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.
.....
People hear what they want to hear (especially when something or someone is "Lost in Translation" as Newt's very precise words often are, deliberately or by chance, often colored by misperceptions).
It was Newt Gingrich that originated and passed DOMA (Defense Of Marriage Act) when he was a Speaker of the House.
Republicans could have had "One Man One Woman Marriage" constitutional amendment long time ago, if they were as proactive / activist as Dems are. But after Newt left Congress they were too busy shaking down K Street and Wall Street, while blaming Newt for any problems they themselves were creating.
Instead of promoting "civil unions" or any other accommodations for "gay relationships" (other than marriage) which is what Gingrich is suggesting, they flatly deny that these "relationships" are legal, on moral/biblical grounds and basis. Without an "escape hatch" Dems are pushing for recognition of "gay marriage" preemptively in some states and it makes it so much more difficult to fight the "discrimination" charge.
Once again, Republicans - by not being proactive in their ideological goals - allowed Democrats to seize the initiative and the micro-issue which cost several percentage points and electoral votes and actually ceded the moral issue to them.
"Learning to stay on offense requires a strategic vision that enables you to constantly orient to the future, an operational system that allows you to be inside your opponent's decision cycle..." - Newt Gingrich
The talk about not "accepting" states' recognition of "gay marriage"? What has been done about it?
"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality" - Ayn Rand
Newt is being shot as a messenger, so next time Republicans / conservative may not even get the message, i.e., why bother telling people something they ignore and don't want to hear?
"Don't shoot the messenger, or you may never again be warned of impending danger"
"Being brilliant isn't always an advantage. Sometimes it's a cruel and unusual punishment"
Down in the street they're all singing and shouting
Staying alive though the city is dead
Hiding their shame behind hollow laughter
While you are crying alone on your bed
Pity Cassandra that no one believed you
But then again you were lost from the start
Now we must suffer and sell our secrets
Bargain, playing smart, aching in our hearts
Sorry Cassandra I misunderstood
Now the last day is dawning
Some of us wanted but none of us would
Listen to words of warning
But on the darkest of nights
Nobody knew how to fight
And we were caught in our sleep
Sorry Cassandra I didn't believe
You really had the power
I only saw it as dreams you would weave
Until the final hour
... I'm sorry Cassandra
I'm sorry Cassandra
(Cassandra by ABBA, 1982)
Sorry, Newt...
Thanks puppy.
Not at all. You can read any of my posts, to see my views and what convictions I hold... why is it hard to get this..out of the 2 parties now, the republicans need to go back to traditional polices that they win with. The third party will only come when the rebellion starts and frankly, I see no patriot that I am excited to follow at this time. If the GOP, does not change, they will be the minority and if the Clintons get back in power, as Newt explains, we as a nation are forever damaged. Clinton's influence and liberal testament to the courts removed the pledge to our nation, removed God from our society, protected and made rights to special groups and to where the military has been used as a social experiment along with cover up after cover up. The GOP has to recognize this to come back to basics with common sense solutions and support God back into our society. I think some of the negativity comes from making sure that Newt has no importance.
You appear to be a lazy whiner conspiratorial type, a large part of why we lost at the ballot box. You're not interested in wrestling reality and the hard work ahead. Maybe YOU who should go away... back to your fantasies.
I know for a fact that all you care about is the party. You really could care less about Conservatism.
Newt, the Republican Party rejected you. Stop trying to help them and start working on a conservative 3rd party. You’re wasting your time with these hacks.
Where oh where will we find one? The ones that could fix it will never get a chance, short of a complete do over.
When Newt did that, he was trying to win a (primary) election, and his perception of how that issue would sit with the voters was exactly correct.
I identified, right here, in December 2011-March 2012 why nominating Romney was crazy, and Bain was one of my principal issues.
Newt understood this better than any other candidate available in the winter of 2011-12, and he should get some credibility for it.
It is comments like this that eradicate completely any vestige of respect I may have retained for his conservative past.
Regardless of anything else that happens, I do not have to accept this. I can have it imposed on me, pushed on me, forced on me, legislated on me, but if I think it is wrong (which I do) I will never, ever "accept" it of my own free will.
And for Gingrich to say that, well...that is the same as people like him saying we have to "accept" amnesty and uncontrolled immigration.
If those two things alone banish me to a political exile for refusing to willingly go along, then that is the way it is going to be.
Compromising with evil means accepting evil. There is no "win-win" in it.
Thank you for articulating this very important point.
Quite frankly, we are missing the forest for the trees. The Obama ground game was not superior, it was the time honored Democrat tradition of stuffing the ballot box. The post campaign analysis data is as fraudulent as the pre-election polling was, all designed to lead us to the wrong conclusions.
To have voting in the urban areas of 85-110% of the voters is laughable on its face. Those people, or names, were voted "for". What we saw for this election was Chicago thug politics writ large from coast to coast.
If this country is so stupid to put this clown back in office for four years, we are too far gone for principles like freedom, free-market capitalism and individual rights to take hold again, no matter what the "strategy".
And yo capitulate tot he lies and propaganda by saying we have to accept immigration amnesty, gay marriage, and to stop worrying about abortion is just giving strength to the lie.
No thanks to that.
We need another political party to get our message out. The lesson of 2012 and 2008 is that the GOP is too far gone to ever represent conservatives or to be trusted to do so ever again in the future.
Lucy has held the football for us for the last time.
I suppose that’s true, but he also thereby contributed to the power of the Bain issue. I agree that nominating Romney was a mistake, and personally would’ve preferred someone else.
Well, his punctuation is abominable, but his ideas are sound. Can’t say the same about his character.
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