Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Are You Willing to Hope Again?
Jim Geraghty starts today’s version of his Morning Jolt newsletter with a summary of the last two years that will be painfully familiar to anyone who’s been at the reins of a conservative organization since the 2012 election:
I am told by some campaign consultants that for much of the past two years, Republican donors have felt a malaise. You see it in both the individual-campaign fundraising numbers, the committee fundraising numbers, and the spending by outside groups.
He continues:
A lot of wealthy Republican donors — or even a not-so-wealthy Republican donors — are asking if it’s worth it. They dug deep to help out their favorite candidates in 2012, and watched their guys lose — Romney, of course, but also a slew of seemingly winnable Senate races. They’re not sure their donations do much good. They’re increasingly wondering if the American political system is a lost cause, if the electorate has become addicted to Democrats’ vote-buying spending programs, too tuned out to care about scandals, oblivious to serious problems and getting their political views shaped by Hollywood and pop culture.
This doesn’t even get into the issue of fearing an IRS audit or being publicly demonized like the Koch brothers.
Geraghty’s example is financial, but this syndrome spread far wider than the donor class. Here at Ricochet, we saw a deep fatigue with politics set in after the 2012 election, a dynamic that friends who run other conservative organizations have informed me was essentially universal. That’s understandable for several reasons, not least of which are that (1) a lot of conservatives were convinced that Romney was going to win and (2) the notion of America as a center-right country became much harder to sustain after Obama was reelected (many of us — myself included — were inclined to rationalize the first term as Obama having hoodwinked the country into believing he was a centrist).
Now, of course, things are different. Even a pessimistic view of the midterms has to give the GOP a decent chance at taking back the Senate. Whatever allure the president once possessed is almost entirely dissipated. And the roster of potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates is infinitely more impressive than the 2012 field (or, as I liked to call them, “The Expendables”). And yet … I’m not sure I’ve seen a proportional restoration of confidence on the Right.
Have you come out of the malaise? Are you willing to hope again? If Republicans win this year — and, to make it interesting, let’s say they take the White House in 2016 — are you confident that the country can be put back on something approaching the right track? Or have you succumbed to the counsels of despair, believing that we are now engaged in little more than negotiating the terms of our surrender?
Published in General
Hoping the Republicans take back the Senate is one thing. I believe that might actually happen. Hoping the Republican party will actually grow a spine and begin the hard work of shrinking the federal government is another thing altogether. For that, I have no hope.
We’re done. We fight no individual or even an ideology. What we battle is the mythology of the common knowledge. When people had to deliberately pick up a newspaper or magazine or sit down with a radio or television to receive “data” there was a chance. Now everyone is everywhere and always bombarded with the leftist dribble. Left=good; right=evil. No amount of campaigning, even with a Reaganesque personality, can overcome this. Talk to any intelligent, reasonable, non-political aquaintance and you will understand. Get into the details and he will sound like a conservative, but stay on the surface and she will espouse the common knowledge. We’ve been caricatured. No amount of truth will reverse it.
Winning fixes everything. Not only does it put you in power, it provides the template for winning in the future. One of the principle reasons for the malaise is that we haven’t won much, so we’re not sure what works. And we’ve tried a lot of different tactics. If you’re pessimistic you may have the sneaking suspicion that nothing will work. But I don’t think that’s it. One reason that I’m optimistic is that we have a great field for 2016, and between Walker, Jindal, Cruz, Christie, and others- someone will break through. And then the confusion of of the past few years will seem odd- when all we had to do was ______. In the meantime, keep calm and carry on.
I am afraid that this is all too true.
Total lack of hope is the best reason of all to fight. “When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
I’ve had these feeling before…
Sigh….do we really want to do this? If we win I will have some confidence and faith in our side. If we win and actually manage to do something then I will allow myself a measure of happiness. The problem I have is that for two more years Obama is still going to be at the head of the nation, and as president he has great unilateral powers to mess up foreign policy, and right now what makes me most depressed about our nation is our absolute failure in external affairs. Not much Republicans can do about that. I think the economy can fix itself if the government is just kept from doing it anymore harm, which we already have with the house. But, dealing with Russia, ISIS, Iran, China, and whatever other crazy nation/group will spring up from the weeds is all up to Obama, and no amount of republican congressional control can keep the man from letting the word go to heck.
Troy,
You bet I’m willing!
Regards,
Jim
One of the best lines in a great film, one which encapsulates much truth.
Yes because Republican are idiots on how they spend their marketing money. They spend money prompting candidates not ideas and a brand attached to those ideas. How they prompt candidates is boring and pointless and they have no metrics to measure if they are successful. You can win and still have failed on the effective spending front. Basically we have the whole Republican professional campaigning industry making big bucks selling a failing product. God forbid there is actually innovation when it comes to political advertising, campaigning, and especially in information gathering and measuring results. If I had loads of money I would never give those turkeys my money, the exception being Scott Walker’s brother.
The professional campaigning old guard needs to fall, they are stuck in the 70’s or 80’s. However, I am really laminating about medium to large statewide elections, and national elections. Local campaigns, were retail politics is king, the Republican professional class has a lot of players with the know how on how to do it and generally speaking are good at it, or at least as good as the Democrats.
Oh, how I wish that we had more than a “like” to click on. Your comments are spot on.
We are past even negotiating our surrender. Its full on doom time.
The donation issue is an important one, reflecting not just hope, but also the donor’s feeling of potency to effect outcomes.
Unless you are a significant professional influencer (i.e. you work in a non-print mass medium or very high up in politics itself) an election like 2012 makes you ask what effort is worth expending.
Really, whether you accept it or not, most of us are just spectators most of the time. (This is especially true on Ricochet, which offers the absurd proposition that members pay-to-post, but the editors who are paid-to-post are the only ones who can initiate a conversation which buzzes outside the hive.)
Politics is a somewhat entertaining spectator sport, and every couple of years your team gets a playoff spot. So donating to a candidate gets you some skin in the game without the tedium of door-knocking and telemarketing.
So, Ricochetti: to which candidates have you donated a tidy sum this cycle? $200 is tidy enough to run your name by the IRS and fec.gov. And why to that candidate, committee or PAC?
I gave to Scott Brown in New Hampshire and Monica Wehby in Oregon. The races are close enough, both candidates are pro-choice which makes them my kind of Republican, and if they somehow win Republicans could approach a filibuster-proof majority during their six year terms. (By the way, if you want to match my pro-choice contributions with donations to some worthy “pro-life” Republican like Joni Ernst, please do so!)
Giving makes us feel we’ve done more than a mere spectator/voter (the latter being a fairly futile effort here in California.) But until Republicans get more media savvy and sponsor many, many more effective communicators, the interactive aspect of politics so well mastered by the opposition will continue to elude us.
In the first part of Geraghty’s newsletter he details the very efficient voter registration program the Dems have going in large purple states which will make them even more blue. It made my blood run cold as it reinforced my belief that the GOP will not win another presidential election – ever.
Too many voters refuse to learn from their mistakes. A recent poll showed that Romney would beat Obama if the 2012 election were held today. That same poll showed Hillary crushing Romney, presumably because the LIVs think Hillary is different from Obama somehow. It wouldn’t matter if you replace Romney with any of the other potential GOP candidates – the results would be the same.
If the GOP regains control of the senate this year it will make little difference. 2012 proved the country is past the tipping point. We’ve almost arrived at the destination to which we’ve been heading for the past 80 years – madness and ruin.
Sorry to be such a downer Troy but you asked. (Bet you won’t make THAT mistake again!)
Winning will not change our most important adversary, the Press. Even if we took the Senate by a large margin, the Press would vilify and tell lies about everyone and every program they can. As of now, we have no effective counter to the mainstream press, and until we do, our efforts will be in vain. Even the fact that most big news outlets are hemorhaging money and audience, that has made no difference to how many of the uninformed public still get the majority of their news there.
Never one more cent!! I have finished giving to politicians. Let them eat cake.
It seems 2012 was the tipping point, I agree. Look at RealClearPolitics polling for Hillary right now. She’s up by double digits over any Republican. Sure, that will probably tighten up once we actually have a nominee. But, I expect being a woman and an “experienced” diplomat to easily carry her over the line. It’s not that I’ve given up on the party (although, there’s that). I’ve given up on the American voters. We’re all going to get what they deserve.
Not very hopeful at all. Let’s say we squeak by with a Senate majority – we can blunt a lot of damage but I’ve never seen a collective hard on like the one these guys have for amnesty. They’ll probably be relieved if Obama does it for them but won’t take any real steps to repeal or negate it. Bye bye demographics – it’ll be California writ large.
The damage to the Judiciary will be minimized but if Ruth Bader Ginsberg assumes room temperature, the same ‘pragmatic/non-obstructionist’ senators that confirmed Eric Holder, Ginsberg, and Kagen will fold so they don’t look mean when the next Affirmative Action commie is nominated.
Budget, we’ll get one – probably bigger than what we have now. Some military cuts restored but at the cost of more Ag. subsidies and “Green Energy” subsidies.
Obama-care? We’ll get a Senate vote to repeal, then the same guys will fund it just like last year to avoid that mythical, ruinous ‘shut-down’ of 12% of the Leviathan ( better to continue to kick the crap out of their own base, sit back and wait for all those new Hispanic voters to take the place of those 4 million we’re told that stayed home in 2012).
Looking forward to being force-fed a Moderate diet of Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney to make the case for limited government in 2016.
Bring on the Future!! Mister Happy has to go pick up his 2nd grader from school now.
Not really. Even if the Republicans win the whole ball of wax its not going to change anything for the better. I can’t see them rolling back any laws or regulations for anyone to make living any easier; or actually securing our border from anything except American citizens; or even living by those conservative moral values they preach to everyone else.
I think if the Republicans win it will still be Party First, America way behind.
I still don’t think they’ll stop asking me for money, though God only knows where they think I’ll get it.
When George Bush finally won in 2000 I said to my wife he will be the last Republican President because quite simply the press will never allow this to happen again.
As for Henry V , can anyone imagine our Republican ‘leaders’ giving that speech? Our only hope is for someone who realizes we are at all out war with the Dems and the press and acts accordingly, even then I fear it may be too late. The contribution problem is that most of us know in our bones that our ‘leaders’ are itching to betray us no matter which way the election goes.
I refuse to donate to any politician until my donations are completely anonymous and I am not opened to the risk of 5 years from now being fired for mainstream opinions, assaulted, have my stuff vandalized, or potentially murdered.
The GOP needs to start going after campaign finance reform laws with NAACP v. Alabama with a vengeance.
Even when we win, we lose. Tell me what we have won at the polls? Even Reagan did not roll back the state. Since then, we have even less to show for winning. Had the POTUS and Congress and what did that get us? Social Security Reform? Nope.
Control of the Senate is the ability to block bad judge taking the bench. You can’t do that in the minority anymore under the nuclear rule.
Also, if you have control of both the House and Senate, you can send popular bills for Obama to veto. Maybe you get one by him. But even if you don’t, you have something to build on.
And I say this as someone who doesn’t even particularly like our guys, who roughly divide between those who want to surrender and those who want to go on suicide missions on a regular basis.
Yes, but … so what? The Republican party will not do anything to upset the political establishment.
Democrats know that their most serious ‘enemies’ are Republicans, not jihadists, as they could threaten their political dominance. National Organization Republicans disagree only in that they restrict the designation to social conservatives and Tea Partiers, more serious ‘enemies’ than either jihadists or Democrats, as they could threaten the party control gravy train.
Over the top? Maybe. But that is my reflexive, disgusted, emotional response. Donations? No.
I’d like to ask Troy, Peter and Rob – in your interactions/elbow rubbing with the GOP big wigs,if they realize how P.O.’d the majority of the base is with them? This sentiments expressed in this forum aren’t unique.
Do these guys realize how close we are to a UKIP-like reaction?
A significant chunk of the “base” already went UKIP in 2012 by staying home. One of many reasons why the GOP will never win another POTUS election.
Nope.
I relate to the doom and gloom. Still, politics tends to move like a pendulum. Big surges right, lead to big surges left. The fifties gave us the Great Society, just like the hippies gave us Reagan. Look at Europe. They still have serious problems and I don’t think they are a model for much, but many of the countries are rolling back on green energy, the welfare state, and their lax immigration. True, whole majorities haven’t emerged yet, but who thought they would be heading that way five years ago?
We need to provide the alternative. I don’t mean a federal alternative, I mean state and local alternatives. If we focus on building up the states, and restoring their role in education, infrastructure, and welfare (limited role), then we have alternatives to offer the national electorate.
Texas is a great example. How often do you hear people say “look at Texas, they did xyz and then blank happened.” That’s what we need to offer.
Am I confident that the country can be put back on something approaching the right track? Yes.
Am I confident that the Republican Party could do it? Maybe. This is why voting Republican is the best chance in 2014 and 2016 of facilitating this (I would say the only chance because with the Democratic party is no chance at all).
Am I confident the Republican Party will do it? Not really. Looking at the lackluster campaigns so many of them are running right now give little confidence. Very possible there will be a Lame Duck session surprise on Amnesty or some similar finger in the eye of the people who voted for them.
But if they FUBAR 2014/16, stab their voters in the back, or continue to pretend that holding hearings and dedicating post offices is an acceptable alternative to results (yes, they only control 1/2 of 1 branch, but that doesn’t excuse dilation like slow-walking the Benghazi Committee) they’re history. Whether they get replaced by anything or not, too soon to tell.