the money and b.) winning the next election?
Hint: It sure as hell has nothing to do with shrinking government.
“We didn’t have to lose, we lost because of the simple minded couldn’t accept that Romney would be better than King Obama and sunk the ship with a load of shi!. Good thinking.”
Your logic is not that great oh logical one... We lost because the e-repub’s insisted on running a rino who couldn’t get the conservative vote.
Mitt was just Obama “lite”. Of course your going to loose with that plan...
I haven't watched Fox much recently. Are they still putting Karl Rove on daily, or have they cut back sharply on his appearances as was said soon after election night?
Don’t know. Fox changed their format so much about the only place I get my news of late is from Jim Rob’s play house.
I have to agree with your post.
Newt is likely the best political historian and theorist alive today, but on the other hand he has a tinear on things like the Peelousi Couch and to his “public image”.
Although I do think Newt wants his letter to RNC to assist solving the problem and take control of our Country and destiny away from the liberal progressives, he does not wish to hand the reins over to non-politicians or to too much grass-roots. Newt’s likely purpose for all his public actions in the coming few years is to become the leader of a more conservative RNC, if not the President.
A few weeks back another thread had some “facts” regarding some lawsuit between RNC and DNC which now forbids anyone connected with RNC from complaining about or even mentioning voter fraud. I hope that such lawsuit is fiction, but actions, or inactions in this case, do speak louder than words.
This is a dense wall of text. I did read a lot of it but I am out of patience.
Question: Was combating the massive Democratic voting fraud addressed?
Screw the RNC and their greedy pulled back wives.
The only thing thisxblue blood country club banker faction of the degenerate Washingtonian political class is good at is providing cover for the communist faction democrats intheir group effort to steal everything that isn’t nailed down from those outside the Beltway
NO SOLUTIONS WILL COME FROM WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON IS THE PROBLEM
The only thing the Washingtonians can be counted on to do is take more of our cash and freedoms
Newt said sitting on that couch with Pelosi was one of his biggest mistakes. I’m not sure he’s obliged to give the die yards on FR a pound of his flesh.
Screw that degenerate mass murderer Abraham Lincoln too.
Waged war on the sons of the Founders and destroyed the Republic and the concept of Federalism
I read the whole thing. Newt’s intelligence is why he was, and is, my man. If the GOPe ignores Newt’s words, it is doomed to failure.
A[nother] fine post.
One problem with it, though. It confines itself totally to technical and structural political questions. There is no mention of ideology.
Of course, later in the same post you show the reason for that so I'll just quote you:
Beyond winning elections, the Republican party has no ideology, no agenda. There is no shared goal. No vision of the future.
QEI. Not much more to say... sadly.
P.S. One of the GOP presidential candidates in a recent elections cycle proudly proclaimed his reason for running: "I am not a manager. I am not a visionary..."
QED
Please don't give up politically on young women.
Romney won a majority vote from white women age 18-30.
Newt forgot to mention that.
The issue with young people is this...
Race.
The percentage of youngsters who are non-white is growing.
Non-white youngsters vote 80% Democrat.
White youngsters vote 55%-60% Republican.
Conservatives need to take their message directly to non-white youth.
Conservatives need to publicly debate the most gifted non-white Socialists in America, again and again, at non-white youth venues.
Even with the MSM overwhelmingly against us, we can still peel off a couple percentage points of non-white voters each election, and we can force the Democrats to defend the turf they thought they owned.
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