Tuesday, September 22, 2015

How Republicans can win the election

This isn't rocket science. As Bill Whittle pointed out in 2012, Republicans have managed to do everything wrong in their campaigning and the Democrats do everything right. Furthermore, the Democrats have the media doing their bidding full-tilt 24/7. and yet it's still a 50/50 country. So how little do Republicans have to do to win?

A few simple thoughts.
  1. Pretty much 100% of the polls in every election say that the primary concern of the public is the economy. So any campaign that doesn't focus on the economy is fighting an uphill (and unnecessary) battle. That isn't to say you shouldn't talk about other matters. But make sure the economy is clearly a major (THE major?) point of your campaign.
  2. The other point that consistently resonates with Americans? Distrust and dislike of the government. Ronald Reagan tapped into this and won two landslides. Focus on reducing government, reigning in government, and letting Americans know you're on their side, not on the side of power-hungry government bureaucrats who want to control their lives. (This also means ditching big-government Republicans because they're only marginally better than Democrats in theory and no better than Democrats in practice.)
  3. Stay on message. The media will always want to divert you from points 1 and 2 because they know Republicans will win on points 1 and 2. Sure the Democrats have so much wrong with them that they present 1000 targets. But don't get distracted.
  4. Fight back. Stop acting like the media has any honesty, integrity, or objectivity. Stop acting in good faith towards the media - they only want to destroy you because you're a Republican. Mitt Romney is an excellent man but he was naive when dealing with the media and they savaged him. Donald Trump may be a bit crazy, but he fights back and two good things come from this: the media doesn't know how to cope with him because they're used to Republicans rolling over and playing dead, and the public loves it. (I think that subconsciously, even the liberal public wants to see the self-righteous, self-impressed media get put in its place.) Trump, of course, goes too far and makes obnoxious, pointless, and often untrue statements about decent people. Carly Fiorina is an excellent example of doing this right. She doesn't let the media away with anything.
 Just look at the Republican field vs. the Democrat field. The Republicans are overflowing with people who would be excellent presidents. The Democrats can only put forward three ancient socialists with no accomplishments that aren't political. Zzzzz. This election should be a cake-walk for Republicans and yet they stand an excellent chance of losing because they ignore the four points listed above.