A key aspect of this issue that continues to bother me is that marriage is a social and cultural institution as much as it is a legal issue, and the legal aspect is being used to bludgeon the other aspects.

With so many ways available for adults to order their affairs and arrange their relationships, it was never clear to me why the entirety of marriage had to be turned on its head after thousands of years of practice.  As pointed out, a generation ago no one would have taken this seriously but today it is a Supreme Court case upon which so many claim that their human dignity is in the balance.

If this case goes towards striking down DOMA and Proposition 8, the Supremes will find yet another unwritten "fundamental" right written into the Constitution that no one else noticed in the previous two centuries.  And as we know from prior experience with these discoveries, they settle nothing and widen rifts.  For example, we can all readily expect that once the Supreme Court discovers a constitutional right to gay marriage, that there will be a fight with most churchs over the need to recognize and administer those marriages.

[Continued]

3. Outreach is fine, but we need more than a rebranding project to win voters. The Obama camp maintained a permanent campaign and trash-talked the Romney camp for months. Is the GOP prepared to get into this fight on these terms? For example, the GOP seems to yield ground that it won for no reason. As part of his proposal for a "balanced approach" President Obama yet again dragged out tax credits for "oil companies." Didn't Romney wipe the floor with him on that point during the first debate? Didn't the GOP fight and win that argument? Why are we not seeing the GOP Reps and Senators batting that right back at him on the Sunday shows - that this is a bunch of nonsense and not a serious proposal? It's a small point, but the Dems always seem to show up with sucker punches and our guys act like they are too proud to push back. Trash-talking the opposition seems to be a winning Democrat get-out-the-vote tactic and the GOP needs to be prepared to fight that battle.

I have not read the report but skimmed over it, but some early thoughts:

1.  I'm glad to see the section on Campaign Mechanics.  Clearly this isn't getting as much attention as the "mea culpa" elements, but it may be the most important part.  In '04, Rove put together a great get-out-the-vote process that brought in votes no one knew we had.  But in '08 and '12 the GOP process failed.  I'm not sure what happened in '08, but would love to know.  All I ever heard was that the McCain Campaign didn't want to use the '04 arrangement.  In '12 we reinvented the wheel with ORCA.  If we can't get our own people to the polls, it doesn't make a difference where we improve outreach.

2.  We ultimately have to do what we promise to do.  We didn't do that during the Bush years, which ended in financial panic.  I recently saw a poll indicating that people like our ideas but don't trust us on the economy.  The Dems backtrack off of their promises and get rewarded; the GOP doesn't do what it promises and gets punished.

Is this Sen. McCain who complained about Sen. Paul's filibuster being a "political stunt" the same Sen. McCain who had a four-year temper tantrum during the first term of Bush '43 (including a subdued and aloof speech at the '00 GOP Convention) and then engaged in a dalliance with John Kerry on the VP slot of the '04 Democrat ticket?

Yeah.  I should have seen that coming.

The difference it makes is that she accepted a position of authority and responsibility in our government, a debacle occurred in her area of responsibility, and there must be an accounting for what happened.  The public is repeatedly stonewalled and then force fed a description of facts so detached from reality that one must suspend credulity (remember that one?) to believe it.

There is then a delay to the fact finding out of consideration for her health.  When there is an inquiry of  the facts, we are given wild gesticulating, filibustering, and the announcement that there is no difference between any number of motivations and scenarios (apparently because of the passage of time).

And this from among the most powerful and influential women in America?

It reminds me of the results of an investigation of the collision of two ships in the middle of the night.  The Navigator was asleep at the time, but was blamed for not properly training the quartermaster on watch.  It helped that he was the only one killed in the collision.

I guess we should blame the dead as they had the temerity to get killed on her watch and cause her so much indignation.

Of course there wasn't a credible threat of invasion; Hoxha didn't need one to jump down this rabbit hole.  Let's not forget that a high state of imposed paranoia is the coin of the realm for totalitarian states.  It becomes the justification for everything else.

I'm not so sure that's correct.  You would have thought that was true with Clinton in '98-00, but they rallied around to save his bacon and they gained nothing for it.  This group will never turn on Obama; at a minimum, they will never risk disaffecting the African-American vote.

As much as the GOP is accused of being too ideological, I think it takes a far distant second to the Democrats who are simply less candid about what they really want to do when they acquire power and more committed to a "win" over the GOP (regardless of what is being won). 

I think what is happening in DC with regard to budget and fiscal matters is incomprehensible and embarrassing, and I see nothing but lock-step uniformity among the Democrats to take the country over the cliff in some Progressive version of Thelma and Louise.  At this point, I see that going straight through to 2016.

I would also support term limits for all elected offices and the Supreme Court.  The current system arrangement with regard to the Congress and the Supremes date to an age when the life expectancy was 50-ish and there was a steady rotation of office holders.

Now, office holders get elected and stick around for generations.  This is supposed to lead to a more experienced governing class, but I would argue that we have the most experienced governing class in our history and we are wretchedly governed. 

Many of the leadership are little more than walking fossils who keep returning to the same ideas that they have had since the middle of the 20th Century.  Add in the institutional bias to granting leadership positions based on seniority, and we have the most stultifying Congressional leadership imaginable (see e.g., John Dingell - 58 years in a district that has only been representated by father and son since it was created in the 1930s; Sens. Inouye (53 years), Byrd (57 years), Kennedy (47 years) had to be carried out feet first; Fourtney Pete Stark (40 years) doesn't even bother to own a residence in his own district, etc).  Contra James Polk.

Rats.  My presence is required to be elsewhere that evening.  I very much want to make one of these in Dallas or the Plano-McKinney area.

The other thing for Pro-Lifers to consider is the political approach to dealing with abortion.  We have a million abortions in this country every year.  Is our goal to end all or nothing, or do we work for solutions that perhaps reduce it by half, and then by half again, etc?

Right now the current policy of no-limits on abortions is wrapped up in gauzy language of “reproductive rights” and “health care”.  There is no similar positioning of the Pro-Life side, which tends to get framed as the demand of religious fundamentalists.  Again, most people do not give this subject as much thought as the Pro-Life community would like and they lean towards taking a position they think is reasonable.  Hollywood will not make a movie about the Philadelphia abortionist arrested last year.  Pro-Lifers need to make sure they effectively cut through the chatter.

 If a candidate takes the position that there must be a total ban on abortions regardless of reason, then that candidate must realize it is at one end of the spectrum and needs to realize that he/she will be challenged on it and needs to be able to respond convincingly.

I'm not sure I understand the "truce" element in all of this.  What do we mean by a "truce" on social issues?  Most of the time the Right is not raising the issues as much as responding to the Left trying to upend the cart.

There is the issue of perceived extremism on issues.  Most people probably don't think seriously about the abortion issue and want a solution that seems reasonable for a complicated problem.  The bottom line is that the media will trumpet every Pro-Life advocate who calls for no exceptions and blanket out the reality that our country's no-limits position is out of the norm with other countries that allow abortion.

The reality is that the GOP saw two Senate seats get thrown away because candidates could not deliver a sensible elevator speech on their position; those positions got trumpeted and painted over the entire party.  For those voters that this is an issue, it will go against us.

I don't think the solution is truce or just surrendering on the issue, but Pro-Lifers need to think about what can be achieved politically and get their messaging consistent.

In first year Constitutional Law at GULC, when a question about the legislative process came up, the Prof referred us to the "I'm Just a Bill" cartoon.  Then in Legal Research and Writing, they played it for us when we began the unit on legislative research.

Absolutely brilliant work, and the contributing artists were excellent (I belive Blossom Dearie sang in a couple).   With all the resources now available, I just don't think there is anything being produced for these kinds of spots today that is in any way close.

Did it come in at 3:00 a.m.?

First, I think the 4-day convention needs to continue to be planned for, because there is always the possibility of a contested nomination and the convention might actually have to get down to work.

I realize this hasn't been a real possibility since ... '76 with Reagan/Ford so it seems now a very remote possibility.  In '80 you had the issue of no clear VP.

Second, as this recent RNC shows, it is still a necessary event for the party to define itself and steel itself for the coming campaign.  Doing it any other way will risk losing the message in background noise.  My impression from this convention was the GOP getting its game face on.

My impression is that the GOP should avoid hurricane prone cities for a while.  Also, while you need to schedule for 4 days, perhaps default to 3 days once the primaries are over and it's clear that there is no risk of a contested nomination.  A 3-day political extravaganza may be more than sufficient for current attention spans, and a fourth simply unnecessary and an option to cancel.  I think the 3-day format allowed for a well-run event.

I think in David Brinkley's "Washington Goes to War" he tracked down the day that the big government bureacratic state was born: The day that Congress voted to air condition the Capitol and Congressional Office Buildings in 1940.Before then, Congress met intermittently through the year when the weather was seasonable, but now they could be in session more or less continually.Alternatively we can task each House and Senate Committee with conducting a dedicated oversite hearing for each government program within its jurisdiction during each two-year Term. That should keep them so busy that they have no time for other mischief, log rolling, or developing even more programs.