Posted on 04/12/2010 7:38:12 AM PDT by Reaganesque
I read an article by Malcom Gladwell, “How David Beats Goliath: When Underdogs Break the Rules,” some months ago and have been thinking about ever since. In it, Gladwell highlights an analysis of when Davids took on Goliaths in history. The Goliaths, the ones ten-times stronger in the fight, won the encounters over 70% of the time. But in instances when the Davids broke the rules and stuck to a strategy that played to their strengths, the Davids’ win percentage rose to almost 64%. In other words, the Davids won when they chose not to play by the assumed rules of engagement. Something about this just clicked with me, and I believe it might lead to a new strategy for conservatives.
The key anecdote for me in Gladwell’s article involved Doug Lenat, the developer of an artificial-intelligence program that he called Eurisko to compete in a war game tournament. Essentially Lenat fed the rules of the tournament to Eurisko, which allowed a gamer to spend $1 trillion on a naval force. The program learned the rules and then spent hours upon hours coming up with a strategy to defeat all the other contestants. “Most teams fielded some version of a traditional naval fleet—an array of ships of various sizes, each well defended against enemy attack.” Gladwell writes. “Eurisko thought differently. ‘The program came up with a strategy of spending the trillion on an astronomical number of small ships like P.T. boats, with powerful weapons but absolutely no defense and no mobility,’ Lenat said. ‘They just sat there. Basically, if they were hit once they would sink. And what happened is that the enemy would take its shots, and every one of those shots would sink our ships. But it didn’t matter, because we had so many.’” Lenat won the tournament in a runaway as his P.T. boats swarmed the opposing battleships. He entered the tournament the next year, won again … and was essentially asked not to compete in future tournaments.
So what’s my point? We are confronted by ever-expanding government in DC, and the massive unions are not going anywhere. Yet the current strategy with many conservatives is seemingly to become a mirror image of that which they are supposed to be combating. The conservative movement has been playing by Goliath’s rules for too long. It’s time conservatives built a flexible, nimble American Armada of P.T. boats to beat the Left, but not at its own game.
I’ve always wondered why if we don’t believe Washington has the answers, why do so many conservative groups decide to come to DC? I’m proposing that the conservative movement change its strategy from DC-centric to more state-based: most conservatives would agree with federalism, yet at times our behavior says just the opposite.
I think in many ways we’ve been trying to create our own battleships in DC to combat the Left’s battleships, and if we continue to do so, we will never win. Many would say that the Heritage Foundation is the largest DC-based conservative battleship, with an annual budget of probably $60-70 million. But to put it into perspective, the National Education Association’s annual budget is $307 million. SEIU’s is $300 million. AFL-CIO’s is $120 million plus. I could continue on laying out the annual budgets of left-leaning groups, but I think you get the point.
We are faced with a massive Leviathan of government, surrounded by a fleet of allied battleships, and we’re going to try and compete with this? We’re going to try and play by their rules? If we play by Goliath’s rule, we’ll never win. All we’ll be doing is fighting rearguard action against the inevitability of statism.
It is time to challenge the way things are done: the Davids only win if they don’t play by Goliath’s rules. They only win, as Gladwell points out, if they do what might be considered socially horrifying at the onset. So what is the new David approach? It’s the 1,000 new light and agile P.T. boats. Let me highlight a few examples of what I believe to be the winning strategy for conservatives.
Most of you have never heard of Wendy Day in Michigan, but Wendy has launched a 501c3 and 501c4 on what many would consider shoe string budgets. For pennies on the dollar, with projects like Make Lansing Listen, she has begun to wreak havoc in their state. State legislators on both sides of the aisle know who she is now. Recently, she shone the light on SB 731, which would have given $4 million in taxpayer dollars to SEIU, not only spreading the word about the bill, but demanding to know what the real reason was for handing over the money to an ally of ACORN’s. Her message is one of honesty and integrity: you promised the voters you would vote one way and yet now that you are in Lansing, your votes reflect an ideology diametrically opposed to that of your constituents.
Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texans, which he runs with the help of one staffer, has brought about significant changes in Texas politics. In 2007, he targeted a Republican lawmaker who was constantly thwarting tax reform and spending restraint. He did mail, phone calls and targeted appearances in the district during the summer. The lawmaker’s response was to mostly ignore the clamor from his constituency, then go to his local party chair and say in essence: “I’ve had enough of Sullivan and his guys talking about my record, so I’m getting out.” He was replaced in the next election by one of Empower Texans’ “taxpayer advocates.” Last year, Sullivan did auto-dial calls into two legislators’ districts to inform constituents of their elected officials’ real voting record. The two officials complained to a reporter that Empower Texans was “behind” mean auto-dials. The reporter called Sullivan, heard the audio and he laughed the whole thing off. But what Sullivan did was provide greater accountability for those officials by informing their constituents of what was actually taking place in Austin.
And then there is the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, with a budget that is a fraction of most conservative organizations, and its forty-plus investigative reporters. It is these very reporters who break stories like last fall’s phantom Congressional districts. American Majority, (which, for full disclosure, is the group I founded and run) with just under 20 staff, did 151 activist and candidate trainings in 26 states last year, training just under 5,000 people, 510 of which were candidates running for state and local office. Just the other month, 71 American Majority alumni filed to run for office in Arkansas, from school board to state senate. In February, 19 of the 25 candidates identified and trained by American Majority won school board races in Oklahoma. While not massive numbers, the model works. I’m pretty sure next year or the next we’ll be saying, “Of the 200 some school board candidates in Oklahoma, 150 plus won.”
What’s my point here? Two things: these are relatively small groups, with very, very low overhead. I joked about this before, but it’s true: American Majority’s entire annual budget in 2009 was less than the Republican National Committee’s 2009 airfare budget. Second, all of the groups mentioned above are focused very much on the idea that not only is all politics local, but all accountability is local.
The problems we face in DC are not going to be fixed by camping in DC and growing our mini-versions of the government aircraft carrier or the Left’s battleships. It’s going to be about creating our American Armada of 1,000 P.T. boat organizations, highly mobile, hard-hitting, able to adapt quickly and hit fast. Only when we shift our paradigm are we going to be able to win.
bttt
ping
The founders always wished though that they could play by those rules though. Washington lamented how he could not field a European style army. And it was the final force on force battles like Yorktown that decided the war.
See the book in this post: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2489017/posts .
It outlines a strategy similar to what you are endorsing. Not mega centralized groups, but many smaller groups. It uses ideas from free market economics create the system (think Smith’s inivisible hand applied to politics).
I heard another example of this where someone said they could beat any of the greatest football teams in history if he were allowed to field as many players as he wanted. It didn’t matter how good the other team was or how good his own players were if every square inch of the field was covered with one of his players.
That’s correct. We had very few true battlefield victories in the War for Independence. The Regulars were over-stretched and very far from home. So, as a means to keeping their numbers up to fighting strength they would conclude a battle after suffering so many casualties. In most cases they could’ve stayed on the field and anihilated the Americans but at too great a price.
I agree. For example, every year the pro-life movement has a parade in Washington that numbers in the millions. Every year the press **ignores** it. Isn't it time to do something different?
Yes, these large Tea Party and pro-life marches are wonderful for building moral, but why not try having a pro-life march next year right on the doorsteps of MSNBCABCCBS in New York City? It could be that they might even have a larger turn out. Why not a massive turn out in the drive ways of the CEOs of the media organizations that refuse to fairly report on pro-life and conservative issues.
By the way, has anyone noticed that "flash mobs" are organized within minutes by teens using cell phones? What would happen if one million people simply all decided at the same time to show up at opportune times and places?
While large marches are useful and should not be abandoned, ultimately if conservatives fail to win elections the nation loses. Winning elections means aggressive poll watching, vigorous purging of the voter rolls, and block by block "get out the vote" organizers.
I've said over and over again, if we insist on playing in a rigged game by the one-party Democrat-Republican monopoly's rules, we will lose.
And so, the first thing we must do is change the rules and stop playing their game.
Sounds like an excellent plan!
Make THEM react to US, instead of the other way around.
This sounds like obama and the dems taking on America by not playing by the traditions and rules.
The small pt boats are the family. Make those stronger, and send our kids out into the country with Christian values and a love of country. That is how we take the nation back, by denying the liberals their cannon fodder.
The full title of the book I referenced is: “The Conservative Hand - A Manifesto to Achieve Conservative Political Goals.” It has a pretty detailed plan of how to get this done.
It’s great to use generalized examples about boats and football teams, but to get to get something done you need a specific plan. The book lays that out. If you are really serious about doing something (and not just talking about doing something), then I strongly urge you to go to Amazon.com and buy the book.
I don’t mean to come across too strongly, but I’ve noticed there are a lot of conservatives that want to do something spontanious and easy (post an idea on a message board, show up at a rally), but when it comes to the next step—come up with a detailed plan to get something done and commit to doing it—the ranks thin out pretty quick.
He is expounding my posts for some time now. We always lose by following liberal rules. Our behavior and posts on the conservative bastion of Free Republic is policed by politically correct sanctimoniousness. Their rules
There is another game, TEGWAR, the Exciting Game Without Any Rules. We should be playing TEGWAR and making new rules. The Rats just trashed the rules to pass the Health bill. That is the game we should be playing.
There should be new rules that exterminate those who persist in trashing America.
I think that while not that radical, Sarah Palen is a TEGWAR player. Her lead must be followed
This kind of skirmishing was not unique. It certainly was not "utterly outside contemporary military thinking at the time". It had been practiced for centuries beforehand (although admittedly the Patriots were particularly good at it). The British were perfectly capable of doing the same thing back, and did so on numerous occasions.
The problem with this kind of fighting is that although it can inflict casualties and delay an enemy, it is rarely decisive in its own right. Contemporary military commanders recognised this. They fought lined up in neat rows for a very good reason. It worked. It is rare for one combatant in a conflict to "steal a march" with some tactical breakthrough. It is even rarer for them to maintain that edge for very long. Similarly, I would suspect this hypothetical wargame navy won because it "played to the rules" of the game itself. It wouldn't work in real life for the very simple reason that the world's military would have deployed such a force if it did. They do, after all, spend their lives working this kind of stuff out. Straight off the cuff I would argue that a giant fleet of PT boats would struggle because a) they don't have much range and b) they aren't very seaworthy. They probably couldn't fire their weapons in rough weather and a gale would sink most of them.
You have to keep an open mind. Things do change. But you also have to be careful. There are very good reasons why some things are done the way they are. It's because they work better than any of the alternatives. :)
I don’t think the guy meant running a perennial third party loser for president and getting 48,000 votes was the answer.
mark
“a giant fleet of PT boats would struggle because a) they don’t have much range and b) they aren’t very seaworthy.”
I’ve never played this game, but I would also think that such a flotilla also would be very vulnerable to being taken out with just a few large weapons (e.g., fuel-air explosives, as one example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9xCgNdZPKk). So yes, the sheer number might preclude taking them out with individual rounds of artillery or whatever, but their small size and inferior seaworthiness would correspondingly elevate their vulnerability to other types of attacks.
They were grassroots, principled, patriotic citizens who decided to put him on the ballot so that they would have a true choice that fit their consciences, since John Judas McCain did not.
We will preserve our right to act according to our conscience no matter how much folks like you hate it.
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