<$BlogRSDUrl$>

My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2008-01-28

Lynn Bartels May Be Guilty of Projection 

"Some Republicans Paddling Towards the Middle of Stream"

That's the headline of Bartels' piece in the Monday Rocky Mountain News. The evidence?

"Our legislators down at the state Capitol are doing an excellent job of showing the real contrast of a very centrist, mainstream Republican Party vs. what has captured the majority in both houses, which is kind of an extremist brand of political leadership," Schaffer said.

Well, that's pretty thin. Demned anorexic, if you ask me.

Bartels continues with this odd assertion:

If that sounds like an election strategy designed to woo unaffiliated voters, there's a reason for it: Democrats scored huge victories in Colorado in the last two election cycles, thanks to unaffiliated voters, who generally snubbed Republicans.

Now, obviously, that's true--the unaffiliated voters went hard for the Democrats in the last two elections. But its a little . . .um, incomplete. . . to simply say the unaffiliateds snubbed Republicans. It probably had nothing to do with the four- or five- to-one spending advantage the Democrats mustered over the Republicans in the last election.

Now, that said, let me say that I think its very stupid to get in a game of labels with the Democrats and the media this cycle.

The Presidential candidates are all spending a great deal of energy and money trying to convince voters who is the REAL conservative in this election. And, while that makes great sense for the primary, that label will get hung around the neck of the nominee like a millstone.

We've lost the label game in the last eight years.

Why? Well, as Bartels points out, sometimes its been because we're stupid. Exhibit A: the ease with which we could must legislative action in the Terry Schiavo case, but couldn't manage to get Health Care or a fix of Social Security. Exhibit B: statements--TRUE OR NOT--like the one Bartels quotes:

"The former House majority leader, Keith King, when asked the biggest problem facing this state, responded, 'The question of gay marriage,' " Madden said. "Not health care, not education, not the economy - although the state was in a budget crisis - but gay marriage."

Again, TRUE OR NOT. The problem our side is going to have is that the truth maters very little once the Democratic PR machine pairs up with the "professional journalists" to tell the story the way they want it told.

In my humble opinion, I think the thing our side must do is simply STICK WITH THE ISSUES. Avoid labels altogether--point out how "in touch" Republicans really are. As Newt is fond of pointing out, Americans in general (to the tune of 75%) agree on many core beliefs and issues. If Republicans can keep the conversation on those facts, we have a chance.

If we play the label game with the Dems and the media, we're in for another shellacking at the polls this November.
Posted by: Michael / 1/28/2008 01:07:00 AM

Weblog Commenting by HaloScan.com

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?