Archive for November 3rd, 2010
QUESTION: How to drive a wedge between the gay community and the DNC?
Today’s all about brainstorming for the road ahead towards 2012.
One of the things I want to personally push is a coordinated effort by gay conservatives and our supporters to drive a permanent wedge between the gay community and the Democrat Party.
Part of the problem Republicans have had with gay voters is that all the emphasis has been put on how the GOP needs to change to attract more of these votes…and in Karl Rovian fashion, the GOP needs to seem less conservative and be mousier so that it can be tolerated more by the minority coalitions in the Democrat party.
The reason this failed is because the reverse is actually what’s true: the real way to win this game is not to focus on the GOP at all…but instead to address all the effort at the gay community.
I want to do this by not even mentioning the word “Republican” to them. Instead, I want to create a nationwide effort to ask gays why they keep voting Democrat in lockstep.
Yesterday, on election night, whenever I saw people in Boystown in front of TVs watching the results come in, I heard them say, “We’re losing this” or “At least we won that”.
This is interesting to me because I crossed the Rubicon with the Democrats in 2008 and have not thought of myself as “one of them” for so long. Gays really aren’t part of the “we” when Democrats say “we’re doing something”. Gays are people Democrats tolerate in their midst and use as gAyTMs to pull campaign donations from…and then forget about.
This needs to be exploited because a serious trend I’m noticing in Boystown is all of the professional, youngish gay guys who are financially strapped to the brink. Attendance in all the bars and clubs has dropped precipitously. When guys are there, they’re moderating their drinks, instead of having not a care in the world as they were before the Obamaconomy set in. At the gym and in restaurants, when I eavesdrop on their conversations everyone is unhappy with the amount of money they are making and frustrated they can’t jump from one high paying job to another anymore, as they were used to doing.
Now is a perfect time to start questioning why gay men are paying so much money in taxes for the entitlement programs Democrats fund for union workers, blacks, Hispanics, and the other Democrat voting bloc coalition members. Gays get no return whatsoever for the taxes they are paying: they are unlikely to ever go on welfare or receive any sort of public assistance, they are unlikely to ever make use of the public school system, they are unlikely to ever be in a union job as most gays are professionals or entrepreneurs. So, why are they paying so much in taxes when they get so little in return?
That question needs to be asked over and over again.
I want to do it with palm cards and other guerrilla marketing ideas here in Boystown and see if I can start planting that question in people’s heads and making them ask what, exactly, we really get as a community for blindly supporting Democrats all the time.
In doing so, we can also start to introduce these guys to the ideas of fiscal conservatism and other pro-individual, limited government concepts.
If Republicans are smart enough to keep their focus on jobs, the economy, and reducing government and not take the media bait to introduce social and cultural wars into 2012, there’s a great chance we can get gays to sit home for the large part and not vote. MAYBE we could even get crossovers to vote Republican for a change. That will be helped a lot if guys like Aaron Schock in the GOP come out of the closet and become Neil Patrick Harris-esque fresh faces of gay conservatism.
People should be voting in their best economic self-interests…which happens to also be what’s in the best interests of this country.
Currently, this is not happening because Democrats have been so great at keeping segments of the population on gender, orientation, racial, and ethnographic reservations.
We need to liberate these people from those identity schackles…in creative ways.
Start brainstorming ideas on how to do that now.
MISCHIEF: What can we do to trick the Democrats into becoming even more out of touch with voters over the next two years?
This is a project we want to start that will carry through the next two years – a real sustained effort to push the Democrats into becoming even more tone deaf and out of synch with what voters want.
In doing this, we’re going to appeal to their natural beliefs and inclinations, reinforce those somehow, and cause them to ignore what their own constituents are saying. Essentially, we want to get them to do what they do anyway, only on steroids.
The idea for this came from the Organizing for America phone bank operation that was setup by Demorats in the days before the election…which had a survey asking what people think the Democrat Party should stand for, how it should conduct itself, and what it should keep doing with the power it has.
We asked you to fill these surveys out with the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Democrats should really be doing if they wanted to win back Indpendent and alienated voters. We told them they needed to do more about healthcare, to get Cap & Tax through, and to push for Amnesty for illegal, criminal, invaders. These are things Democrats want to do anyway…that alienate them from voters. The more Democrats talk about these things, the more damage they do to the party…which is good for us in 2012.
With things like this, mischief, sometimes we feel like we’re speaking Greek to our conservative readers because your brains aren’t wired this way. You don’t do things like this, which is a shame because you should see that when you give people enough rope they do things to harm themselves you would never be able to do TO them.
In college, there was a guy some of us knew name MacKenzie who was a real jerk…and was essentially Vanity Smurf, just not blue, and not a cartoon. Always looking in the mirror, always trying to be stylish, always mooching off people and generally not doing anything he promised. So, one day while a group of us were out we popped into a thrift store in New York and saw the ugliest beret. We got the idea to have MacKenzie try it on, and when he did we told him how great he looked in it. We even got some strangers, just shopping in the store, to tell him the beret was really “him”. He ate it up, bought the hat, and started wearing it.
Everyone who didn’t like him — which was a considerable group — kept reinforcing to him that they loved his beret. So he wore it all the time, and became a fool people laughed at. Behind his back, at first, but the longer he wore that thing the more people noticed how absurd he was and the fewer people who took him seriously in anything.
He greatly damaged his street cred, all the while thinking he was a fashion trend setter people admired.
THAT is what we want to do to Democrats: to find a way to make them think the public really loves what they are doing, all the while the Resistance and Anger to these people is building to epic proportions. We need to keep Democrats from talking about any of the things voters actually want to hear about…and keep them talking about healthcare, Cap & Tax, Amnesty, etc.
Let’s make a list of other things that will alienate Democrats from voters.
On the other side of the coin, let’s also list thing the Republicans need to do to bring more voters to them.
This can be a two-front effort: subterfuge against Democrats will encouraging the GOP to get on the right track and stay focused.
Oddly enough, it’s actually a harder sell to get Republicans to do the right thing than it is to get Democrats on the fatally wrong track. The Republicans need to fight hard, cut budgets, slash whole government agencies, and work to reduce our debt. Democrats just need to be convinced to push the crazy things they want to do…so it’s like encouraging a narcissist to engage in the narcissism and ridiculousness he loves. While on the other hand, it’s hard to make people who aren’t natural fighters suddenly muscle up enough to put on red, white, and blue shorts and take down Ivan Drago.
Which is really what Republicans need to do between now and 2012: train hard and prep to engage in a knock down battle with the Communists who have taken over the Democrat Party. At the moment, the GOP is not man enough to do this — but thank God for the WOMEN that are Momma Grizzlies, because they’re going to be this nation’s, and the Republican Party’s, saviors.
Let’s start brainstorming for our Mischief Missions…and we’ll prep the ideas as daily action items starting tomorrow, so that we don’t waste a single day between now and 2012 when we can be doing something to alienate voters from Democrats while simultaneously bringing more voters to the Republican ranks.
Thank You, Speaker Pelosi, For Your Service As Our First Female Speaker
You sure were interesting, Madame Speaker. I will give you that.
I don’t like Nancy Pelosi very much on a personal level.
I don’t think she did a good job as Speaker from the perspective of an American citizen doing the best for the nation in total.
But, I do respect the woman’s accomplishments and believe she honestly thought, in most matters, she was doing what SHE thought was best at the time. I have no way of knowing if she was operating from a place of love for this country, or if it was always just about the party for her, but I don’t think she is an evil woman.
I think she has mental problems, but those are not her fault. She has some kind of damage in her brain that makes her behave the way she does, and for whatever reason, despite all her millions and her plush Congressional health package, she’s never had that treated. This should not be held against her.
But, I think we all need to pause a moment and look at how truly remarkable Nancy Pelosi is — with no snark and sarcasm intended.
“Remarkable” is not necessarily a praising word, just as “interesting” in Chinese idioms isn’t a compliment, but a curse, since hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and other disasters are “interesting” in the sense they are the yang to boring’s yin.
Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as Speaker was an interesting time for America. That is as diplomatic as I can refer to it.
But, I remember when she was elected Speaker in 2006, back when I was still a lifelong dyed in the wool Democrat. I was elated to have a female Speaker of the House, and to see a woman get that much closer to the presidency.
Conservatives might not think this is as big of a deal as I do, because I was raised Democrat and so I’m thus more attuned to identity politics than most of you might be. Maybe that’s why I always try to find strong female candidates to run for office, who are better than the men around them, because it’s a nation that’s 51% female yet women lag mightily in terms of representation. That’s wrong, in my opinion, and I want to see that changed.
Like her or hate her, Nancy Pelosi forever changed Congressional history by becoming our first female Speaker. And she was no wilting violet holding that gavel.
You have to admire her toughness, even while criticizing her reckless tactics and zeal to push the Left’s agenda.
But, still, that toughness is amazing to me. The woman is made of steel, coated largely with botox these days, but it’s hardend steel underneath. She was a tough Speaker who herded her charges effectively for her aims. While I didn’t like the things she was doing, I always marveled at how masterfully she was able to strong-arm, blackmail, bully, and cajole House members to commit career and political suicide for her…believing her promises that she’d keep them safe and protect them when the public angrily struck back.
Think about that.
Anyone with a brain in their head would have seen the public’s anger in 2009 over the Obamacare bill…just by watching what happened in Town Hall meetings all across the country over the prospects of tanking our economy with this unconstitutional monstrosity.
You have to admire the abilities of a woman who could call grown men and women into her office and make them forget what their own constituents were telling them. The woman must have magical powers, because if I was a member of Congress, serving at the pleasure of the voting public, and I attended a Town Hall where angry mobs screamed at me and burned my image in effigy like it was Paris, 1789 and I was living at Versailles, I sure as Hell would not have voted for Obamacare.
Just look at what happened to all those Obamacare supporters. They were wiped out. Nancy Pelosi is personally responsible for the extinction of the so called Blue Dog in Congress. However she did it, this vineyard-owning, Chanel-wearing, perfume-drenched, limousine Leftist from San Francisco charmed every fool who went to bat for Obamacare…and ended up as cannon fodder in Pelosi’s agenda.
I could never have pulled that off. Could you?
Could Dennis Hastert have marshalled Republicans towards mass suicide like that? Could Newt Gingrich or Tip O’Neil have done it?
True, admiring Nancy Pelosi’s control over Democrats as Speaker is akin to praising Jim Jones for getting so many people to drink his Kool-Aid or Obama for mesmerizing the masses in 2008 with his own special flavor as well.
But, I just have to give credit to where it is due: and Nancy Pelosi was an effective Speaker when looking directly at her aims, the job her party wanted her to do, and her astonishing success rate in these regards.
I’ve met Pelosi on two occasions at the various political events I go to. In person, she’s distracted, plastic, and every bit the stereotypical politician. She’s VERY California, which is something I don’t particularly like, and shakes your hand and looks at you in a condescending way that reveals how much she resents having to talk to anyone on your level, who should be bringing her drinks or appetizers silently and not standing in line to speak to her…because she is that important.
But, I will tell you, the woman is memorable. I will never forget the times I’ve seen her in person. I’ve met many, many people in this life, including many members of Congress, and I can’t recall most of them. One of the times I met Pelosi was in 2004 or so and I had no idea who she was, but never forget her face, her name, or that she was going to be very important in the future.
Like her or not, the woman is unforgettable.
And she sure is interesting.
I’m happy she will lose her gavel so she can do no more harm to the country, but I’m also happy the first female Speaker of the House was someone as tough as nails who got her job done. I want the next Speaker to be someone who works hard every day not for the Democrat Party, or the Republican Party, but for the American people. I’d love the next female Speaker to be Michele Bachmann or someone like her…and become the anti-Nancy Pelosi.
But, frankly, I love that Pelosi set the bar so high for our expectations of what a female Speaker should be. No wilting violet. No meek and timid token appointment. She was brassy and bold and large and in charge and I love that. It’s just such a shame she wasn’t a conservative force to be reckoned with, because just imagine an alternate reality where instead of pushing Obamacare and declaring war on our military Nancy Pelosi was a GOP Speaker and decimated the Left by using her formidable skills to wage all-out-war on Democrats.
Wouldn’t you have loved the woman then?
If so, you need to take a step back and respect her skills as a foe…if you would have been so thrilled to have her as an ally.
Politics is blood sport fueled by intense emotions that cloud virtues like charity and blind too many of us to the human beings at the center of the typical chaos. Nancy Pelosi truly spent her time as Speaker enthroned in the center of a hurricane, commanding an interesting time for the nation. She is flawed, seemingly mentally unbalanced, and possessed of poor judgment…but the woman is tough and good at what she does.
So, I thank Nancy Pelosi today for her service as Speaker. I thank her for being an example of what a strong woman can accomplish in a male-dominated institution, regardless of what I think of her results. I acknowledge she produced results, in spades.
I wish her great luck with whatever she does for the rest of her life, but I am thrilled she will no longer get the indulgance of flying around on her own Air Force Three, shuttling her many friends and family members to and from San Francisco like she’s Jane Wyman on Falcon’s Crest.
Go back to your vineyard, Madame Speaker. Retire. Enjoy your land, your chardonnay, your falcons if you have some. If you don’t, then get some. Order Louis Vuitton falconing gloves and train your birds to take wing with the same efficiency you trained your pet Congress critters in Washington.
Hell, become a Penguin-esque supervillain and use your birds to terrorize San Francisco with elaborate ornithological jewel heists as your new hobby, if that’s what you want…because, really, it’s what I’m going to picture you doing in your retirement anyway.
Enjoy yourself.
And the simple fact that you sure as Hell did things YOUR WAY and were a major force to be reckoned with for your four years as Speaker.
Kudos to that.
But, now don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
PROJECT: Find the most ridiculous spin pieces by the Left out there today
I can almost guarantee the most ridiculous spin piece written today for Democrats will be from the desk of Peter Beinart at The Daily Beast, because his essays are routinely the most absurd and out there pieces in digital print. While adorable, he’s something of a mental patient. And his writing proves that on a regular basis.
But, what about the rest of the rogue’s gallery of Obama propagandists? What are they saying today?
Can you find pieces written by the Left today, in the wake of last night’s Republican wave, that try to spin what happened as a good thing for the White House?
Can you find anything written by big-name Leftist writers that claim last night was actually a victory for Democrats?
How are these people spinning things to either take the blame away from Obama or create masturbatory fantasy worlds where Obama actually saved Democrats from some bigger defeat just by being Nobel-Prize-winning-awesome?
I’m curious to get a big picture look at what these nuts are up to, because then we can psychologically analyze these writings in total to get a better view into the Left’s mindset and where things are going for 2012.
For the very, very brave…those with cast-iron stomachs…can you maybe venture over to Daily Kos or other Soros-backed sites and see what those individuals are up to today?
How did they take last night’s rebuke…or do they instead see it as a BizarroWorld victory for Obama?
What’s the consensus?
The wisdom of voters and faith in democracy
Last night, several people I like very much on a personal level did not win their races. No doubt, this happened to you as well.
Corrupt politicians like Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Jan Schakowsky and others were returned by voters to Washington. Good people like Christine O’Donnell, Linda McMahon, Carly Fiorina, and others lost tough races after putting up great fights.
This is hard to take on an emotional level, but I’d like you to take a step and look at things big picture…and for those with spiritual inclinations, I’d like you to remember that God doesn’t ever give what you necessarily want to happen, but what needs to happen.
That’s why yesterday we asked you all to pray that voters gain wisdom when entering those ballot boxes. Perhaps it’s part of a bigger plan that the Democrats who retained their seats are staying where they are…so that they can be complicit in whatever is that’s to come in the next two years that brings about an even BIGGER takedown of the Left.
Harry Reid remains in the Senate to be the face of incompetence he’s always been. He’ll be an albatross around Obama’s neck for the next two years, and vice versa. Barbara Boxer returns to the Senate to remain the poster child of incompetence for the party. Moonbeam Jerry Brown has become the Governor of California, and will further run it into the ground in the next two years. Barney Frank remains a corrupt clown whose ties to the economic collapse continues to be a sore point for Democrats.
If any of these people had lost their elections, it’s true voters and America would have been better off. But, in terms of 2012 strategy, keeping them in office hurts Democrats as a party more than it actually affects America. These people are the faces of the party that continuously turn Independents away from Democrats…and they will keep doing that for another two years.
2012 is when there’s a score of vulnerable Democrats up for re-election in the Senate. This is when Republicans will take that half of Congress, and will expand their reach in the House, provided they stay true to the fiscal conservatism that is supposedly at their core and show stamina and muscle in battling Obama.
As for the White House, this current president did not receive the hand President Clinton was dealt: he will not have a Republican-controlled legislature to use as a punching bag. He can’t, like Truman, run against a do-nothing Congress.
I hoped for this outcome, actually: for Republicans to take the House, where all spending bills originate, but for Democrats to keep the Senate, for two reasons:
(1) This prevents the Cocktail Party GOP establishment from getting cocky and returning to their own spendthrift, Gingrich ways and abandoning what they stand for because it’s so easy for them to ride the pork barrel train. Without the Senate, they can’t push anything crazy of their own, to their own eventual detriment. This is a great thing. It also means Republicans can’t be blamed for everything Congress does, only what the House is up to…which most Americans don’t pay attention to. When they think Congress, they think “Senate”, and are more familiar with the Senators in their states because there are only two of those people, instead of the dozens of House members (or, if you prefer, clowns).
(2) Obama is not in the situation President Clinton was in back in 1994, so the dynamics are indeed very different for his re-election, which is a great thing. Since the GOP will not be allowed to run off on Gingrich-benders like Republicans did back then, Obama is not going to have a punching bag in Congress. Any hit he would take at the House is also a smack at the Senate, which hurts Democrats too. This is a good thing.
Ultimately, my greatest hope is that John Boehner as Speaker has the guts to pound away at Obama and Democrats every damn day, and that new Senate GOP leadership is installed, with Jim DeMint in charge, that will do the same thing there.
Bill after bill in the House must be launched to take down Obamacare — and, yes, the Democrat Senate will defeat them. This is a good thing for 2012 because every time Democrats stop a repeal of Obamacare, they are going on record as supporting what Obamacare is doing to the country. This is a cancer for the Democrat Party. Every Democrat Senator will be on continuous record voting and voting again and again to keep harming our economy. Let them.
If, miraculously, enough Democrats see the light and realize they are only destroying themselves by continuing to back Obama, and bills make it out to the Senate that take down Obamacare, we then get to the marvelous situation where Obama returns from the golf course or his latest fancy party to do some actual work in the Oval Office. There, he will get out his pen and veto repeals of Obamacare — which is great because it’s him damaging himself with every stroke for 2012. Let him do this twelve times a day if possible. Just keep vetoing that, Lightbringer. And see how much light that brings to your re-election bid.
Strategically, I think we’re in just the place we need to be for 2012 to bring epic defeat for Democrats and the election of President Palin to the White House.
Almost as if God spelled out how everything should happen to put us just where we need to be.
Yes, my heart breaks for the good people who put so much hard work into their campaigns, only to come up short. I am very grateful to them for running, and will remember what they did for America the rest of my life so that I support them in their future endeavors as well. More than that, today I am reflecting on their examples and looking at what was great about their campaigns so that I can help repeat them for future candidates…and also learning why they failed so that we can prevent those mistakes from happening again.
I believe and love democracy, and part of that means accepting the results as they come.
I’m also a guy who plays the hand he is dealt and does not live in the world of “should have” or what I wish or want to have happened. Today’s November 3rd. The election is over. It is not 100% what I wanted, but I’ll take 80% and use it in my plans for moving forward towards 2012…more committed and energized about hitting the Left even harder in our next bout with those Marxists.
Brainstorming: What are things the GOP can do to make people vote FOR THEM instead of just against Democrats?
One of the main takeaways for us last night was that voters seemed in almost all cases to be voting AGAINST Democrats, but not FOR Republicans.
It’s become cliche for people to say “both parties are bad” and then drone on about “lesser of two evils” year after year.
Why do things have to be like that?
Is this just part of our cultural DNA that somehow people pick up, and then parrot back unthinkingly over and over again?
Or, is there something the GOP can do to make people truly embrace it, want to support it, and take pride in voting FOR it.
When I woke up this morning, after reflecting on last night, I decided I need to become a dog in this fight…that if I want to go all-in for Governor Palin’s presidential campaign I should think about registering as a Republican. I know I don’t consider myself a Democrat anymore, and will never do so again. I’m in this Independent limbo but here in Chicago I’m still on the books as a (D)…and I thought about taking the plunge and changing that.
But, it’s the Cocktail Party GOP establishment’s go-along-to-get-along ways that keep me from doing this. Their squishiness, wimpiness, and general fey behavior throws me off. I don’t want to be associated with the blue blazer, do nothing, enable the Democrats crowd.
I like thinking of myself as one of Governor Palin’s Grizzlies…and I am proud to be Tea Party…but I feel no pride in calling myself a Republican.
Today, I want to flesh out why that is and think about things the GOP could do to re-brand so that more people could support Republicans with great pride.
What does it need to stand for to make that happen?
Where does the party need to go?
What can the new leadership do to change the status quo ways of the Cocktail Party?
Brainstorm in this thread, because I want to use every single day between now and 2012 to change the attitude the country has towards the Republicans so that in two years people will be voting FOR them, instead of just against the Left.
That’s how we really clobber the Democrats…with that one, two punch.
Wednesday Open Thread: November 3rd, 2010
Use this thread for your post-election thoughts.
I’m going to be sleeping in a little this morning, but will be back later this afternoon with our take on what happened yesterday…and what needs to happen to make 2012 an even bigger hit against the Left.
There’s a lot of work to be done.
Probably our favorite thing from last night was Marco Rubio’s acceptance speech, where he clearly told the GOP that this was not celebration time because Americans did not embrace Republicans last night…but gave them a second chance to prove they could be who they claim to be.
I loved that, because that’s how I feel about the party. Rubio took a clear shot right at the Cocktail Party Republicans, and there needs to be more direct hits like that to come if Obama and his thugs will be defeated in two years.
What was your favorite thing from last night?
Most surprising?
Where do you think America will go from here?
