That's right...one half of a billion ("billion"...with a "b") dollars on average at $80 bucks at a whack!
It's time to throw out all the conventional wisdom...and soon!
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/11/20/obama_raised_half_a_billion_on.html
November 21, 2008
November 20, 2008
Blood-Letting and Scape-Goating
Some would suggest, like former Governor of New Jersey and former Bush EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman (CTW), that we need to be more "moderate" and should finally free ourselves from the grip of the "social fundamentalists". I believe that CTW, rather than being a "moderate" Republican is simply moderately "Republican". She does not always seemed convinced, even on those issues that are not as controversial as abortion and gay marriage.
While CTW lays out a well-formulated argument for just such a strategy in a recent Washington Post op-ed, do we need to, as LBJ said when he signed the Voting Right Act of 1965, "lose the South for the next 40 years" so as to compete in Connecticut, Oregon, or even her home state of New Jersey?
Chris Shays is a moderate Republican, in a center-left district in a solid blue state, and yet lost! In other years, in other elections, he had the same district profile and won. What made this year different? Gay marriage on the ballot in California, Arizona, and Florida? I don't think so.
In a rematch in Washigton State for the Governorship, the incumbent Gregoire barely got by Rossi in a solidly blue state against a blue tidal wave. Had to be the Rossi position on stem cells!
Do we purge the 35-40% (or more) makeup of the current party, and 20-22% of the voting electorate, for the sake of 5-10% of the "moderate" independent vote that is, at best, unreliable in elections?
Who is going to operate phone banks, literature drops, and GOTV door-to-door? The suits, checkwriters and bluehairs?
No..."true believers" are the grunts, the "worker-bees" for the party. If CTW thinks things are bad now, turn-off 40% of the party when they were already uninspired because of who we nominated.
I think CTW carefully misconstrues the meaning of the election results in order to validate the stale argument from a 4-year-old book!
While CTW lays out a well-formulated argument for just such a strategy in a recent Washington Post op-ed, do we need to, as LBJ said when he signed the Voting Right Act of 1965, "lose the South for the next 40 years" so as to compete in Connecticut, Oregon, or even her home state of New Jersey?
Chris Shays is a moderate Republican, in a center-left district in a solid blue state, and yet lost! In other years, in other elections, he had the same district profile and won. What made this year different? Gay marriage on the ballot in California, Arizona, and Florida? I don't think so.
In a rematch in Washigton State for the Governorship, the incumbent Gregoire barely got by Rossi in a solidly blue state against a blue tidal wave. Had to be the Rossi position on stem cells!
Do we purge the 35-40% (or more) makeup of the current party, and 20-22% of the voting electorate, for the sake of 5-10% of the "moderate" independent vote that is, at best, unreliable in elections?
Who is going to operate phone banks, literature drops, and GOTV door-to-door? The suits, checkwriters and bluehairs?
No..."true believers" are the grunts, the "worker-bees" for the party. If CTW thinks things are bad now, turn-off 40% of the party when they were already uninspired because of who we nominated.
I think CTW carefully misconstrues the meaning of the election results in order to validate the stale argument from a 4-year-old book!
Demographic Issues
Ideas on the demographics issues...
I tend to believe we lack credibility, not because of the things we stand for, but for the fact we don't articulate a strong enough message in communities where the demographics play against the conventional wisdom.
Why aren't we challenging the status quo in Harlem, which has a long-established ideological committment to the ways of W.E.B. Dubois and retell the stories of Booker T. Washington?
Let's say why the Rev. Martin Luther King was a Republican.
Let's ensure J.C. Watts and Michael Steele play prominent roles in the Party.
Let's invite more open ideological debates between Ken Blackwell and Cornell West.
Let's make Walter Williams, Star Parker, Thomas Sowell, Armstrong Williams, and Lynn Swann more accessible in the black community and have them speak about the power of conservative politics as a force for change and good.
I tend to believe we lack credibility, not because of the things we stand for, but for the fact we don't articulate a strong enough message in communities where the demographics play against the conventional wisdom.
Why aren't we challenging the status quo in Harlem, which has a long-established ideological committment to the ways of W.E.B. Dubois and retell the stories of Booker T. Washington?
Let's say why the Rev. Martin Luther King was a Republican.
Let's ensure J.C. Watts and Michael Steele play prominent roles in the Party.
Let's invite more open ideological debates between Ken Blackwell and Cornell West.
Let's make Walter Williams, Star Parker, Thomas Sowell, Armstrong Williams, and Lynn Swann more accessible in the black community and have them speak about the power of conservative politics as a force for change and good.
November 19, 2008
Some Thoughts...
Here's two of the competing arguments that I referenced earlier in regards to social conservatives in the GOP by Kathleen Parker and Jonah Goldberg.
Giving Up on God
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111802886.html
Don't jettison the religious right
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=8ae18eb4-dd2e-459a-9173-3cc3c02ab8cb
Giving Up on God
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111802886.html
Don't jettison the religious right
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=8ae18eb4-dd2e-459a-9173-3cc3c02ab8cb
An Introduction to Pachyderm Return
In light of the November 4th election, there has been much debate, scape-goating, teeth-knashing and blood-letting in regards to what went wrong. What direction should the GOP go? What is the current "State of the Union" of the Republican Party?
Should we be more conservative?
....more moderate?
....more pragmatic?
....more "centrist"?
....centralized...decentralized?
Is our problem message? Is it "delivery"? Is it incoherence?
Is the problem message at all?
Is the problem strategy? Tactics?
This blog will be my attempt to answer these questions and raise more. While I tend to be more conservative philosophically, I am pragmatic in my politics. I tend to believe that ideological purity is important, and platforms are important, but that those things that bind us, those principles that are shared and fundamental, are the secret to our success. They are what make Republicans "Republican" and they are what attract independent voters to vote Republican.
On many of those fundamentals, we have lost our way.
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