“Promoting The Republican Brand”: The GOP Should Just Embrace Being A Party Of The Past
Scientists believe that dinosaurs roamed the earth until their extinction 65 million years ago. The religious right believes dinosaurs were with us until six thousand years ago. They’re both wrong. Anybody who watched the Conservative Political Action Committee conference last weekend or the Republican Party for the last few years knows the giant reptiles are still with us.
On Monday, the Republican National Committee released its own research on voter attitudes towards the GOP. The RNC study reports that Americans see the party as “narrow minded” and full of “stuffy old men.” These are the RNC’s words, not mine.
The RNC report also states that the party has to find better ways of getting its message across to the public. This will be much easier to do than changing Republican policies that the public finds so disturbing: things like killing Medicare, opposition to attempts to curb violence against women, and protecting federal tax freebies for big oil.
Here are my ideas for promoting the Republican brand.
The Major League baseball season starts on April 1 and I’ve come up with a great promotional tie between MLB and the GOP. The Republican Party can sponsor “Turn Back the Clock” nights with each of the major league teams to demonstrate the party’s commitment to the past. Wouldn’t it be great to see Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell wearing the throw back rainbow uniforms of the 1970’s Houston Astros or the brown and yellow uniforms made unpopular by the San Diego Padres?
A new brand needs a new slogan and I’ve come up with some ideas. Since the GOP is hell-bent on driving away the voters they need to win, I thought I’d help them along. It’s the least I can do to put the party out of its misery. This is what I came up with.
Vote GOP to Turn Back the Clock: Republicans do fine with seniors, but the party is woefully inept with the fast growing population of millennials, voters born since 1982. A good example of the GOP’s problems is the growing support for gay marriage. ABC News and The Washington Post released a new national survey Monday showing that support for gay marriage is at a record high (58 percent favor-36 percent oppose). Ten years ago, a large majority of Americans opposed gay marriage. An overwhelming number of millennials support gay marriage and support for the idea will grow as these young people become a larger proportion of the electorate.
Only Real Men Vote Republican: The GOP research report indicates that voters feel that the Republican Party is full of “stuffy old men.” If the GOP doesn’t change, the only people who’ll vote for the party will be stuffy old men. Maybe that’s why it is known as the GOP for Grand Old Party. Former First Lady Laura Bush told an audience that the Republican Party “frightens” many women. Republicans love to talk about rape and a majority of the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives voted recently against the Violence against Women Act.
If you have any ideas to rebrand the GOP, feel free to comment here and send them to RNC chair Reince Priebus. The new RNC autopsy states that Republicans were far behind Democrats technologically. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, didn’t use email and Mitt Romney’s campaign manager, Stuart Spencer, refused to use Twitter. I don’t know if the GOP has email or Twitter yet. So you might want to send your ideas to the RNC via snail mail at 310 1st St. SE, Washington, DC 2003.
By: Brad Bannon, U. S. News and World Report, March 21, 2013
“Undermining Democracy”: The GOP Plot To Steal The 2016 Election Continues
Michigan’s Republican Party approved a resolution Saturday that would change the way the states award electoral votes from the winner-take-all system that has existed since the state’s admission to the Union.
A total of 14 votes would be awarded to the candidate with the most votes in each congressional district and two would go to the overall winner of the state’s popular vote.
Under this scheme, Mitt Romney would likely have won 10 of the state’s electoral votes to President Obama’s six — despite the fact that Obama carried the state by nearly 10 percent.
The resolution was introduced by Rep. Pete Lund (R), who offered electoral college reform legislation in 2011 that would have given Romney the state, but which state Republicans rejected because they assumed the GOP nominee, a Michigan native and son of a former governor, would win the state.
Lund will likely reintroduce the bill in 2013. Republicans have majorities in both state houses and Republican governor Rick Snyder is supportive of the plan, but questions its timing.
“The right way is to talk about it in a bipartisan way … just prior to a census,” Snyder said.
Snyder’s approval rating has declined rapidly since he signed anti-union legislation during last year’s lame-duck session. He’s since tried to move back to the center by saying he’d like the state to accept Medicaid expansion.
Michigan’s shift of 10 electoral votes to Romney would not have swung the 2012 election for Romney. However, if all the states that have suggested changing the way they award their electors — Michigan, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — had done so, Romney would likely be in the White House now, which is why Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus endorsed the scheme.
The idea has been rejected by a few top Republicans — like Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Virginia governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) — and thus faded from the agendas in Virginia, Ohio and Wisconsin.
But in Pennsylvania — the state where voter ID was supposed to give the election to Romney — the effort continues.
A new bill that would rig the state’s electoral votes has been introduced by 13 Republican state senators. That support represents half the total votes the bill would need to pass the Senate. The bill could be on the desk of Governor Tom Corbett — who would sign it — this week.
Pennsylvania, like Michigan, has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992.
By: Jason Sattler, The National Memo, February 25, 2013
“The Influence Of Money”: The Road To Total Political Domination By The Wealthy
The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear the case that opens the door to the final destruction of the campaign finance laws that place a limit on how much money an individual can contribute directly to a federal candidate or national political party.
Now that the infamous Citizens United case, decided in 2010, has removed limits on how much a corporation, union and individual can contribute to groups that are ‘unaffiliated’ with candidates and political parties—leading to the creation and domination of the Super PAC—the Court, by agreeing to hear yet another challenge to campaign finance laws, is poised to take the next step toward finishing off all campaign limits by freeing individuals to give candidates and their political parties unlimited sums of money.
As the law currently stands for calendar years 2013-14, individual donors are limited to giving contributions to candidates for federal offices up to a maximum of $123,200 during an election cycle (two years) with a limit of $2,600 to an individual candidate, $32,400 to a national political party, $10,000 to a state political party and $5,000 to any other political committee affiliated with a candidate or political party.
However, an Alabama political donor—joined by the Republican National Committee—believes that the limitation of $123,200 placed on an individual donor during an election cycle is ‘unconstitutionally low’ and wants the highest court in the land to remove the cap.
The case now set to come before the Supreme Court will challenge only the total contribution cap and does not go after the limits placed on money given to individual candidates and political parties. However, based on the Court’s ruling in Citizens United, it is widely anticipated that were the Supreme Court to side with the plaintiffs in this matter and end the limits on the total contribution amount, the Court will have telegraphed its intention to do away with limitations of any kind or nature—making it only a matter of time until limits on individual contributions to candidates and political parties are also tossed into the dustbin of history.
While ending the existing limitation would put political parties on an even keel with the Super PACs in the race for big money, it would also mean the latest evisceration of the campaign finance limits put in place during the 1970’s when Congress reacted to the growing influence of money in politics—money that placed wealthy, individual donors in a position of undue influence over the nation’s elected officials.
The case that will now be heard by SCOTUS was argued last year in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit where a three judge panel ruled that the challenged campaign limit laws were, indeed, constitutional. In issuing the Circuit Court ruling, Judge Janice Rogers Brown noted that the Supreme Court had previously held that limiting an individual’s political contributions had only a marginal effect on that person’s freedom of speech and that it was within Congress’ authority to place such limits on individual contributions.
Judge Brown added, “Although we acknowledge the constitutional line between political speech and political contributions grows increasingly difficult to discern, we decline plaintiffs’ invitation to anticipate the Supreme Court’s agenda.”
The Supreme Court has now accepted that invitation, leading many experts to worry that the latest blow to campaign finance laws in about to descend.
By: Rick Ungar, Op-Ed Contributor, Forbes, February 20, 2013
“Demented Hummingbirds”: Marco Rubio And The GOP’s Thirst For Leadership
Secret Valentine’s Day memo to Sen. Marco Rubio from the Strategy Office of the Republican National Committee:
Dear Marco,
One simple word sums up your unorthodox rebuttal to the President’s State of the Union Address: Genius.
Pausing in the midst of a speech that nobody would otherwise remember, lunging off-camera for a bottle of water and then slurping it like a demented hummingbird? …
Time magazine was right. You are the savior of the Republican Party.
Was the whole country laughing at you? Possibly. OK, yeah.
But was it the most unpresidential thing you could have done? No! You could have walked out with your fly unzipped (whoa, don’t get any ideas!).
Truth be told, all of us here at the RNC started freaking out when we saw you stop and take that sip.
What’s that goofball doing? we wondered. Does he think it’s a rehearsal? Doesn’t he know he’s on live TV in front of, like, 50 million voters?
But once we stopped throwing our coffee cups and kicking our garbage cans, we calmed down and thought about what you’d done.
And we finally got it, Marco — the sheer brilliance.
The water grab wasn’t really a spontaneous and awkward moment, was it? You’d planned the whole darn thing, right down to your deer-in-the-headlights stare at the camera.
Of course you did, because that’s what saviors do. They see the big picture.
The script we gave you to read the other night was incredibly lame. In fact, it was basically Mitt Romney’s stump speech for the last three years. Didn’t work for him and, let’s face it, it wasn’t going to work for you, either.
Truth is, we don’t have any new ideas in the Republican Party. Our plan was to retread all our stale old ideas through a sharp, young Hispanic dude — you! — and hope people would think they’re hearing something fresh.
Obviously, you read through the script ahead of time and realized it was a turkey. So you improvised a visual distraction, something so ditzy that all of America would instantly stop paying attention to what you were saying.
In retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened to our party. Thanks to you, Marco, nobody’s talking about that moldy little speech. They’re talking about you jonesing for that water bottle.
The video clip has gone totally viral. On YouTube you’re getting more hits than that adorable piano-playing hamster!
Here at RNC headquarters we’re receiving thousands of emails and tweets, including some from GOP donors who haven’t yet grasped the subtle cleverness of your “message.” Which is:
Yes, Sen. Rubio is really thirsty. The whole country is really thirsty!
Thirsty for a new direction, a new vision for the future.
We’re still ironing out some wrinkles, but you get the idea. You’ve struck gold, Marco, and we’re on it.
By: Carl Hiaasan, The National Memo, February 19, 2013
“Rewarding Failure”: Reince Priebus Re-elected To Lead The Republican National Committee
Reince Priebus was re-elected chairman of the Republican National Committee on Friday, overcoming divisions and tensions in the party as he pledged to remake and restore the Republican brand before the Congressional elections next year and the 2016 presidential race.
He was elected with near unanimity to serve a second term at the helm of the Republican Party. He allayed concerns from some party officials and activists about the outcome of last year’s elections and sought re-election without serious opposition.
“We can stand by our timeless principles and articulate them in ways that are modern and relevant to our time and relatable to the majority of voters,” Mr. Priebus said in his speech. “And that, I believe, is how we’ll achieve a Republican renewal. That’s how we’ll grow. That’s how we’ll win.”
The election here on Friday during the annual winter meeting of the committee unfolded without the drama and dissent of two years ago when Mr. Priebus was elected after surviving seven contentious rounds of balloting to overtake Michael Steele, the embattled party chairman.
Mr. Priebus, 40, a former chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, delivered a blunt message to the party during his acceptance speech. He said that the Republican Party needed to rebuild across the country and not simply focus on the same battleground states that are at the center of every presidential election.
“There is one clear, overriding lesson from November: We didn’t have enough voters,” Mr. Priebus said. “We have to find more supporters. We have to go places we haven’t been and we have to invite new people to join us.”
In his remarks, Mr. Priebus reported to members of the committee that he had led the party out of the debt that he inherited when he took over two years ago. He said the party still needed to make strides to compete with the Democratic Party.
Mr. Priebus secured the support of the party’s major donors and state officials, even as he appealed to the Libertarian strains of the party that are represented by supporters of Ron Paul. He fought back the possibility of a challenge from Mark Willis, a committee member from Maine, who supported Mr. Paul in last year’s presidential campaign.
Mr. Willis did not receive enough support on Friday to have his name placed into nomination. Party officials who gathered here said Republicans needed to be unified if they were going to successfully rebuild after losing the race for the White House and seats in the House and Senate last year.
In his remarks on Friday, Mr. Priebus said the party needed to improve its technology to compete with Democrats, but also focus on returning to the basics of building a strong get-out-the-vote operation. He did not talk specifically about the divisions inside the party over fiscal and social issues, but he urged Republican officials to be driven by their overarching goal: winning elections.
“Growing the party to be more welcoming and more inclusive does not require abandoning our principles,” Mr. Priebus said. “It means renewing those principles because only they can offer the solutions to the liberal-induced problems of our time.”
By: Jef Zeleny, The New York Times, January 25, 2013
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