Start by considering the electorate's six broadest demographic groups -- white voters with at least a four-year college degree; white voters without a college degree; African-Americans; Hispanics; Asians; and other minorities.
These trends point toward trouble for the GOP if it cannot attract more minorities, especially Hispanics, and reverse the recent Democratic inroads among well-educated whites.Ever notice how only paternalistic liberals can get away with ghettoizing blacks, Hispanics and "other minorities"? A conservative who stereotypes behavior based on race or culture is called a bigot. Liberals blithely assume these groups will always vote Democratic; that they are homogeneous and care nothing for basic liberties, free enterprise, and other conservative principles. The unspoken belief is that these groups are spilling over with poor people who are dependent on handouts that only a liberal democratic machine can dispense. This balderdash is a benign brand of cultural and racial stereotyping.
Brownstein is right in one respect: Republicans must broaden their outreach, but not it the way he is thinking. Yes, appeal to everyone, but not by pandering to various minority constituencies like the democrats do. No, you do it by standing up for timeless American values like hard work, liberty, making your own life decisions for yourself and your family and your community instead of a government nanny state doing it. It means making free-enterprise solutions more accessible for people to grow small businesses where communities need them to solve local problems. Who wouldn't want that?
Communication is critical. The libs have beaten us bloody in the PR war: We conservatives hate gays, blacks, women, anybody who doesn't look like us or pray like us. Actually, I just described the radical Muslim groups these liberals defend so often, but you see my point. They know how to get their message out while negatively painting their opponents. Yeah, they've got teachers, professors, TV, Hollywood movies, every news outlet in the world on their side, so now what? General Chesty Puller, highly decorated and legendary Marine officer said it best: "We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."
So Hollywood and the media hate us. So what. We need to do what Reagan did: Go over their heads directly to the American people. How? The GOP and conservative movements need to stop sending out stupid questionnaires that are really thinly disguised fund raising props to people who already agree with them. They need to get some young people in there who know how to take the message to the masses. They need to fund conservative grass-roots experiments.
Think I'm dreaming? We have no alternative. You can't out-democrat the Democrats, just ask failed GOP candidate John (reach across the aisle) McCain and former President (education bill, senior prescription drug bill, compassionate) G.W. Bush.
People just wanna be free, and they can't get that from liberalism.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/politicalconnections.php
3 comments:
While the idealistic viewpoint is one of self-sacrifice and the betterment of the common good, and I'll quote a Democrat here:
Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country.
In practice it is more commonly Bread & Circuses. I may be a cynic, but your statement that "People just wanna be free" is less and less true as time goes by, being replaced by "People just want a free lunch". We have gone from being a country in which only the poor needed a hand-out, to one in which the guy who makes 65,000 a year wants free (meaning payed for by the taxpayer) medical care because he'd rather spend the money he would have spent on health insurance on a friggin Bass Boat!
We have gone from a proud society of individualists to one which abdicates any and all personal responsibility. We have gone from Uncle Sam to Uncle Sugar...and everybody wants their share of the sweets.
The problem is not one of rich/poor demographics, it is one of the principled and unprincipled. It is not the poor that are the problem, it is everyone else who wants and thinks they are entitled to a piece of the pie.
So we vote for bread and circuses, we vote based on what a particular politician is going to do for us, not what he is going to do for our country. We all mouth how much we despise pork politics, yet vote for the guy who brings in the pork!
Finntann, you are so right. This all boils down to a character issue among citizens. Welcome to post Christian America.
SteveH
I can't disagree, but the only alternative it to get into a pandering contest. I guess I still haves some naive hope that we can appeal to peoples better nature...
Anyway, this was more an excuse to get some sarcastic licks in at liberals and how they ghettoize people and get by with it...
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