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

2008-11-10

What Now For The Republican Party, part II 

Part I was basically "Learn How To Talk."

This is more of a structural idea, rather than the stylistic thoughts of the last part.

Let's start with this lovely, and hilarious admission from the ombudsman of the WaPo:

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

So, for the "professional journalists" to acknowledge the tilt, it must have been rather remarkable. How many points in the final tally do you suppose that tilt was worth? 2? 3? What if it was worth 6 points, or even ten?

I only ask that because it's becoming increasingly clear that the "professional journalists" are vastly more interested in influencing the public than they are in reporting the news or in informing the public.

Which leaves only one option for those of us on this side of the ideological divide: we must stop feeding the beast. If we have a subscription to the WaPo, we must cancel and tell them why; if we get our news from a biased source on TV, we must stop watching them and tell them why; if we regularly drop $10 dollars a seat to numb our minds with George Clooney's "Ocean's Seventeen and a-half", we should find a better use for that $10--and then tell him why.

Is the media Leftist? Of course it is. Is Hollywood Leftist? Of course it is. But as long as they're the only game in town, they know that they will never pay a price for their Leftiness. I would suggest that until they start to feel the difference in their wallets, they will continue to fund those that we disagree with in astonishing numbers. I don't mind that Matt Damon is a Leftist Democrat--I do mind that he has access and infrastructure (for lack of a better word) to be able to funnel tens of thousands of dollars to Leftist causes. One conservative estimate had Oprah's contributions to Obama at $1 million! There's absolutely no reason for any of us to continue to fund her funding of him.

AND LET HER KNOW WHY! Tonight I turned off the evening news from our local channel, and turned on FoxNews. When my wife wondered why, I explained all of this to her, and she seemed to understand and give in.

The downside, as we learned tonight, was that we didn't get any effective local news or weather. So, we'll have to work harder to learn what to do to get the information we need. Luckily, most of the real information we rely on is available for free online--that requires just a little bit of work, and I don't know yet how easily that will translate for us.

So, what's the solution? Well, this is easy from an entertainment perspective. Most of what's on TV or available in the movie theaters is garbage anyway, so it's easy to forego most of that. I would strongly recommend offerings on ABC family for their family-friendly programming, sports is always safe, and there seems to be a growing production industry for decent movies. Let me recommend two of them: last weekend my wife and I saw Fireproof in the theaters (poorly acted, but with a solid enough message that it doesn't really matter after a while), and this weekend we bought and watched The Ultimate Gift. These are both family-friendly, religion-friendly offerings that do more than just entertain--they actually manage to enlighten, if just a little bit. But, even better, it means that $20 of my money went to people who are trying to improve society through their entertainment offerings, rather than simply funding a massive political campaign. The point is, there are better options out there! Do a little thinking with your entertainment money. Given the choice, but a Charlie Daniels album rather than a Maroon Five album; see a Mel Gibson movie rather than a Ben Affleck flick.

On the news front, this is much harder. It starts with relying on the internet offerings of the conservative newspapers and reliable news sources. But that has only a limited ability to influence the world as a whole.

The real solution lies with the sources of money that are available to the Republican infrastructure. And we know there are some--Mitt Romney has a huge personal wealth, and entertainers like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger would certainly qualify. These people have to find a way to counterbalance the George Soroses of the world. And they use that huge personal wealth to do one thing: create opposition sources of news.

Such a thing is not without precedent. After all, the early pamphleteers were nakedly partisan; Europe has a long history of opposition media; and a robust alternative to the WaPo's bias, the NYTimes constant revelation of national secrets, and CBS's invention of hit pieces is the only realistic alternative. Does anybody seriously think that, given a viable option, conservatives and Republicans wouldn't put their energy and the treasure into developing the alternative?

What of talk radio? you ask. What of the blogs? you ask. I think they have become choir-leaders, but I don't know how much they actually serve to influence mass opinion any more. However, they can AND SHOULD serve as the talent pool-source for the new outlets of media that will need writers, talkers and thinkers.

Just my little thought. Republican leaders need to have something to say, but they also need to have someplace to say it. Beyond that, rank-and-file Republicans have to have access to alternatives that will inform them while not continuing to fund the Leftist "professionals." Such an effort is long overdue--the Left figured this out forty years ago, and Dan Rather and Woodward and Bernstein motivated an entire generation that is now starting to win elections.

Somehow, we have to develop mirror institutions, or all the great ideas and great rhetoric in the world will be of little use.
Posted by: Michael / 11/10/2008 11:35:00 PM

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