Instead of treating voters like dummies or statistics in pie charts, Reagan talked to the owners of the country like real people. It was easy. That's how Ronald Reagan truly felt about his countrymen. He talked to the American people like his neighbors. If onlyGOP campaign consultants could just figure out how to fake that kind of heartfelt sincerity. Reagan understood the people he was talking to, from real life experience, not from consultants analyzing voter blocs for him.
Third, many argue that Republicans should nominate moderates like Chris Christie. But they always say that. No matter what happens, their advice to lurch Left never changes.
In 2012, Virginia Republicans nominated the establishment choice for U.S. Senate, George Allen, instead of tea party leader Jamie Radkte. But the establishment choice George Allen lost by 224,525 votes statewide compared to Ken Cuccinelli's 55,100 vote loss in 2013 statewide. The 2012 race demolishes the theory that in 2013 Republicans ran a candidate too conservative. Nominating a moderate in Virginia didn't work in 2012.
Fourth, Democrats ran a fake Libertarian, Robert Sarvis, to siphon off Republican votes. Only 24 hours before the election, Meredith Jessup at the Blaze revealed that an Obama campaign donation "bundler" -- Texas billionaire Joe Liemandt -- paid $150,000 for the petition drive that put Sarvis on the ballot. Ron Paul repudiated Sarvis for not espousing libertarian positions and campaigned for Cuccinelli.
Yet Cuccinelli's campaign wasn't awake enough to discover this dirty trick months earlier. Breaking that story six months ago might have changed the election. But the story broke only on Monday morning, November 5. The $150,000 donation was in January 2013. A competent campaign would have researched Sarvis' single largest campaign contributor. Sarvis took 145,638 votes (6.52%), while Ken lost by only 55,100 votes. But worse, for months Sarvis made Cuccinelli appear hopeless in opinion polls when Sarvis was polling at 10 percent. That scared away donors, volunteers, editorial support, and party assistance.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/2014_us_senate_run_for_ken_cuccinelli.html#ixzz2kS1Nm3Vw Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Just run against Obamacare.
That would be PERFECT!
He needs to be MORE AGGRESSIVE, and assert his CONSERVATIVE credentials.
(don’t let Rove sell you this middle of the road crap!)
THAT is how you gain real Tea Party support and send a strong message to the GOPe!
He would be an ideal candidate for Senator from Virginia.
“Instead of treating voters like dummies or statistics in pie charts, Reagan talked to the owners of the country like real people.”
Are any conservatives listening? This is key.
Great post, btw.
Hope he can hang in there, learn from his mistakes, and build-up a bigger war chest. Unfortunately, conservatives can be world-class quitters when they lose, the Gipper being a notable exception.
Oh please no. He can’t win. Get a Conervative, yes, but Cuccinelli has too much baggage.
He is a good candidate. It’s just the repubs have to be smarter. They have to have a good counter to liberal Texas billionaires getting Libertarians on the ballot to help the demos. We need to throw money to the Green Party or some other lib group.
Cuccinelli may be the only viable candidate the GOP can must against Mark Warner. But, as the writer notes, he has to get rid of his campaign leadership and find a way to patch up the rift in the Virginia Republican Party. The presence of Robert Sarvis wasn’t the only reason Cuccinelli wasn’t able to raise money; he ran a poor campaign until the final two weeks and was out-spent 2-1. To give you some idea of how under-funded Ken was, he didn’t have a single TV ad in the Washington, DC market for the last two weeks of the race, and still almost won.
The Virginia GOP needs to find someone it can unite behind. My personal favorite is Randy Forbes, the 4th District Congressman; solid conservative, expert on national defense and the Navy’s shipbuilding program (critically important in Hampton Roads). But Congressman Forbes doesn’t have a lot of name recognition outside his district and shows no inclination to run against Warner. Damn shame, too...Warner is another rich buffoon who spent his way into a Senate seat.
One final thought: Republicans in the Old Dominion could take a lesson from their neighbors in North Carolina. Since 2008, the Tarheel State has moved steadily to the right; the GOP took control of the state legislature, forced Beverly Perdue to abandon her re-election bid, cut taxes and put a Republican back in the governor’s mansion.
True, North Carolina doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of federal workers in its northern-most counties, but there are plenty of libs in the Triangle area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill). Yet, the GOP is growing in NC, while it is only treading water in Virginia.