Posted on 11/12/2008 10:03:03 AM PST by RonnieFan
Don’t get me wrong Ronald Wilson Reagan is my favorite politician of the 20th Century but it seems that ever since Reagan conservatives have made two tactical errors: 1) A reliance on personalities to carry the message; and 2) Treating conservatism as a political dogma and not an ideological movement.
Our Reliance initially on Reagan and now persons like Rush, Hannity and others to carry the ball is a ‘from the top down’ attitude that directly conflicts with the very notion of conservatism. Reliance on personalities, no matter how true to the cause, allows the other side to attack the message by attacking the messenger. Why do you think the left has declared war on FoxNews? How many potential conservatives won’t listen to the message because the left has brainwashed them as to the messengers?
Our reliance on the Republicans, or any party, to be the conservative party will only lead to disappointment and missed opportunities. While maybe 70 to 80% percent of Republicans are “conservatives,” it is also true, that significant numbers of independents and even Democrats share conservative values on at least one topic.
Ask yourself, why it is that conservatives seem to be the most effective when our backs are to the wall? Hillary Care and Immigration reform are two examples where conservatives looked beyond party and personality and concentrated on ideology. With the former, we stopped a Democratic President and Congress; and on the latter, a Republican President.
There are several issues where the majority of America already agrees with us and many more areas where I believe they would if it wasn’t couched in personality and partisanship.
The cornerstone of conservatism is personal responsibility and individual imitative; it is time that these are applied in pushing conservatism itself. This is the communication era, conservatives need to utilize such to get the meaage out in a fashion where it isn't undercut by party affiliation or overshadowed by the personality of the messenger.
Attacking the messenger instead of the message is a political tactic older than the United States. The problem we have is an inability to link people's personal beliefs to that of the conservative movement. The message needs to be "packaged" in a meaningful way to different groups of people. It can be done.
Yeah, for example like “thinking.” This is why GOP has slid down the tubes. They forgot how to think and started relying on catch-phrases and financial geeks with spreadsheets.
Notice how fast the GOP got excited when Wall Street got threatened and look how fast they didn’t react to speculation driven gas price increases.
parsy, who left the sinking GOP ship back in 2003?
No. The GOP needs a different, better message. How do you go about packaging “We are the party of the rich and prefer credit card companies to human beings.”???? They ain’t too many ways to dress that turkey up.
parsy, who thinks Republicans need re-education camps.
Reliance on a party makes it difficult package in meaningful ways to different groups. It would likely involve attacking issues individually in order to create differing alliances. For example, creating a majority alliance on immigration may involve a vastly different make up then one for say tax reform.
I agree with you. I never equated the conservative message with today's GOP message.
One issue was the bail out. We all thought it was a horrible idea. And most of the country agreed with us. Unfortunately, our president and our candidate for president didn't.
That was the turning point of the campaign. If McCain hadn't looked like a fool trying to "suspend" his campaign and the debate, and had voted against the bail out, we would have won the election. With Obama and Bush supporting it, McCain could have instantly distanced himself from Bush and respected the wishes of the American people. He would have been a hero. And he would now be president-elect.
This party isn't going to be revived until we get rid of the Bushies, the McCains, and the neocons.
It is always very difficult to get a group of people to agree to any common principle, let alone how to apply it to individual issues. As such, I agree with your analysis. Nonetheless, the party, regardless of it being the GOP or another, must get back to basics. It takes gumption and insiders who are willing to scream, "what about the basics" whenever there are those that go off base.
You are wise. Down South there are a lot of conservative Democrats who manage to draw distinctions between themselves and Ted Kennedy and Barney Franks. I think the GOP went way off course somewhere with its embrace of Big Business over basically free enterprise. I defected when Bush signed off on the bankruptcy reform bill, something even Clinton hadn’t more morals than to sign off on.
parsy, who voted for Nixon in “72.
1) While governor, Reagan gave us no-fault divorce and liberal abortion laws while governor. While president, Reagan raised taxes and allowed too much spending, and appointed O'Conner and Kennedy to the Supreme Court. Reagan wasn't "REAGAN!".
2) We need to find the next conservative leader, not another "REAGAN!". My old pastor said that people spend too much falling in love with someone then looking for that person, rather than finding someone and falling in love with them. Palin and Jindal, my two favorites for 2008, both have areas where they do not appear to follow REAGAN! 100%. So, do we kick them to the curb?
Find someone, fall in love them. Otherwise we'll be looking at another McCain-shotgun wedding and more years in the wilderness.
I concur with you 100%!
Conservatives need to learn how to use the media fully.
The left learned to utilize TV, Newspapers, Social networking sites, Web 2.0, user-generated content, viral videos, radio, and more to mobilize this massive army of voters:
We relied on talk radio. As nice as talk radio is, it is a dinosaur of the 90s in the age of podcasts. How many younger people have AM radios or would actually wait for a show to come on in order to listen to it?
We thought that our little universe of blogs could actually balance out the NY Times and the AP. All they did was pass information from one to another. Conservative blogs spent more time reporting on what other conservative blogs were reporting, while Kos and Move-On were feeding directly into the networks.
Conservatism does depend on an image man too much. Rush, Newt, and Reagan cant do it all by themselves while we feel satisfied to hear a famous face repeat our beliefs so we dont feel the need to have to do anything on our own. This is how its been since 1990, and since then it almost feels like conservatism has become the lazy man’s political philosophy, where you really dont have to work for it as long as one media savvy person can do all the work for you.
When you watched the GOP Presidential Debate, most of the time spent during the entire debate was trying to convince us that each one of them is more Ronald Reagan than the other. Even Ron Paul...
This party isn’t going to be revived until we get rid of the Bushies, the McCains, and the neocons.
100% Correct! Have to get rid of the leftists and Neo-cons/Nearly-Coms
Indeed. Even McCain. I had to shut it off.
Conservatives need to learn how to use the media fully.
The left learned to utilize TV, Newspapers, Social networking sites, Web 2.0, user-generated content, viral videos, radio, and more to mobilize this massive army of voters:
Conservatives will use the media fully the instant journalism stops being inherently radical. I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you. This thread explains why journalism is, was, and always will be radical. And why journalism as we know it is a creation of the Nineteenth Century.
The Founders gave us our Constitution and our political foundations. Politics is what it is. Over the last eight years, the GOP chose to abandon conservatism in favor of a more moderate and liberal policy agenda. If you look, you'll see big government Republicanism and liberal socialism of the Democratic Party have a lot in common.
In order to re-instill the traditional values and beliefs of the conservative agenda within the GOP, there needs to be a grassroots revolution. When grassroots conservatives have something to believe in, they turn out and support Republicans. As they did in 1981, 1984, 1994, 2000 and 2004, all good examples of grassroots conservatives carrying the GOP to election victory.
In 2008, there was no grassroots conservative turn out for McCain and for good reason.
The article is painful to read but on target. The Conservative movement is just that. Their could even be such an animal as a conservative Democrat (once there was, anyway). Its not party—its ideals and a way of life. This is what is needed to re-build the GOP. If they will not—lets build a new party. Its got to come from the bottom up. We miss Reagan because he did all the heavy lifting for us. Now we must pick up the load he left for us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.