Posted on 08/29/2010 9:24:21 PM PDT by Lorianne
You're not going to want to hear this.
Nonetheless, you have to.
If you want to win - indeed, if you want to make any sort of serious inroad into the American Political Process, you need to read this, you need to listen, and you need to adopt this path.
If you do not, you will be marginalized into irrelevance, no matter what else you do.
Here it is:
You must discard - intentionally - all "wedge issues" as points of debate, discussion, or campaigning. You know what these issues are - they fall broadly into the category of religion in one form or another.
These are issues such as abortion and gay rights (in all it's forms, including marriage debates), but is by no means limited to these two. In short, if there's a religious basis for your position, you must not campaign on it, and indeed you must pointedly refuse to discuss it.
The Tea Party began as a protest over bailouts and handouts - that is, theft and corruption within our markets, government and economy. This is a winning position with 90% of the American Body Politic.
Any candidate who runs on these issues - and these issues alone, promising to stop it and lock up the scammers - all of them - wins.
As soon as you bring the other issues that everyone wants to talk about into this, you will lose.
Here's why.
These are called "wedge issues" for a reason.
What you personally believe is irrelevant to the political process. These issues are used by the two main political parties to get the electorate to divide on a 50/50 basis - thus leaving them having to persuade exactly one person of their position on some other issue to win.
You cannot win such a contest. At best you can force one of the other parties - the one that most agrees with you - to lose. The reason is simple - you will split that half of the electorate, which means the other party - the one that disagrees with your position on those issues - wins the election.
Drill this into your head folks:
If you allow these issues to become part of your campaign, you will not only lose you will cause the party that most-agrees with you to lose.
I know this is going to be unpopular, but it needs to be said. I've seen this happening in some of the local Tea Party groups, and it saddens me. The local Niceville branch here featured people talking about "natural law" as an important qualifying factor for political candidacy, as just one of many examples. There were times I felt like I had walked into a Baptist sermon.
The Tea Party and other political expressions like it are, of course, free to run on whatever platform they'd like, and to back candidates based on whatever they'd like. But if you're going to do this, then you'd be wise to try to take over the Republican Party instead of being "independent" or any other sort of "outside" influence, because it is the only way you can win with this approach.
The Tea Party infiltrating The Republican establishment is a long shot. Witness John McCain, who made a campaign spectacle out of bailing out the banks. How's JD Hayworth doing in challenging him? He lost, right? How'd that happen? The same way it always happens: Hayworth let the campaign's terms include those wedge issues, and then got tattoed by the guy with the bigger warchest and the ability to threaten people politically.
You either change the terms of the debate and the issues upon which the election is decided or you lose.
It's that simple.
(excerpted)
They won’t close the primaries, though. Now what?
Fundamentally, the Republican Party is an open political association.
If you live next to a slum and you put a big sign in front of your house that says “anyone who wants to can live here,” how long do you think you’re going to be able to endure living in your own house?
The problem is intrinsic.
Look, anytime you put an issue off-limits for discussion, yo uare ducking it. Now if you are a one-issue group, you can legitimately say “That’s not what we do, it’s not relevant to our org’s goals.” If you are more than one issue, and it is an issue that can be tied to the groups’ goals, you can’t legitimately use that line and not expect to look like any liberal or Obama when he’s asked something that’s fiar but doesn’t want to answer.
Tell me for example that getting rid of abortion isn’t part of “Restoring the Country”. This is a decision that’s only 37 years old, thrust on the country by federal courts, inventing a right to privacy that somehow guarantees it. Isn’t getting rid of a law that murders citizens before they’re born fall under “Restoring the Country”? Isn’t rolling back activist court rulings part of “Restoring the Country”? Then you are in the awkward position of explaining why an issue isn’t and why you won’t touch them.
If that is all someone knows about him, it is a barely meaningless fact. He is not in any way a liberal. I wish he hadn’t done the Obama thing, but... he did. He is right on so much though. We are on an unsustainable path, in a nutshell.
Force government back into its Constitutional limits first. Then it can't afford to defend abortion, gay rights, tax increases, government schools, out-of-control trial lawyers, or anything else - and these social pathologies being foisted on the citizens will be much more easily overcome.
Why Does Beck Avoid Culture War Issues?
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4308988/why-does-beck-avoid-culture-war-issues/
But you just DID elect another RINO.
McCain won.
That’s what we are talking about. What is it going to take to get people like McCain OUT and real conservatives IN?
That’s the issue at hand.
Thank you. Well said.
McCain won.
Damn. You'd think I'd remember a thing like voting in the Arizona primaries.
You’re not going to get rid of abortion by losing election and letting the other team appoint SC Justices.
It’s the cart and horse thing.
You know what I mean.
“The wedge issues in question are not a ‘problem’ in Republican primaries.”
Oh yes they are. Republicans are not above pigeonholin another Republican in order to garner the swing vote, even within their own party.
This is less of an issue in states with closed primaries, but it is still an issue. And even if a pigeonholed candidate happens to win the primary, the Dem opponent will use that wedge already opened by the Republican opponent to continue to hammer him/her with the moderates in the general election.
“The wedge issues in question are not a ‘problem’ in Republican primaries.”
Oh yes they are. Republicans are not above pigeonholin another Republican in order to garner the swing vote, even within their own party.
This is less of an issue in states with closed primaries, but it is still an issue. And even if a pigeonholed candidate happens to win the primary, the Dem opponent will use that wedge already opened by the Republican opponent to continue to hammer him/her with the moderates in the general election.
Why Does Beck Avoid Culture War Issues?
Glenn Beck explains why he doesn’t focus on topics like gay marriage and abortion
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4308988/why-does-beck-avoid-culture-war-issues/
Look, lady. If you’re going to join the daily liberal crusade against God, family, country, you can do it on another website. FR is a CONSERVATIVE site and I mean to keep it that way. Hope you get the message.
Balderdash!
If you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for everything.
If you leave your principles behind, the principled will not support you.
Follow the lead of Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Joe Wilson, and Ronald Reagan. Principles do matter.
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Thanks for “standing Tall” Jim!
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> “You cannot effect any change on social issues if you don’t WIN.” <
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Oh?
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Daniel 4:31-32
“O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee.
And they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field: they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and seven times shall pass over thee, until thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.”
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That they refuse to budge shows me that they are no friends to freedom either.
- Fiscal responsibility
- Limited government
- Follow the Constitution
I’d like to add “Root out fraud and corruption” to that.
That's what it's all about, and if conservative evangelicals want to support these ideas, great. They're more than welcome. But I draw the line at their attempts to co-opt the movement and make it denominational.
Jim,
It’s been a very good discussion with good points made on all sides. I don’t disagree at all with the points made about restoring values. I appreciate all the passion on that side of the issue. We need that passion, we really do.
But for some reason I can’t escape my prediliction towards strategy. I can’t shake the feeling that we have to be smart about how we prioritize issues if we are going to WIN. We lost with Obama where it really hurts ... he got to appoint a SC Justice who is extremely socially liberal, and he is likely to get another appointment before his term is over.
This pretty much puts final nails in our social issues, judicially speaking. I feel like we are spinning our wheels and not making progress on abortion for example (I am passionate about Life as you are), even as we are holding fast to the pro-Life values.
I wish I could believe that just being right and passionate about these issues is enough to change things. I’ve really tried to believe that but just can’t get there.
Anyway, thanks for allowing this discussion. I think we are on the same side, just with different ideas on strategy.
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