Review of Romney campaign Reveal How Republican Campaign Consultants destroy GOP

Here is why Republican candidates always lose — stupid campaign consultants:

“Romney’s strategists WORRIED that stressing his personal side would backfire, ”

Faced with a winning action plan in front of them, Republican campaign consultants talk themselves out of almost every thing that might actually work.

Campaign consultants are experts at sitting around and fretting, and squirming, and twisting themselves into pretzels and finding some reason not to do what needs to be done.

Republican strategists are experts at shooting themselves and their candidate in the foot.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2012/president/2012/12/23/the-story-behind-mitt-romney-loss-the-presidential-campaign-president-obama/2QWkUB9pJgVIi1mAcIhQjL/story-0.html

One of the gravest errors, many say, was the Romney team’s failure, until too late in the campaign, to sell voters on the candidate’s personal qualities and leadership gifts. The effect was to open the way for Obama to define Romney through an early blitz of negative advertising. Election Day polls showed that the vast majority of voters concluded that Romney did not really care about average people.

Republicans, as it happened, had lost track of their own winning formula. Democrats said they followed the trail blazed in 2004 by the Bush campaign which used an array of databases to “microtarget” voters and a sophis­ticated field organization to turn them out. Obama won in part by updating the GOP’s innovation.

Romney’s inner circle of family and friends understood the candidate’s weakness all too well: He was a deeply private person, with an aversion to reveal­ing too much of himself to the public. They worried that unless the candidate opened up, he would too easily be ­reduced to caricature, as a calculating man of astounding wealth, a man unable to relate to average folks, a man whose Mormon faith put him outside the mainstream.

Romney’s eldest son, Tagg, drew up a list of 12 people whose lives had been helped by his father in ways that were publicly unknown but had been deeply personal and significant, such as assisting a dying teenager in writing a will or quietly helping families in financial need. Such compelling ­vignettes would have been welcome material in almost any other campaign. But Romney’s strategists worried that stressing his personal side would backfire, and a rift opened ­between some in Romney’s circle and his strategists that lasted until the convention.

Should the Republican Party Change its Agenda to Fit the Times?

The Republican Party is torn by conflicting theories.  One part of this conflict is a claim that the Republican party should change its agenda, platform and positions simply to offer a new agenda to keep up with the times.  That is some RINO's are actually insisting that the GOP's platform should change simply to offer something new.  Not something specific or something better.  Just anything new simply to be new.

They argue that simply becuase the Republican Party is consistent and doesn't change in its positions, that is bad and makes the GOP unappealing.  To appeal to the next generation of voters, they argue, the Republican party should be offering something new (apparently always offering something new continuously to each new generation).

But we should ask:  Why would an evolving set of values be desirable?

Why would we ever want to show that the Republican Party adapts?

Republican values are either right or wrong.

They are not a question of fashion — this year’s fashion is dark blue sailor style dresses and next year’s is lace.

Truth is truth. Right is right. Wrong is wrong.

And as soon as you suggest that the Republican agenda is one of changing fashions, you have telegraphed to everyone that you actually, in reality, believe in nothing, stand for nothing and (most of all) know nothing.

Why should anyone follow you if you are willng to change your beliefs like the changing of the seasons or the shifting of the winds?

If you believe in nothing, why should anyone agree with you?

If you believe in nothing, why should anyone believe in you?

If you have no answers (no enduring values or principles) why should anyone trust you?

Better Candidates? Or Better Campaigns? The Food Fight within the GOP

There are at least two major competing theories on how the Republican Party can win:

There is the “blame the candidate” theory.

There is the “run better campaigns” theory.

(There are other major debates as well, such as issues, but meaningful discussion requires taking one major chunk at a time.)

The GOP is paralyzed and tearing itself apart because there is no agreement or consensus or even any common understanding of what others are saying. Each side is so indoctrinated in its own assumptions of what is “self evidently” true (they think) that each side doesn’t even recognize or understand what is being said.

Furthermore, interlopers who want to destroy the Republican party keep giving “advice” to the GOP. This has been going on for decades when the mainstream media and Democrats in national discussion purport to tell the Republican Party how to win, when those giving advice are dedicated to making Republicans lose. So here we have “advice” from those who openly admit they are playing for the other team or eventually make it clear throughout the course of their comments.

So, a lot of energy and words are being given aimed at (a) encouraging Republicans to stab each other in the back and inciting Republicans to fight one another and (b) encouraging theories that keep Republicans untrained and uninvolved, and ensure Democrat victories in the future.

So, the “blame the candidate” theory argues that if only we had “quality” candidates they would  auto-magically follow a “ballistic trajectory” from announcement day to election day, and the outcome of the election would be completely predetermined by simply the quality of the candidate.

Republican insiders push a candidate-based political Calvinism. Pick a great candidate and the candidate will inevitably win just for being such a great guy, like night follows day. The outcome is predetermined simply by the selection of the candidate.

This was Mitt Romney.  Many assured us that (1) Mitt Romney would win because he has no baggage (SURPRISE!) and (2) Romney would auto-magically win just because he is such a “quality” candidate.

This debate is still raging in Delaware, where the “blame the candidate” theory is especially doubtful, because the fabled “quality” candidates choose not to run. The “magic Republican” candidates people hope for clearly are not interested in running for office. Why would they want to?

But the “blame the candidate” theory has great appeal.

The “blame the candidate” theory justifies people sitting at home on their sofas and simply throwing bricks and rotten tomatoes during the commercials in reruns of “Family Guy” and not actually doing anything. If the only problem is the candidate, you can always find something to criticize other than in yourself and your own behavior.

The other theory (“run better campaigns”) requires people to take responsibility, take “OWNERSHIP” of the outcome of election, and to actually make things happen for yourself.

Under the “run better campaigns” theory, you have control of your own participation (at least in part). YOU CAN BE EMPOWERED. You can gain knowledge, power, strength, and influence by your own initiative, not dependent upon anyone else. You don’t need to wait for anyone else. You don’t need anyone’s permission. You are not under anyone’s control. The power is in your hands.

So you can go out and learn more and more and be an expert in how to win elections. You can be the resource in campaigns, election after election, so that candidates need you.

Under the “blame the candidate” theory, there is nothing you can do until the fabled “quality” candidate comes forward (which will never actually happen, because no matter how good the candidate, you can always find something wrong).

And until a “quality” candidate sees that Republicans know how to win campaigns — not just beat each other over the head with campaign signs — what “quality” candidate in his or her right mind would ever enter the race?

But there’s a problem: If you think you know it all already, then you cannot learn more.

Until you realize that there is more to know, you won’t go out looking to learn it.

If you think you have “arrived,” then you cannot rise any higher.

 However, none of this is meant to suggest that anyone should repeat what happened in past elections. However, a person who does not study past experiences to learn from them is impoverished by a failure to learn. What makes civilization a success is when we stand on the shoulders of past generations. We look at past elections *NOT* to hold them up as examples to be repeated, but to gain as much understanding as possible, to do better in the future.

Also, no one is suggesting that better candidates are not better than worse candidates. But if you think that the quality of the candidate is the ONLY component of a winning campaign, you are going to get slaughtered. It is always better to have a better candidate. But candidate selection is only the very early beginning, not the end of the story.

Beware people who want to elect Democrats telling Republicans “Don’t bother getting more training and knowledge on how to win elections.”