Party Wages War on GOP Voters

Townhall.com ^ | January 14, 2013 | Mark Baisley

[Kaslin]

The very quotable British novelist Samuel Butler observed that, “Self-preservation is the first law of nature.”  Reports coming from Washington seem to show that this instinct is increasingly demonstrated in a very short-sighted set of actions by institutional Republicans in light of recent successes where grassroots held their elected representatives’ feet to the fire; a fire fueled by the party platform.

Real Clear Politics has uncovered an organized, well-funded and concerted effort by Washington Republican insiders to circle the wagons around incumbents who may see primary challenges.  Scott Rasmussen described it in a headline as, “Republican Establishment Declares War on GOP Voters.”

Post-election analysis of November voting by Real Clear Politics and other pundits reveals a telling message from the behavior of the two most essential blocks of voters for Republican candidates, (1) Registered Unaffiliateds who voted for the Democrat, and (2) Registered Republicans who chose to not vote at all.  

According to Rasmussen’s monthly sampling taken throughout 2012, party affiliation among American voters averaged 36.29% Republican, 33.40% Democrat, and 30.30% for all others combined including Registered Unaffiliated voters.  So, if every voter cast a ballot for their own party’s nominee, Mitt Romney would be President, joined by a majority of fellow Republicans throughout most elections at every level across the states.

The Democratic Party’s attack messaging, like the “war against women” campaign, certainly hit their mark against Republican targets.  And anemic responses by Republican candidates did little to salvage potential votes from the unaffiliated electorate.

But the stats show that it was the Republican undervote that made the biggest difference in the outcome.  Millions of the party’s own simply did not vote, giving the 2.89% disadvantaged Democratic Party the opening that it needed to win.

While Republican Party leadership is evidently crafting a plan for its own perpetuity, a contrasting party platform has been authored by the rank and file that includes a distinct message of decentralized authority.  The mission statement as updated at the 2012 Republican National Convention reads, “Trust the people. Limit government. Respect federalism. Guarantee opportunity, not outcomes. Adhere to the rule of law. Reaffirm that our rights come from God, are protected by government, and that the only just government is one that truly governs with the consent of the governed.”

Voters whose personal philosophy is to the right of the political spectrum respond to just this kind of inspiration.  What appears on the surface to be diverse communities of interest, like the Tea Party, liberty groups, and socially conservative minorities, are in reality the girl next door who was frequently overlooked by Grand Old Party leadership in 2012.  Their votes, combined with millions of other members from the usually reliable silent majority, seem to have been withheld in the general election mostly in response to a feeling of abandonment.

Seemingly unrelated, two personal achievement awards were announced this week, setting an intriguing example of contrasting principles for Washington leadership to take note.  The Father’s Day Council named Bill Clinton as Father of the Year for 2013.  At about the same time, the National Baseball Hall of Fame announced that nobody will be inducted this year.

The Father’s Day Council explains that their mission is “to promote the celebration, observation, and preservation of the holiday ... Father's Day by focusing on the value of good sound parenting.”  Parenting Magazine’s understandably incredulous response was, “Clinton is certainly a tremendously accomplished man who has used his post-presidency to affect much positive change in the world. But father of the year?”  The reality is that the Father’s Day Council routinely disregards its own mission statement in favor of selecting a high profile celebrity who will bring in the bucks at their annual awards luncheon.  I hope they serve tongue in order to save the attendees from having to bite their own.

The membership of the Baseball Hall of Fame seems to respect their stated mission to “preserve the sport’s history, honor excellence within the game and make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball.”  Cooperstown announced that, “There were 569 ballots cast, the third highest total in the history of the voting, but none of the 37 candidates in the 2013 vote gained mention on the required 75 percent for election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.”  The disillusionment created by performance enhancing drugs have put Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa on hold while the sport enters its understandable phase of deliberation.

Washington Republicans will be making an enormous mistake if they choose to isolate themselves from the membership with immunity mechanisms in order to chase after the elusive hearts of unaffiliated voters.  A split party can have long-lasting consequences.  Here’s one; President Obama’s appointments will likely control every Supreme Court decision from year 2016 through 2040.

[onona]

“Trust the people. Limit government. Respect federalism. Guarantee opportunity, not outcomes. Adhere to the rule of law. Reaffirm that our rights come from God, are protected by government, and that the only just government is one that truly governs with the consent of the governed.”

Not too much to ask, is it ?

[sickoflibs]

RE :”According to Rasmussen’s monthly sampling taken throughout 2012, party affiliation among American voters averaged 36.29% Republican, 33.40% Democrat, and 30.30% for all others combined including Registered Unaffiliated voters. So, if every voter cast a ballot for their own party’s nominee, Mitt Romney would be President, joined by a majority of fellow Republicans throughout most elections at every level across the states.
The Democratic Party’s attack messaging, like the “war against women” campaign, certainly hit their mark against Republican targets. And anemic responses by Republican candidates did little to salvage potential votes from the unaffiliated electorate.
But the stats show that it was the Republican undervote that made the biggest difference in the outcome. Millions of the party’s own simply did not vote, giving the 2.89% disadvantaged Democratic Party the opening that it needed to win”

O and Dems had real get-out-the vote efforts in key swing states while stupid Rs were too busy patting themselves on the back telling each other how O was toast, till judgement day=election day.

“No Mitt, dont bring up Bengazi, you have the election in the bag, Rush said so”

Besides, Mitt got more votes than McCain did. If these non- voting Rs were in Red states that R won anyway then it had no effect.

[TomGuy]

The Republicans have a communication problem. They just can’t seem to get their message across to voters.

Voters still perceive them as the party of big business and the wealthy.

Of course, maybe the voters ARE understanding their message.

==

See a Pubbie. Watch him fold.

[Tupelo]

“Not too much to ask, is it ? “

From professional politicians, yes. As I have ranted about for years, the GOP-E hates conservatives. Conservatives expect their elected officials to:

“Trust the people. Limit government. Respect federalism. Guarantee opportunity, not outcomes. Adhere to the rule of law. Reaffirm that our rights come from God, are protected by government, and that the only just government is one that truly governs with the consent of the governed.”

The professional politicians ALL think their ‘careers’ are much more important than the hope, fears, wants, needs and desires of us little people.

[izzatzo]

It is of the GOP elites, they’re no different that democrats.

[maine yankee]

Here at Maine’s state convention, over half the delegates were liberty leaning republicans. Over half.

The old guard,mainstream,myopic party leaders went to great lengths in both words and actions to make them feel as unwelcome as possible.

After the state convention these liberty candidates were ridiculed and vilified by these same republicans at meetings, fundraisers, and in the press.

Think about this. Half the active grassroots delegates were told to go to h*ll.

And we are surprised to find they stayed home on election day ?

[cripplecreek]

Rush Goes On the Record with Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren (Dec 2011)

The Republican Party is trying to do something in this primary that is unprecedented. They're trying to split the conservative vote and win the primary with a moderate, with Romney. It's the other way around. You consolidate your base and then you move to the center in the general. The Republican establishment has decided they don't want any part of conservatism. And this is really not new. People are surprised to hear this, but the Republican Party formative event with conservatism is Goldwater's landslide defeat. That's what they think of when they think conservative. They don't think Reagan. They think Goldwater.

They believe what the inside-the-Beltway philosophy is about conservatives. They're racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, Southern hayseed hicks. They're pro-lifers. They're embarrassing to have to go to the convention with them. And they're just embarrassed to have those kind of people in the party. They're dumb. They're not erudite. They're not educated in Ivy League schools. We'll take their votes on election day, but we really don't want to hang around with them. We don't want anybody in Washington thinking that we're really that close to them and aligned with them. So in the process -- you know, it's a very sophisticated electorate. The Republican primary voter can sense that the Republican Party really doesn't like them, really doesn't want them, thinks that they are the route to defeat. That's the problem in a nutshell. The Republican establishment thinks that a conservative nominee is the route to defeat because they think Goldwater landslides are going to happen because they believe what the popular misconception the left has created of conservatives -- they think everybody thinks that.

What Rush doesn't say is that it was those GOP moderates who set out to see Goldwater defeated and they were led by George Romney who made his hatred of constitutionalsts very clear when he sought to have them ousted from the party.

[IamConservative]

Sounds like they are preparing to bite the hand that feeds them.

There is a viable national party waiting to evolve out of voters the GOP has abandoned and Liberty loving Americans. At the end of the day, Americans have allowed the Democrats and Republicans to divide us more or less along lines/issues that aren’t essential to our long term prosperity.

The new Liberty (or Freedom) party should also make the media impotent by not listening. The media only has power when we listen, care and react to what they say.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Here at Maine’s state convention, over half the delegates were liberty leaning republicans. Over half.
...
...And we are surprised to find they stayed home on election day ?”

I said that Rs in Red states staying home didnt matter, but the same goes for blue states like Maine or my state Maryland that picked a loser as GOP governor candidate, were going O anyway.
Didnt they both just pass gay marriage at the state level?

OH, WI, PA, FL, NM, maybe Rs should have focused on these like O did.

What idiot R in MA would stay home when Liz Warren is running as the Dem?

[brownsfan]

“The Republicans have a communication problem. They just can’t seem to get their message across to voters.

Voters still perceive them as the party of big business and the wealthy.

Of course, maybe the voters ARE understanding their message.”

You make an interesting point. I thought that the GOP just didn’t have a message. Perhaps it is as you say. The message is out there, and people don’t like it.

[brownsfan]

“Sounds like they are preparing to bite the hand that feeds them.”

The GOP is in an incredibly bad position, and they seem determined to make it worse. After watching how feckless the Republicans are in dealing with Obama, I’m done. I have no incentive to vote Republican. Obama is going to trash America anyway, why elect some Republicans simply so they can be the foil? (And get wealthy in the process).

[Kadric]

I think the biggest mistake was to move so much effort to PA so late in the game.

[ArGee]

Not too much to ask, is it ?

There won't be any good solutions while victims claim their answer is in restitution or compensation. The black victim group has shown this is a powerful way to get goodies, and other groups have jumped on board - including women.

If you can consolidate power, then get access to the reigns of that power, why would you want things like equal outcomes and God-given rights?

As John Adams observed:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

[EternalVigilance]

Not too much to ask, is it ?

Nope.

America's Party Platform

[sickoflibs]

RE :”I think the biggest mistake was to move so much effort to PA so late in the game.”

Remember those cheering crowds there in PA shown on FNC ?That helped convince many here it was 'in the bag'

Romney lost WI yet state Rs picked up seats.
MR ran a safe ‘don't take risks because we are winning’ strategy, yet his 47% blunder was one of the biggest.

And Sunnu-nus comments after the first debate didnt help much. This guy is downright stupid.

[Orangedog]

Of course,maybe the voters ARE understanding their message.

They understand it, it's just that more and more people aren't buying the bulls**t anymore. Seriously...the idea that mitt romney, the architect of obamacare and the man who banned gun ownership would repeal the individual mandate and not infringe on gun rights didn't pass the giggle test unless you were a koolaid drinker or gullible child. And a running mate who voted for the biggest expansion of entitlements ever and bailouts for banksters put to rest any lie of them being fiscally responsible. They simply had no credibility.

[ArGee]

The professional politicians ALL think their ‘careers’ are much more important than the hope, fears, wants, needs and desires of us little people.

The real problem is we all fall into the same trap. We send our people to Washington to fix the problem. Conservatives just identify a different problem or a different fix.

We need to send people to Washington to make their jobs irrelevant. I'd give the maximum allowed by law (or that I have to give) to the first candidate who said, "If I do my job correctly, you won't give a rat's behind who you send to Washington after me, because Congress and the President won't have any power when I'm done there."

Good luck with that.

[Carry_Okie]

Sounds like they are preparing to bite the hand that feeds them.

Uh, no. They like the hand that feeds them just fine: Corporate money from inside the beltway, money "given" to both parties. From the perspective of the consultants who run national campaigns, conservatives are notoriously stingy. "Screw 'em." The consultants make their money on a percentage of how much is spent, not on whether they win.

Sadly, conservatives are tapped out, paying taxes to support everybody else because of the government said "somebody else" paid for. Hence, the rule, if you want to elect a conservative, dig deep, into your wallet. Nobody else will.

[TomGuy]

I think the biggest mistake was to move so much effort to PA so late in the game.

I have posted similar listings a few times:

Kerry - Theresa takes over the campaign. Kerry loses.
McCain - Cindy takes over the campaign. McCain loses.
Gingrich - Calista takes over primary campaign. Gingrich loses.
Romney - Tagg and Ann take over campaign. Romney loses.

I see a pattern. Maybe, running a political campaign should left to the professional political campaign advisors.

==

Part of Romney's loss was due to his going into cruise mode after winning the first debate. In the second debate, Crowley debating him on Benghazi caused him to shrink. In the third debate, he just phoned it in.

[SueRae]

No, it isn’t. We’ve been sending that message to the Party for years...only a few have listened.

I want to switch my registration in Independent..but Pennsylvania has closed primaries...and that’s the last place I have a chance to make a vote count. And it has served me well for sending campaign contributions.

If my candidate doesn’t get the nod, I stop contributing right then and there. I’m keeping my options open for the time being...just in case there’s a special election and/or for 2014.

[Yosemitest]

I read a great article by Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow, Ret. written February 4, 2011 from "NewsWithViews.com" and here's part of it.

COMPROMISE – A DIRTY WORD
Compromise – is defined as:
“A middle way between two extremes”

If this is a literally correct definition, and I believe that it is,
what then are we to do when the two extremes at the opposite ends of the plane are
that which is moral
and that which is immoral?
Is it possible that a righteous compromise can be accomplished
when such a compromise, by the very definition of the word, must contain the elements of an extreme that is in and of itself evil or wicked ?

Compromise is as old as humanity;
compromise began as a human endeavor to attempt to escape the penalty for the transgression of God’s laws
and to mitigate or contravene the absoluteness of God’s word.
Compromise is man’s way
to lessen the seriousness of disobedience to immutable laws and dictums,
or to excuse or condone such disobedience altogether.
No good thing comes from compromise.
Man’s accommodation of transgressions by compromise is not a defense for iniquitous acts in the eyes of God.
Compromise is the devil’s invention;
God who is perfect in every way will not be conciliated by the conditions of a compromise.

Compromise was introduced into the lives of men in the Garden of Eden by that serpent of old, Satan,
and will remain with men until the Lord Jesus Christ brings this world to an end - which He will inevitable do - and establishes His Kingdom.

THE FRUITS OF COMPROMISE
Most people have come to believe
that compromise is a useful tool
and that the negotiations thereof have brought about good things and useful policies.
If one examines that belief closely it soon becomes apparent that
there are no useful results that accrue to negotiated compromise on any level.
In fact most often
compromise actually breeds dissention and strife,
which in turn leads to more compromise.
In short compromise feeds upon itself and eats up that which is just and right in the process.

To live in a world of compromise is to live in a world without absolutes,
and yet we know that the entire universe as well as the lives of men are managed, controlled, and kept within irrevocable bounds by the absolutes established by Almighty God.
We violate those bounds, via compromise of any kind, at our peril.

Political negotiations (compromise) in regard
to the step down from the safeguarding of the sanctity of life
and from the immutable right granted by God to be defended against being murdered -
as set forth in the sixth commandment
- has enabled an American medical assassination machine
that has claimed nearly double the number of lives of the combined number of military and civilian deaths attributable to World War II.

The killing of innocent babies has reached record heights.
The lives of twenty-four percent of all unborn babies are delivered into the hands of the serial killers of the medical community.
A baby is murdered every twelve seconds,
and it is estimated that in this country alone there have been ninety-two million living beating hearts stilled by the bloody hands of the legal abortionists.
This conspiracy to commit murder,
this aiding and abetting of murder,
this disconnect between the forbidden pre-meditated murder of living adults and the sanctioned pre-meditated murder of living babies
has been wrought by a politically mediated compromise between
those who claim the right to murder babies
and those who know God’s absolute prohibition of murder.
And there is more.

Now continuing…compromise on morality resulted in the condoning of, and an exponential increase in, the filthy - God condemned - practice of sodomy and promiscuous sex.
For every compromise of God’s word a penalty is exacted.
Aids rapidly achieved endemic proportions, first in the United States and then in the rest world.
We were told that Aids was a disease of monkeys that had migrated to men.
The inventiveness of the scientific community and the political apologizers who defend such appalling and execrable behavior
often find fertile ground in the credulous minds of a spiritually deprived people.
I’m not done.

POLITICAL COMPROMISE CONTINUES TO DESTROY THE REPUBLIC
Today as never before in our history the dishonorable who control our social destiny via their political intrigues
subject the nation to a slow death by way of political compromise.

Compromise through ill-conceived trade agreements has destroyed domestic industry and extinguished millions of jobs.
Compromise on sound financial practices has destroyed the housing market, seriously damaged the economy and crippled small businesses.
Compromise on immigration has demolished the social structure, bankrupted state and local governments, critically imperiled national security and jeopardized the safety and well-being of the people.
And compromise on moral integrity has corrupted the youth, encouraged extreme vice and given license to social prurience.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END
In a recent article I wrote
that from this time forward
the people of this nation will not know a day of peace,
there will be no good news, each bad day will fade into another equally bad day,
and the black and ghostly apparitions of the former will blend with the grim and ghastly tidings of the new.
The Lord has departed from a people that have departed from Him and prostituted themselves before heathen gods,
a people who will in the coming days loathe themselves for the evils that they have committed in all of their abominations.
They will surely know that He is the Sovereign God who will carry out His word
to do evil unto them that defy His word and deny His Lordship over all of creation.

As I write this piece
the nation is seized by a 2,000 mile long arctic blast of an unprecedented magnitude;
each season delivers devastation of Biblical proportions.
Tornadoes ravage, floods inundate, conflagrations gobble up thousands of acres of trees and foliage and lumbering mudslides follow in the wake of these,
hurricanes terrify the coasts, and hail, ice, and snow bring cities and towns to a standstill.
Truly the day of the Lord is at hand.

One who reads these words and does NOT understand or relate to that which has been written
can be thought to possess one or more of the following character deficiencies:
deep perversion, callous indifference, abysmal illiteracy, or appalling ignorance.

Believers in God’s word know
that ignorance of a secular kind is directly attributable to a lack of spiritual discernment.

Solomon gives a litany of dangers that await the man who lacks Spiritual discernment:

“To deliver thee from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaketh froward things;
Who leave the paths of uprightness,
to walk in the ways of darkness;
Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;
Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.
For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
None that go unto her return again,
neither take they hold of the paths of life.
That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.”
[Proverbs 2:12-22]

A modern translation:

"Wicked and perverse men are scattered like land mines across the paths of our lives.
Without discernment we will soon be following them into the dark of destruction.
The adulteress, every man’s worse nightmare, will seduce those who cannot see past her beauty and promises.
Behind her attraction lies the steps that descend to hell.
No one who goes to her returns,
but how can anyone know this apart from God Himself telling us."
[Proverbs 2:12-22]

Take a good long look at where "Establishment Republicans" ALWAYS take us.

[Owl558]

“Of course, maybe the voters ARE understanding their message.”

The message with Romney was - pro-abortion, pro-gay marrage, pro-nationalized health care, anti-gun, bigger government. Lots of folks on this forum tried to tell the establishment voters among us that this was unacceptable, but were roundly insulted and dismissed as supporting Obama. We understood the Republican message just fine. Maybe it was the Romney supporters who did not understand what they were voting for.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Registered Republicans who chose to not vote at all.

I'm a registered Republican who voted in every race in which a conservative was running - so I left the presidential boxes blank. Did I get counted in the "chose to not vote at all" category, I wonder?

[SharpRightTurn]

Romney, Lodge, Scranton—seems like we never can get rid of these losers.

[drypowder]

No voter ID required, massive increase in absentee voter ballot submissions, electronic voting machines and electronic vote counting machines programmable to desired out come, more votes in precincts than registered voters.......... How can anyone honestly claim that the 2012 post election voter data supports the outcome? Why aren’t these same folks researching and reporting on the OBVOUIS real problem of vote fraud? Why aren’t the conservative leaders in DC and around the country voicing concern about the massive vote fraud? Corruption rules the US. The silent mantra known to all politicians, judges and reporters in the US today; Keep your mouth shut and stay healthy.

[oldbill]

Romney lost the election the day his idiot No. 2 man Eric Fehrnstrom said after the primaries “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

No denials from Romney; no firing the moron.

So from that point forward in the campaign, many of the high-information Republican voters said “What the hell - Romney is going to be just like the other RINOs. You can’t believe anything he will say”.

Not that the loss bothered Fehrnstrom: his consultant company was paid $millions by the Romney campaign - that’s the checks you folks sent in thinking it would beat Obama.

[lentulusgracchus]

The Republicans have a communication problem. They just can’t seem to get their message across to voters.

On the night Clint Eastwood gave his speech to the Republican convention supporting Mitt Romney, and the GOP ran a 30-minute video about Romney "introducing" him to the voters, TIME magazine talking head Mark Halperin ( son of Pentagon Papers traitor Morton Halperin) went on both Gwen Ifill's PBS convention-coverage show and Charlie Rose an hour and a half later (or so) to belittle Eastwood's "empty chair" speech as a "Bayonne supper club routine" and to make a couple of confident predictions.

One, said Halperin, the public would never see either the GOP video or Eastwood's speech; the Media would see to it. The major networks had trimmed convention coverage to exclude them, and the voters would see only Romney's bare acceptance speech, shorn of its context.

Next, he said, any message put out by the GOP or Romney would be "spun and refracted" through a host of prisms and Media "takes" into jumbled incoherence. No clear message, and no crisply-articulated message would reach the voters from the Republican Party.

Think about that one -- he was right, the JournoListers made it happen.

Voters still perceive them as the party of big business and the wealthy.

How's that possible, after TARP, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and years of Bush-family-modulated access capitalism? < /s >

[Tennessee Nana]

an organized, well-funded and concerted effort by Washington Republican insiders to circle the wagons around incumbents who may see primary challenges.
______________________________________

well they can cirle the hand carts all they want but it was not the fault of the “GOP voters” in Nov 2012 anymore than it would be the fault of the voters in 2014 if the GOP try to force unsavory nominees on us again...

Willard was not the right guy to run in 2012 nor would any GOP inside liberal be in 2014..

Willard was and is for abortion, gay marriage, AMNESTY, big government, Cap N Trade, global warming and disrespected our troops..

We need a Conservative..a real one...

not a guy who plays one badly on TV...

you want our votes in 2014 ???

well give us someone to vote for...

this is still America...

we still have the right to choose...

[lentulusgracchus]

Romney, Lodge, Scranton—seems like we never can get rid of these losers.

Willkie, Dewey, Stassen, Dole
Pubbie RiNO's sure get old.
Give me Sarah and her gun;
She'll go up there and git 'er done.
Burma Shave.

[lentulusgracchus]

I see a pattern. Maybe, running a political campaign should left to the professional political campaign advisors.

Like Karl Rove. And Ed Rollins.

Oh, yeah. Right. Thanks for that.

</s>

[lentulusgracchus]

Why do RiNO "official portraits" always look like they were shot for a funeral-home ad?

[lentulusgracchus]

Obama is going to trash America anyway, why elect some Republicans simply so they can be the foil? (And get wealthy in the process).

Well, there you put your finger on it right at the end.

Barky works for the GOP as a scarecrow. Big scary Barky and Bill Ayers's death squads scare all sorts of money out of frightened businessmen, which rains on all sorts of outstreched RiNO palms -- lobbyists, attorneys, politicians, "professional campaign consultants".

[lentulusgracchus]

The new Liberty (or Freedom) party should also make the media impotent by not listening. The media only has power when we listen, care and react to what they say.

Actually, third parties are too easy for the media to ignore, which was part of their strategy last summer. They shut out Clint Eastwood and the Romney video which was very well done and could have drawn a lot of independents -- they saw to it that those assets were never seen by the People. How do I know that? One of the Mediabots, Mark Halperin (chief political correspondent for TIME and son of Pentagon Papers traitor Morton Halperin -- he's not just some yayhoo with a 15-newspaper byline) said so. He said it on Charlie Rose, where all the heavy hitters go to talk to the public. Presidents and prime ministers want to see Charlie -- he's already interviewed a President or two (he interviewed Associate Justice Antonin Scalia a few weeks ago), and one day I'm sure he'll get the ultimate interviews: Queen Elizabeth and the Pope.

But Halperin told Charlie Rose the Media would make sure those assets -- the Clint Eastwood "empty chair" speech and the Romney campaign video -- would never be seen by the People, and he was right. Like the man said, it ain't bragging if you can do it, and he and his co-conspirators in Media saw to it.

So if they could do that to a major party and its candidate, what kind of quick work do you think they'd make of a new party?