Handicapping the GOP after Tuesday’s loss

Tuesday night was brutal.  If Republicans ever doubted that our message wasn’t getting through or that we face a formidable enemy with all of the right supporters – unions, foreign interests, the government, the entire media complex, higher education, and K-12 Education, that illusion has been forever shattered.  

So where do we go from here?  We can no longer afford to ignore our shrinking demographics, turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the shocking lack of minority representation in our party.  In my view we face three major hurdles: Messaging & Communications, The Culture and GOTV / Voter Turnout.  Overcoming these is the key to increasing our ranks and winning.  

Messaging/Perception/Communications is an obvious area of deficit, considering the Democrat owned media hasn’t ever covered an area of the GOP platform fairly. We do ourselves a major disservice when we have forced errors of our own.  The idea that we can speak one way in public and say other things in private is over.  

Every room, every meeting, every event where a Republican takes the mic, we must speak as if we are on MSNBC.  If you don’t say stupid things you don’t have to explain them.  The 47% comment made total sense to me and was borne out by the voting patterns seen on Tuesday.  But it cost Gov. Romney tons of votes.  There were other ways of expressing that sentiment.  When done correctly you will honor the Politicians Communications Creed: Never defend.  Always attack.

Another area in messaging and communications that must be addressed immediately is outreach.  This has never been a strong suit of the GOP.  Now more than ever, if you are a minority watching the MSM, you don’t realize that black conservatives exist.  And MSM watchers never will if we continue to leave our everyday communications to the Democrats.  We must come out and speak our convictions everywhere.  This means if you have people in your life that don’t know you are a Republican, come out of the closet and tell them why.  Make it real for them.  Stop waiting for the Democrat Media Complex to define you!

As a part of or communications strategy, we must stop pretending that our opponents have any honor.  They don’t.  Gov. Romney missed many opportunities to directly attack Obama on his failures.  The seconnd and third debates where Romney could have attacked on Benghazi and Fast and Furious were epic failures that cost votes.  There are millions of Americans that don’t know anything about those scandals.  And now they never will.

Culture: No one wants to be associated with the party of old white racists.  It matters not that we aren’t that party.  When the bulk of the media is trumpeting this message, we have to find alternative means of communicating our platform, or take on the beast directly.  What does this entail?  One major avenue that is ripe for the picking is the area of television.  Are we willing to cut off our cable, satellite, paid tv?  A concerted effort done in unison would be a major opening salvo.

College campus outreach:  The DNC has well funded affiliates on every campus trumpeting their message to the rooftops, to willing students who munch on pizza and drink beer while soaking up more marxist tripe. We must fund more student targeted initiatives.  Are you an alumni donor?  Pull that funding NOW.  Tell the college or university why you won’t be sending any more checks. 

Culturally our ticket was problematic.  The idea that we can ever run a presidential ticket without a minority on it in the near future is a fallacy as well.  Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio and Suzanna Martinez were just a few candidates that could have made all of the difference at the top of our ticket this year.  And they should be on the short list for the 2016 ticket.  Make no mistake, it matters not who we are, what matters is the perception of who we are to the 60 million Americans that refused us on Tuesday.

Lastly, we must address GOTV and Voter Turn Out.  The numbers from Tuesday show a deficit of 3 million conservative voters.  We can strategize how that many people on the right could sit out what has been dubbed the most important election of our lifetimes, but one thing is clear: they did not show up to vote for the ticket.  There are two ways that we can change this scenario for 2014.  

The first is pretty simple: get up off the couch and run for something.  We are losing on the local level, forgetting one immensely important political fact:  all politics are local.  So get on your local taxing authority and make something happen. Run for school board, or city council.  Running for office means you knock the doors of the frequent and likely voters in your area, amassing a contact list of thousands.  These people know you and they trust you.  This translates from mid term local victories to statewide and national races.  

Secondly, stop underestimating the Organizing For America machine.  It’s depth and reach is magnificent, because they never stopped working on it after their victory in 2008.  One example of its power can be seen in this is excerpt from United Steelworkers Union President Gerard’s post election press release

The USW organized a formidable army of volunteer union activists, retirees and poll watchers, who focused on nine battleground states and engaged in some 135 key congressional contests. The states were: CO, FL, IA, NH, NC, NV, OH VA, and WI.

In the past two weeks, the USW amassed 4,100 trained volunteers, plus another 2,900 worksite union members to pass out 2.1 million candidate handbills. Election Day reports filed show 18,315 shifts of USW volunteers and retirees in the battleground states doing block walks and door knocking. During the past two weeks in those states, USW members knocked on 173,800 doors. Another 376,790 direct campaign mailers were sent to USW active and retired members who resided in the battleground states.

Do you understand now?

Don’t get ticked at me for telling you the truth about our party.  Don’t try to justify our lack of outreach, not only do I not want to hear it, the other blacks and hispanics that aren’t in the GOP don’t want to hear it either.  If excuses for our failures are a part of your strategy for winning in 2014, allow me to tune you out now, I have work to do.