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Newt Gingrich met with Republican leaders the other day to discuss their systemic problems going into the 2014 and 2016 election cycles. Someone sent Hot Air a copy of Gingrich's briefing paper. It is well worth reprinting in full. I will comment on it in future posts:
THE CURRENT SITUATION:
FEBRUARY 28,2013
Newt Gingrich
Draft
KEY PRINCIPLE:
Someone playing chess will always beat someone playing tic tac toe. Strategy beats tactics.
THE OBAMA STRATEGY FOR 2014 and 2016
It is clear President Obama has decided that he can win a decisive realignment in 2014 and then consolidate his party in power in 2016. To achieve that he will implement six specific strategies:
1. There will be a permanent 24/7 campaign to dominate the media.
2. There will be a constant issue focus shifting to topics which isolate Republicans andarouse the President's allies at the grassroots.
3. Relentless cynicism will characterize the manipulation of facts, the choice of issuesand the willingness to harm the American people and American institutions ("maximum pain for political gain" is the underlying system).
4. The entire coalition of left wing allies will be mobilized over and over to overmatchthe Republicans ( think Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, unions, gay rights groups,etc etc).
5. The Republican Party will be relentlessly attacked and defined in extremist language ( anti-immigrant, homophobic, racist, waging war on women, etc) so the collapse and isolation of the brand makes candidates unacceptable and unelected with no regard for their personal characteristics.
6. The 2012 turnout mechanisms will be modernized, improved and strengthened to try to make 2014 turnout resemble 2012 rather than 2010.
FACED WITH THIS REALITY THE CURRENT GOP IS HOPELESSLY OVER-MATCHED.
FIRST STEPS:
1. The GOP has to admit that it is currently incapable of moving at the speed and intensity of the Obama system, with the scale of the Obama system, or with depth and technological capabilities of the Obama system. Until Republicans understand how big the gap is they will continue to lose ground.
2. A new model Republican doctrine and system has to be developed capable of matching the Obama strategy and system.
3. Virtually every element of the GOP, party leaders, incumbents, staffs, candidates,consultants, pollsters, need to be trained into the 21st century new model GOP.
4. Metrics have to be developed for measuring performance.
SOME KEY PRINCIPLES
1. The system of planning has to be:
Values
Vision
Metrics
Strategies
Projects
Tasks
2. There has to be a vision focusing on a better American future not on an anti-Obamamessage.
3. There is no red and blue. There are 311,000,000 Americans who deserve a better life than the Obama big government redistributionist model can give them. This will require an even bigger, better data system than the Obama machine built.
4. The GOP has to match or surpass the combination of data and behavioral science which the Democrats have developed since 2004.
5. Republicans have to build a system for a permanent campaign with a 24/7 strategy and media capability.
6. If you aren't on offense you are on defense. There are no time outs. Every morning you know your status. If you aren't on offense you are on defense. If you don't win the argument you won't win the vote (a Margaret Thatcher rule).
7. Republicans simply must learn to communicate effectively, emotionally and in a compelling human way.
8. Republicans have to learn to compete in the entire media culture including entertainment media and Internet based media. Republicans have to go where the voters go.
9. Including minorities is a key to success. This will be challenging, at times confusing,and fraught with frustration. Every Republican incumbent, leader and candidate should allocate one third of their time meeting with minority Americans. The first goal has to be to practice listen-learn-help-lead as a model. As Jack Kemp used to say "they have to know that you care before they care that you know". This one principle is an absolute key to any Republican hope to be a majority party.
10. This scale of change requires systematic leadership, metrics for achievement, and encouragement for those willing to take the risks, spend the energy and lead the way. It is a direction not a structure and it will inevitably have some chaotic, imperfect and even confusing moments.
11. Every Republican activist would do well to read California Lieutenant Governor (and former Mayor of San Francisco)' s new book Citizenville. While we will disagree with some parts of it, it is the best description I have found of the potential for a citizen-centric model of civil society to replace the Washington centered bureaucratic model which is currently serving a so badly.
12. Humor can be an enormous advantage, especially at a time when people are anxious about the economy, tired of the political fighting, etc. Note Reagan and Lincoln used media constantly.
Ed Morrissey ads:
Demographics are a big concern with Gingrich, and the only path to success is broadening the GOP’s brand to minority voters. “Every Republican incumbent, leader and candidate,” Gingrich advises, “should allocate one third of their time meeting with minority Americans,” and be accountable to that in measurable data. That doesn’t just mean face time, either, but a “listen-learn-help-lead” model that requires real engagement and long-term commitment to constituencies on which the GOP gave up years ago.
This isn’t new, of course; Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan have urged the Republican Party to start going back to the urban centers that Democrats have had by default for decades, and I wrote after the election about the need to provide real solutions based on conservative principles that will actually help ordinary voters in these communities and address their concerns. That’s the “listen-learn-help-lead” model; if all we ever do is the first stage, it’s not much of a mystery why we fall behind. Gingrich put this into a concrete model for the GOP to follow in his briefing yesterday, and we will see whether anyone chooses to put this into action.
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4 comments:
Or we can isolate ourselves from the insane left and let them screw each other into oblivion. Strengthen state rights and bring back the soldiers from your state. This administration is illegal and these soldiers will face a choice: whether they will honor their oath to defend the Constitution or whether they will serve a man. GW, I don't see any other road here. We won't survive by rigidly adhering to rules from another era, against an enemy who will use these rules against us.
Interesting. I just read a post at sipsey street irregulars which runs hand in hand with what I just wrote here. We need to form our own legions that will match whatever Washington throws our way. When you have the chance.
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2010/01/when-to-shoot-colonels-west-pointers-ad.html
Hi GW,
thank you for continuing to blog, much appreciated.
Gingrich has it wrong, I recognize his intelligence, and admire it, but his KEY PRINCIPLE is wrong, and therefore everything that follows is also.
Great analogy on the surface,( chess vs tic-tac-toe)but that only clarifies the existing results of the "game" that is currently controlled by the Dems.
The only way to enlighten the public is through TRUTH, not deception, or fraud, or role playing, as politics has devolved into.
Truth, justice, the rule of law as spelled out in the Constitution, as you have so eloquently noted here, time and time again, should be the KEY PRINCIPLE.
What Gingrich is not acknowledging, and I am sure he is knee deep in, is that the Dems are currently the dealers of "the card game", using a double stacked deck, (election fraud,and liberal media). His strategy boils down to basically doing a better job of "card counting", if the Repubs expect to win a couple of hands (elections).
Same old, same old nonsense.
It became quite clear to me that the Repubs are useless, when they let Alan West be knocked off (he clearly was a threat and embarrassment to them) in an obvious case of election fraud. (1 of hundreds, perhaps thousands of irregularities across the country).
A legitimate political party by, of and for the people, will make election fraud their top priority. These two parties use it as another "tactic" in their game.
The problem in this Country is they (Dems and Repubs) control who can play the game, the public is not allowed another choice.
We, the American public, are ultimately responsible for allowing, or ignoring this sad state of affairs.
Although some of us are listening for that saving grace, or voice in the wilderness, clearly most have not suffered enough to recognize the deceptions propagated by both parties.
From where I sit, truth honesty and openness, will easily defeat anything the Dems and their allies can dish out, no other "weapons" are necessary.
all the best, Tim
Vinnie: I hope that we have not gone so far off the rails that the only thing left is an eventual second civil war. That said, the thought of it, once unthinkable to me, is unthinkable no longer.
Ted: My firm belief in the idea that truth and honesty will out has been shaken to the core by the 2012 election.
A second belief that I have long held - and screamed from the top of my lungs on this blog - is that conservatives need to be passionate, unapologetic, intellectually honest and vociferous. They need to appeal as much on an emotional level as on an intellectual level. I am going to blog it above, but you can read the entire spot on essay at http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/02/david-horowitz-how-republicans-can-win.php
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