Posted on 01/11/2014 10:13:11 AM PST by Drew68
Republicans “live in a bubble,” former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum told the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Policy Orientation for the Texas Legislature Thursday, and are detached from the pop culture and concerns of the average Americans whose allegiance they need to prevail nationally.
“We live in a bubble. We don’t realize what’s going on,” said the once and perhaps future presidential candidate who is now head of a movie studio based in Flower Mound that produces Christian entertainment. “How many of you watch prime time network television? I suspect none of you.”
He told his audience, which will also be hearing Thursday from Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, that they also tend assume everyone shares their drive. “Republicans by and large are Type A personalities who want to climb to the top of the ladder, ” said Santorum. But, “a lot of people want to be good simple folks, go to work, 9 to 5.”
The consequence: “No one’s talking to the job holder — not the job creator. We don’t want to talk to people who want to be with us.”
He said it is a failure of empathy that has led Republicans to spend too much time talking negatively — “cut this, cut that” — focused on facts and figures, pie charts and bar graphs, while Democrats talk more compellingly in stories and images that are the way most people receive information.
“Our programs are right, our message stinks,” said Santorum.
He said President Barack Obama is right to focus on growing income inequality, though he said the president’s policies have only accelerated the divide.
The nostrum, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” means little when “there are a lot more Americans with holes in their boats … when the tide rises they just sink deeper.”
Santorum said Obama prevailed even in a bad economy and FDR won a third term after presiding over 25 percent unemployment, not because their programs worked but because they communicated to people that they cared about.
Meanwhile, he said, Republicans “have to get 50 percent of the vote from people who don’t think you care about them.”
Santorum said the American revolutionaries prevailed against the odds, because they wanted it more, reciting the final words of the Declaration of Independence – “we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
In America today, he said, it is the left that wants it more.
“They have the fight, they have the passion. Why? Because they want the power.”
When people ask him, “what can I do?” Santorum says he replies, “Something.”
“Start fighting everywhere,” he said.
Rep. Ron Simmons, R-Carrollton, said he especially appreciated Santorum’s call for Republicans to broaden their audience beyond the usual crowd of business owners.
“I hope we take that to heart,” he said.
He might make some good points but he wasn’t clear, was he talking about GOPe leaders?
I saw a little obvious pablum…not much else…
The party doesn’t address meat and potatoes ideas, ones that concern parents of families around the kitchen table, where they figure out their bills, and plan for the future.
We get drawn into splinter racial politics, and we lose.
Kitchen table issues transcend party lines. This is something the Republicans forgot about in the winter of 1988 and spring of 1989.
Ronald Reagan knew what mattered to people. The Democrats know how to demagogue. The Republicans are pathetic at defense, and even worse at offense.
Read it through carefully. Rick is a social conservative BUT has always been fiscally a liberal.
It is the ‘freebies’ handed out by government, plus a desperately needed monetary reform of our fractional banking sysstem, that is bankrupting the USA.
Spouting BS and nonsense, ‘ we gotta talk like them ‘ and the marxist ‘ middle class ‘ theory garbage.
Pathetic.
He`s an uber 1% living in the Washington beltway bubble.
Maybe he should practice what he preaches. Just to be fair, I have to confess that I don’t like him.
Is he talking about the party or the Republican voters? It was hard to tell from the OP
Glad it wasn’t just me. I got nothing from all of it.
I disagree. Conservatives have as many great speakers as liberals, but conservatives have been censored by the press. Regardless of what a conservative says, they will be demonized, and refuted.
Years ago I noticed NPR's tactic of interviewing both Reps and Dems. Ds would be asked about the issue. Rs would be asked about the legislative process. Equal time, unequal impact.
The quality of a representative democracy will never exceed the quality of the press.
That kind of guy is going to face an extreme uphill climb in winning any future Presidency - the popular culture has ridiculed the archetype so thoroughly that guys like Mitt Romney are really defeated before they ever start. You'll notice the Democrats aren't even wasting a lot of time attacking them any more, they go after Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Michelle Bachman - people who don't fit the "befuddled white male authoritarian" comic stereotype and thus might one day become very dangerous if their messages ever get past the MSM unfiltered.
Specifics, please, sir. You are spouting gas. How do you combat 50 years of communist indoctrination? How do you reinvigorate the American spirit? How do you repulse and then destroy the enemies within? They are continuing their decades-long rise and are winning everywhere you look. If you and your colleagues don’t come up with an action plan soon and the will to really FIGHT this enemy, this nation will be lost for good.
One flaw: Does Santorum think the night time television represents society or is even relevant?
Talk about being in a bubble.
“a rising tide lifts all boats,” means little when “there are a lot more Americans with holes in their boats … when the tide rises they just sink deeper.”
“Spouting BS and nonsense, ‘ we gotta talk like them ‘ and the marxist ‘ middle class ‘ theory garbage.”
Agreed. He wants to pander like the other politicians.
Santorum’s words were ambiguous. We need to call in a Pope Francis translator to sort this out.
So does Santorum.
I hope (but don’t think) that Santorum has given up ideas of running for the Presidency.
He simply can never become popular because:
He looks like a fifteen-year-old. There is nothing he can do to change this. And he will look fifteen years old when he is sixty.
He looks anxious and fearful. In debates, he looks terrified. People will not warm to or vote for a man who looks fearful.
I wonder if anyone is capable of making him see this.
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