a time for courage.... every other consideration pales in comparison....Romney would be the first to buckle.
Posted on 03/11/2012 5:35:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
I was recently having a drink and cigar in the office of a good friend who runs one of the conservative movement’s most powerful advocacy groups. I’m not going to name him because this problem is not unique to his group – nor, in fact, is it unique at all.
My friend showed me his group’s latest video. It needed a little work, but overall it was excellent. The only problem is no one who matters is ever going to see it.
It will be polished a bit, put on the Internet and sent to donors. And that’s about all that will be done with it.
What we conservatives don’t seem to realize is preaching to the choir, although important, doesn’t do any real good. Conservatives already are in our camp.
We also don’t seem to realize we’re dealing with a public that is not uninformed but misinformed. To be effective, we need not only a communications strategy that focuses on message, we need one that focuses on conveying that message.
The media isn’t our friend. Relying on it to convey our message in an honest way is both stupid and lazy. Most national “reporters” are so in bed with Democrats they want free birth control to keep themselves from getting pregnant.
Creating a web video seen by hundreds while progressives control national TV newscasts viewed by millions makes no sense and no progress.
Yet, I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been in where someone from some group talks about how they’re going to make “viral videos,” and those videos will make all the difference.
Only, if simply willing a video to go viral were all it took, we’d all be YouTube millionaires. In fact, most videos produced by our side reach no one new. They end up on Facebook pages of people already convinced, or – best-case scenario – they are discussed on cable news viewed overwhelmingly by an audience of true believers.
There’s something to be said for reinforcing the beliefs of people on your side, but it’s not exactly expanding the base. We have to think differently about messaging. We must speak around the media because our opponents control it.
We do good research, but we need to spread the results effectively. We’re great at raising money, but we need to spend it more effectively.
We spend way too much time and energy pushing the wrong buttons to spread our message even though, in most cases, we know it doesn’t work. We spend lavishly on lunch for reporters who attend our events, even though these well-fed reporters rarely make the expense worthwhile.
And if they do write about it, who cares? It’s a one-day shot, quickly done, quickly forgotten and drowned out when the MSM returns to regular programming.
What we need is someone with the money and guts to break the mold. Since most people don’t watch the news, we need to go where the most people are – prime-time television.
How much of the idiotic birth control debate could have been diffused if someone put funny, common-sense ads in primetime TV saying, “Democrats spend all their time demanding taxpayers cover the cost of birth control for all women when we already provide it for those who can’t afford it and it’s available to everyone for $9 a month. So why the focus on this? Because they haven’t passed a budget in more than 1,000 days? Because their economic policies have failed? Because gas prices and unemployment are through the roof?”
Yes, that message is conveyed by talking heads most people don’t watch, in op-eds most people don’t read and in “viral videos” no one sees. But you won’t find it on the TV programs most people watch. Why? Because it costs money.
Yet, instead of investing in getting the message where it truly needs to be, our side doubles down on building huge email lists, then renting them to other groups or candidates to still more money from the same committed conservative consumers.
All so these groups can say “We led the fight” or “We have X number of members” – as if that makes America a better place in any way.
All so they can continue to spend an inordinate amount of money to inform the choir just how effective they are as we lose battle after battle. Most of the big conservative “victories” of the last 15 years have amounted to stopping bad things from getting worse. Government hasn’t shrunk. Spending hasn’t been cut. Regulations haven’t been repealed. We’re losing liberty, and these groups pat themselves on the back for extending the game. Delaying loss does not equal victory.
Part of the problem is many of the “leaders” of the conservative movement have been around too long. Their mindset is still pre-1994. They still act as if they’ve been in the minority all their lives and probably always will be. They fight under the Marquis of Queensbury rules; the left employs a guerrilla warfare designed to win at all costs.
And if it doesn’t change, we’ll continue to lose.
It’s time we dedicate our efforts to educating those who aren’t part of the base. It’s time we quit bragging about our effectiveness until we get some effectiveness to brag about – at which point, we won’t need to brag. It’s time for one of these “leading groups in the conservative movement” to actually lead.
We’ve spent enough time in the passenger seat as progressives drive the narrative and run the country into a ditch. It’s time we buy our own damn car.
Take God out of the culture and that leaves room to force the government morals on society.
There are a few others who naturally pass through the road blocks, such as Reagan and Palin, and they're generally easy to spot:
The left tells us who they fear and then tries to kill them.
The only candidate who comes close to that ideal this election is Newt Gingrich, which is why he's marginalized and ignored as much as possible by all in the state run media, including Fox.
It’s not really a conservative movement...
Sounds like it comes down to money. If conservatives had enough money to donate to Newt or Rick, Romney wouldn’t be able to outspend them and win the nomination through his conservative-bashing ads. If we had the money to run ads on network TV, we’d also have the money to back a conservative candidate. If Mitt Romney wins the nomination, it’s a far bigger problem for the movement than anything else. It could spell the death of the movement for 16 years at a minimum. So, why don’t we have enough money? Is the movement too small and driven by poorer people? Or is there simply no real fundraising effort being made by Tea Party or conservative groups? Why isn’t there a Tea Party SuperPAC?
Not to mention, there are serious problems WITHIN our own group, if you believe the polls in some states where sometimes half of the Tea Party people are backing Romney. Perhaps the Tea Party isn’t organized enough. Maybe we should take a page from the Mormons, get everyone on regional mailing lists, organized into regional groups that can act locally, think nationally.
Even if I have trouble saying what are, say, the top 3 things Tea Party types want to do. It's easy to say they're against Obamacare and Obama, want to repeal his laws and such. The only concrete law I can come up with would be the constitutional amendment to define marriage. Maybe that's because most of what the Tea Party wants to do is simply defend the Constitution against encroachment. But maybe it would help to be able to get behind a constitutional amendment, or other law, and make that the focus of the movement like the old ERA amendment. The balanced budget amendment under Newt missed passing by 1 vote. Maybe it's time to focus the movement solely on getting a balanced budget amendment passed, and make that the overriding issue. This movement can't just be the Not Obama movement, but it needs to have a positive and clear goal it can stand for that is separate from any specific candidate and would outlast any presidency. I think we ought to have a balanced budget amendment movement.
a time for courage.... every other consideration pales in comparison....Romney would be the first to buckle.
We already regulate morals, since the time of the founders. Murder, theft and rape were criminalized because they are immoral. Having a semantic debate over whether a certain law is based on a "moral standard" or not is useless and pointless. But abortion for instance is every bit as valid for the government to ban as murder, theft or rape. It's completely equivalent to those on a moral or legal scale. Bottom line, the states at least are allowed to regulate anything that isn't a constitutional right. We can have a debate about what laws are good, but defining one as being based on "morals" or not is meaninless. Some immoral behavior is good to regulate, others are not (such as ones related to free speech). So in some cases it is constitutionally correct to force ones morals on someone else (against murdered, rapists, thieves for example) and sometimes it's not.
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i most of what the Tea Party wants to do is simply defend the Constitution against encroachment/i p
The Tea Party is composed mostly of newbies. Give them time.
We need to start our own schools and our own media outlets. We’ve made a little progress on both fronts. The homescooling movement and alternative media are solutions, but relatively new ones. The 1994 and 2010 elections show that we’ve made some progress on both fronts. Obviously we have some way to go.
That party used to be the Republican Party, but it is no longer, not at least among its leaders. It is the leadership that determines the party agenda, while shaping and promoting a public message. For some time now, the GOP's leaders have been either ineffectual, missing in action, or else openly scornful of the party rank-and-file.
Consequently, Democrats have been able to control the agenda, create their own narratives, and define the terms of debate. They are assisted by a "news media" that effectively serves as the Democrats' communications division and by a powerful coalition of public sector unions, liberal organizations and wealthy funding organizations. The response from Republicans has been... underwhelming, and that is being kind.
At the same time, the Conservative movement similarly lacks a coherent, unifying leader capable of speaking past the Democrats and the Obama-worshiping media and directly to the people. Rick Santorum, arguably the most conservative candidate still in the race, has not yet demonstrated an ability to broaden his political appeal. Nor has Newt Gingrich, the GOP's most effective and dynamic speaker and a font of ideas; he continues to tread water in the polls, and in increasingly deep water at that. The personal baggage he carries does not help him stay afloat, either.
Mitt Romney, the clear choice of the GOP's elite leadership is simply not a conservative, and his repeated attempts to feign being one always ring hollow. When trying to speak the language of conservatism, Mitt sounds very much like an American tourist trying to order lunch from a Berlitz phrasebook on his first day in Paris.
But none of these candidates have been able to focus consistently on the issues most important to American voters - the perilous state of our economy, our bloated, overreaching government, the national debt, a declining standard of living, and poor employment prospects for millions of people. Instead, they allow themselves to be distracted and led into traps set by the Democrat-media complex, traps designed to lead them into the blind alleys of divisive personal issues and to put them forever on the defensive.
None of this bodes well for the fall. Until Conservatives have a clear leader and one who resolves to take back the GOP from the alternatively bumbling and invertebrate party hacks who are happily leading the party into permanent minority status, Democrats will dominate and win national elections.
Up until the assassination of McKinley and the take over of the Republican Party by Teddy Roosevelt, Republicans were “progressive” and blacks voted for Republicans almost exclusively. The ONLY historic analysis that will benefit conservatives will include this fact- that the Republican Party’s original humanistic impulse has been subverted.
In a society whose values are formed by electronic media, a non-humanistic, anti-empathic infantile narcissistic camouflaged sadism is not going to play well on prime time. Why there is not Republican clamor for the heads of the Federal Reserve and their oligarch handlers is beyond me. They have destroyed the lives and incomes and retirements of hard working ethical people. Where is the empathy for that injustice? Where are the bonds of community that would turn thousands of conservatives out onto the streets in a movement that would dwarf “Occupy”.
I don’t know what it would take to get conservatives off their asses, but “enlightened self interest” doesn’t seem to be cutting it. Conservatives better start to learn how to fight for the “little guy”. Conservatives have been on the ropes for 3-4 generations, since the ‘60’s caught them asleep at the wheel in the game of media literacy, which, BTW, is the only game in town in the modern electronic “global village”. Time to generate some empathy for those who suffer, empathy that demonstrates results, not because it is politically savvy, but because of a sense of Christian compassion.
That mentality reflects the time when conservatives were in power as much or more as when they were a permanent minority.
When conservatives were a majority in the Republican Party and Republicans controlled Congress and the Presidency, not much was done about the conservative agenda of cutting spending and deficits.
If elected officials are honest and look in the mirror, they don't see the kind of people Derek Hunter wants in politics.
How much of the idiotic birth control debate could have been diffused if someone put funny, common-sense ads in primetime TV saying, “Democrats spend all their time demanding taxpayers cover the cost of birth control for all women when we already provide it for those who can’t afford it and it’s available to everyone for $9 a month. So why the focus on this? Because they haven’t passed a budget in more than 1,000 days? Because their economic policies have failed? Because gas prices and unemployment are through the roof?”
Yes, that message is conveyed by talking heads most people don’t watch, in op-eds most people don’t read and in “viral videos” no one sees. But you won’t find it on the TV programs most people watch. Why? Because it costs money.
In a way, it's a good idea, but it may go over people's heads. All some people may take away from such a commercial -- after the mass media is through with them -- is that Republican oppose birth control. Something like that is worth a try though, but play up the gas prices, rather than birth control.
I watched Mark Levin's Friday comments at the Reagan Library. When he was finished and the floor opened for questions, a kid was given the microphone. He said he was a high school sophomore. Every day, his homeroom teacher lead the class in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
The student said it infuriated him that not only was he one of the few who stood up and pledged allegiance, several in his class threw out catcalls and openly mocked our nation and those who love it. The student asked what he should do.
Levin tried to be upbeat and after congratulating him, said all he could do was work on each opponent, one at a time.
If our republic is to be saved, it will be from the ground up. Lean on your Congress-clowns every day. They will roll over when our God given rights are threatened, but will move heaven and earth to save their pathetic jobs.
Yeah, and Will Rodgers had the answer to the submarine menace - boil the oceans. He said that figuring out how to boil the oceans was a detail for smaller minds . . .The answer is to sue the Associated Press into oblivion. On what grounds? On the grounds that it is a monopoly. Not in the sense that there are no other wire services (tho SCOTUS found AP guilty of Antitrust violation back in 1945), but in the sense that its membership monopolizes journalism, and its membership is homogenized by the AP. That monopoly is the reason that “you never argue with someone who buys ink by the carload” - it’s not that any single news outlet would be unassailable, but that the problem is never with a single news outlet because they are all in wire services, and wire services motivate all journalists to hang together and mercilessly exclude any journalist who questions the objectivity of another journalist in good standing.When the AP was found in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1945, the AP was “too big to fail” because its mission - the conservation of scarce telegraphy bandwidth in the transmission of the news - was believed to be too important. With 21st Century laser, fiber optic, microwave, and satellite technology, long distance communications bandwidth is plentiful and dirt cheap (hence, the Internet). The mission of conservation of bandwidth in news communication is now an anachronism. Now, the only legitimate consideration is the fact that wire services function as a news trust.
I wonder if Bob Dole is going to make a trip to KS to give his former constitutents a tongue-lashing for not backing Romney. Dole was always good at tongue lashing conservatives.
When Pat Buchanan grasped the failure of free trade in the 1992 and 1996 races, establishment “conservatives” like GHWB, Gingrich, and Dole lambasted him. HE WAS MADE INTO A PARIAH!
Is this accurate? McKinley was said to be to the right of TR, but the terms "right" and "left" weren't used then, were they? Blacks stuck with the GOP until 1936, when FDR stole them away with the promise of federal largesse. Both McK and TR look big in comparison to the 2012 "leadership."
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