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The National Journal is the one that has the big talent gap.
Remember when character matter more than “The Message”.
Let me see if I understand, If we use the same people
who taught the democrats, and do the same things the
democrats do, we can beat the democrats....
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The 498 who worked the state are all paid to do so. It is business for the democrat volunteers, for republicans it is volunteer.
This writer is arguing that there aren’t enough RINOs in the GOPe and that the GOPe doesn’t have a ground game. The reason for that is easy to understand — they hate their base. Why don’t the libs help them out and share some of their low info voters. Better yet why not have the lot of the RINOs just join the dems. They’ll be a lot happier.
Most people who might be good Republican candidates for higher office really have no interest in politics. It's really beneath almost anyone who has an ounce of integrity and self-respect, which pretty much eliminates a huge segment of your most qualified conservative candidates.
I stopped right there. Socialist ringer phonies like Willard are the epitome of UNELECTABLE.
The problem is this guy. A list of every single ‘moderate’ in the country won’t provide the volounteers to win a campaign LOL!
No wonder Huffpost and National Journal love him.
Without the Tea Party there isn’t anyone to work for Republican candidates.
Ensure that the elections are not rigged. Everything else is a waste of time and money if you can’t be sure the other side isn’t cheating.
Ask yourself, “Would the Democrats cheat to win?” If you answer “yes”, then move under the assumption that they are cheating.
Ask yourself, “Would the Democrats lie to win?” If you answer “yes”, then move under the assumption that they are always lying.
If they are crowing about how good their “get out the vote effort” was, then you can be sure that had little to do with their victory.
Yeah, I have a comment. This rag is the same rag that said McCain was
the most conservative Congresscritters in 2010. Need I say more?
Sending this to a friend.
They are so scared witless of Ted Cruz that they don’t even want to mention his name.
Really???
Because there's mounting evidence that the party's political class simply isn't good at running campaigns anymore.
Dan's comment - Part of the problem is that the high level consultants who keep getting jobs do a bad job but get rehired time and time again. They were not that good in the first place, and their clients listen to them too often.
My comment - I couldn't agree more. Those consultants always blame someone else after the election as well to protect themselves.
The chasm is widest in technology, an area where Democrats have innovated heavily while Republican tactics ossified. But the data and digital divide, while getting most of the attention, is only a symptom of a larger problem that cuts fundamentally to how the Republican Party operates—not just at a tactical level but also a philosophical one. The well-worn pathways of the party's operatives, in which every low-level staffer commits his or her career to becoming a well-paid TV specialist, must change. The party's best and brightest need to emulate the career arc of their Democratic counterparts, who devote themselves to data and fieldwork, areas where races are increasingly won or lost.
Dan's Comment - Technology is important and more important than the TV ads, but is still overrated. Data in the field is extremely important and we're playing catchup here. That said, campaigns aren't exotic. It just takes organization, good candidates, good campaigns, and hard work.
My Comment - I know Dan's definition of a good candidate, but most of all it is someone who works hard, is trustworthy, and knows how to carry himself. People vote on competence and attitude more than ideology. Before we ask if someone is conservative enough, we need to ask ourselves if we can trust this person and if this person is capable of doing the job. People didn't trust Romney.
It's about transforming how the party conducts its campaigns, from operations that rely heavily on TV and conventional wisdom to data-driven efforts that reach across all media. Most important, it requires that staffers on those campaigns, from campaign manager to rank-and-file workers, overhaul not just what they do but how they think.
Dan's comment - See my consulting comments above. TV is diminishing returns at best. The message on the TV with corporate-speak is worse. It doesn't say anything most of the time. Another political ad. Click.
My comment - Good luck with that, Dan.
A December study by the progressive political firm New Organizing Institute found a wide chasm between the number of staffers on Democratic versus Republican campaigns—nationally, the ratio was close to 3-to-1 in favor of Democrats. In swing-state Nevada, where Republicans had hoped the housing bust and vibrant Mormon community would lift Mitt Romney to victory, the totals were even more lopsided: 498 Democrats worked the state, to only 20 Republicans.
Dan's Comment - The GOP relies on volunteers. The dems rely on unions. Worse, the GOP relies on the 2004 Karl Rove phone call playbook which I refuse to use as those calls hurt more than help. When I had the landline, I was getting 8 calls a day. People get tired of the political calls. We need to microtarget and concentrate on quality as much as quantity. I need to get 65% in my county to have a good shot to win statewide. These candidates need to sell to my increasingly frustrated county citizens. I'm seeing potential changes, but need to see it to believe it.
My comments - I'm in a democrat stronghold county. The dems can do knock and drag operations in the big cities like Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. It doesn't work as well in rural areas like mine, or even Dan's.
Unlike unions, those GOP-leaning groups don't invest much in the ground game, which, to many GOP operatives who do work in the field, is part of a bigger problem. The GOP's political class simply doesn't value that kind of work, even if it's increasingly important in the 21st century. Most young Republican operatives view organizing as a mere entry point to a career that will eventually lead to bigger, and better-paying, gigs. "Democrats actually set up and train people to think about those jobs as careers," said Brian Stobie, a partner at the GOP data-management firm Optimus. "A field-organizing roll can be a career over there. In our world, it's a $27,000-a-year job you can't wait to get out of." "All you're thinking the whole time is, 'I can't wait to get out of this and be the political director,' " he added.
Dan's comment - My state senator is a country guy who beat everybody in his first election by knocking on 15,000 doors. He won. The bigshots usually send a 20 year old yesman for the field work. These kids know what they are told by HQ, and at the same time the top field staff are usually about 25 and look down on us. One of them was threatening volunteers, and I called him out right there. He didn't understand that the guys in that room knew a lot more than he did. The problem isn't him, but the culture from HQ, especially national HQ. If you want stuff done right here, you hire the locals and let us do our jobs. Give me a candidate worth selling, too. I did everything in one recent election with only a months notice. I stretched every dollar, raised $3000, and we won our race 3-1. I have good political experience, but I had 25 years in the township as well, and the major neighborhood affected was my own.
My Comment - From what I'm hearing GOP-E still doesn't get it.
"We are so individualistic on the Republican side, both in our philosophy and policy," Harris said. "It definitely bleeds over into how we are managing and structuring campaigns. And we have to break that."
Dan's comment - I can't agree with that. The problem is that HQ doesn't trust people to do their jobs. They try to fit a collectivist structure on a very individualistic county.
My comment - Couldn't agree more.
Even the party's agenda can get in the way. As Robert Draper outlined in The New York Times Magazine in February, the party's conservatism on cultural issues might prevent it from recruiting the young operatives it needs from Silicon Valley and other places. The problems with these tech-savvy youths mirror the GOP's problem with young voters in general who might sympathize with the party's fiscal conservatism. As Draper wrote, the GOP's opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights alienates those would-be operatives. The talent pools the GOP must tap into, then, are running dry.
Dan's comment - BS. The general population I talk to rarely bring up that issue one way or the other, and I'm in one of the most socially conservative parts of Michigan. We expect people to mind their own business here. That means I don't invade your bedroom, and you don't bring it to the town square. As far as abortion goes, a lot of the younger generation is pro-life. There are pro-life libertarian republicans as well. If my party caves on abortion, 75% of my volunteers will walk, and I along with them. This is an issue to us on par with the evils of slavery. If you go bad on life, you're politically dead here. If you go bad on guns, you're even more politically dead here. Also, why go to Silicon Valley? There's a lot of tech talent in Texas, Loudon County, and Troy Michigan. This is looking like a Hail Mary pass attempt instead of proven old fashion boring hard work. Miracles don't happen without people doing what it needed to make it happen.
My comment - Flip on abortion and I walk.
It's not that the GOP leaders don't get it. Most of them talk with guys like Ruffini, Lundry, and Harris all the time. They use the same language, too, urging the party to transform its political culture while overhauling its data capabilities.
Dan's comment - Do your consultants get it? That's your biggest problem. I'm hearing the RNC gets it and PARTS of the MIGOP get it. What about the consultant class? Rove. Fred Davis. Stuart Stevens. Steven Schmidt. Those types are the ones that always eff up everything. I'll believe it when I see it.
My comment - All the talk about this is great, but at the end, you need to sell a candidate. There's one fatal flaw here at the beginning of this article. The more electable ones, like Mitt Romney Mitt Romney lost to John McCain. How was he electable? He wasn't. Give me a candidate to work with.
Candidate quality is still the most important part of an election. The media can't pick our candidate.
I’ll tell you our number one problem. Churches. I read that only 50% of people who call themselves Christian vote. Pastors have also backed off speaking out against moral issue that are political. I emailed Ted Cruz and reminded him of how churches would probably love to hear him speak. I hear he’s quite the speaker of truth to evil. It’s just want this country needs.