This week on the Ricochet Podcast, we’re joined by political consultant Mike Murphy for a look at the GOP’s future. Are demographics destiny? Is gay marriage a bellwether issue. We tackle those issues ourselves, with Mike, and later with The Transom’s (required reading around these parts) Ben Domenech, who takes the opposing view from Mike. It’s a passionate and spirited conversation about right-to-work, the future of the party, young versus old, left versus right, changing demographics, whether Steven Crowder matters, and what exactly constitutes a RINO. A great piece of audio to go over the cliff with.

Music from this week’s episode:

The Ricochet Podcast opening theme was composed and produced by James Lileks.

Another classic from EJHill.

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There are 104 comments.

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  1. Profile Photo Inactive
    @CommodoreBTC

    Murphy is too GOP-loathing and defeatist for my taste.

    Did the exit polls show that gay marriage and immigration were the main reasons people didn’t vote for Romney?

    Ben’s analysis was much more constructive and upbeat.

    Peter/James/Rob, need to use your connections to get Ben on the Fox All Star panel. They need new blood.

    • #1
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    @GINO

    Murphy is all for Murphy.  I am sick and tired of all the consultants telling the GOP that they can deliver the so called “undecideds”.  Tell Mr Murphy that the consultants were very active in directing the disastrous Romney campaign .  Also tell Mr Murphy that the GOP lost a very winnable election.

    They really blew it by the nicely nicely Mr Romney after the first debate.

    The GOP needs new blood and not the same old consultants like Mr Murphy who devote all their time and efforts on the 15% “undecideds”.

    • #2
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    @NathanielWright

    Rob,

    You simultaneously accuse the Right of using the language of the Left regarding the Crowder assault, as you literally use the language of the Left to attack him.  Your statement that “he may have deserved it” and that “he was there to cause trouble” are exactly what I’ve been reading on my Facebook feed from the Left.

    You would do well to spend some time in MMO forums as you criticize whining.  Whining on the forums gets things Nerfed.  I want the Left nerfed by the American public.  So all the whining we do is fine.

    • #3
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    @EJHill

    Originally Yeti and I batted around the idea of RicoSlam III featuring Murphy vs Domenech… but the result was too “controversial.”

    But it featured trainer Rob “Burgess” Long, Peter “Sugar” Robinson and James “King” Lileks… an image too good to die on my hard drive…

    • #4
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    @Jojo

    This will be the first Ricochet podcast I’ve ever skipped listening too. I’ve had enough of Murphy and all the other GOP “experts”.

    • #5
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    @LeslieWatkins

    Honestly, Rob. You have an amazing ability to think the impossible is possible—getting our message out (whatever that is)—while denying the reality—that there is a concerted effort by people who claim to be objective to ignore whatever other message is out there. I’m not whining. I’m pissed. And I can chew gum and walk at the same time. It isn’t that people aren’t talking the message; it’s that the message is fragmented and those fragments are only being heard in certain outlets and not for lack of trying. James is right. Family members are woefully uninformed—and defiantly so because of what they hear in the media. And FWIW, I’m pro-gay marriage and pro-immigration in the Democratic party sense. Frankly, you’re the one who’s always whining, against all of us so-called whiners. Gets tiresome.

    • #6
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    @
    Jo: This will be the first Ricochet podcast I’ve ever skipped listening too. I’ve had enough of Murphy and all the other GOP “experts”. · 9 minutes ago

    Then you’ll be missing out on a great discussion between James, Peter, and Rob before the  guests join. 

    • #7
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    @MTabor

    Leslie, I’ll spare you the trouble of listening to that “great discussion.” 

    Long: ‘Steven Crowder doesn’t engage in anything resembling journalism, and by wearing that short, tight red dress, he was asking for it.’

    Lileks: ‘… What?’

    Those are summaries, not direct quotes.

    • #8
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    @IsraelP

    Peter at 8:15 – “slugging each other…”  EACH OTHER?? Are you serious?

    • #9
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    @MattTravis

    Murphy is “our” Bob Shrum, why in the hell would we listen to a damn thing this loser has to say?

    • #10
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    @jameslileks

    I don’t think I even said “what.” I think that was Peter.  

    • #11
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    @MichaelCham

    I’m not boycotting anything. I’m just honestly saying that I’m skipping this podcast because I have no interest in listening to Mike Murphy.

    • #12
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    @

    Rob is right. Crowder went there to get punched. And when he got punched he gestured to the camera as if to say, “See?! I told you!” He is a successful provocateur and that is why his getting punched was not covered as news. I would go further and suggest that the outrage is every bit as phony as it most often is on the left. 

    • #13
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    @CommodoreBTC

    If you watch any of Crowder’s “man on the street” type videos he is extremely polite and nonconfrontational, trying to draw out the beliefs of others.

    It’s not whining to point out media bias. It can serve to possibly shame the perpetuators of bias by calling attention to it. Or even better, it can discredit them over time.

    • #14
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    @LeslieWatkins

    What about the tearing down the AFP tent? There are laws on the books against such things.

    Trace: Rob is right. Crowder went there to get punched. And when he got punched he gestured to the camera as if to say, “See?! I told you!” He is a successful provocateur and that is why his getting punched was not covered as news. I would go further and suggest that the outrage is every bit as phony as it most often is on the left.  · 3 minutes ago

    • #15
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    @Majestyk

    Again – we have a living, breathing example of what I said in the thread announcing Murphy’s presence in the podcast.  His solution to Republican Electoral problems is to STOP BEING REPUBLICANS.  Gay Marriage is a problem?  Jettison! Being faithful to the law is annoying to a gang of scofflaws?  Ignore the law!

    Stop.  Just Stop, Mr. Murphy.  We were dealing with a racialist demagogue who eked out the equivalent of a sabermetric, razor-thin victory over a Romney who needed to get up there and poke the President in the chest and say “Hey buddy, it’s NOT OK for you to encourage people to vote for you on the basis of your skin color.  And anybody who votes for you, or for anybody else on that basis may as well put on their conical white hood and march around in Skokie.”

    A couple of doofus Senate candidates got themselves in trouble by shooting themselves in the foot (rhetorically) in otherwise winnable races and a sitting President crawls over the finish line and we have to throw over everything that makes us the party that we are?  Lunacy.

    • #16
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    @MDWenzel

    Rob seems to really dislike Stephen Crowder.  Are we sure Rob’s not the one who punched him in the face.  Did Crowder steal his parking spot or something?

    • #17
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    @ConservativeinCA

    I couldn’t disagree with Rob’s argument about the Steven Crowder incident any more strongly.  Tolerance of acts like these only invites more of them; violence is not acceptable in our political discourse.  Prosecuting them is important, but shaming actions of union thugs in every corner of the public square will do more to prevent them in the future.

    If we fail to stand up and fight for that which we know is undeniably right and are ambivalent to actions that are indefensible, then we surrender more than any one political issue or argument.  We surrender the very moral character of society.

    I find it analogous to a foreign policy of appeasement.

    • #18
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    @

    Well to be fair, both things are against the law. I am not advocating anyone punching Stephen Crowder in the nose. But I actually found the tent being torn down more disturbing and more deserving of coverage. 

    Leslie Watkins: What about the tearing down the AFP tent? There are laws on the books against such things. · 12 minutes ago

    Trace: Rob is right. Crowder went there to get punched. And when he got punched he gestured to the camera as if to say, “See?! I told you!” He is a successful provocateur and that is why his getting punched was not covered as news. I would go further and suggest that the outrage is every bit as phony as it most often is on the left.  · 3 minutes ago

    • #19
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    @

    Of course it’s not ok to punch someone that disagrees with you.

    But Crowder is part of a cottage industry of provocateurs not trying to really report on anything but attempting to insert themselves into the action to make a point. The incident was effectively staged and Crowder made his point. But it was an obvious and self-indulgent one. 

    We need to stop talking to ourselves and start talking to those that don’t already agree with us.

    Conservative in CA: I couldn’t disagree with Rob’s argument about the Steven Crowder incident any more strongly.  Tolerance of acts like these only invites more of them; violence is not acceptable in our political discourse.  Prosecuting them is important, but shaming actions of union thugs in every corner of the public square will do more to prevent them in the future.

    If we fail to stand up and fight for that which we know is undeniably right and are ambivalent to actions that are indefensible, then we surrender more than any one political issue or argument.  We surrender the very moral character of society.

    I find it analogous to a foreign policy of appeasement. · 3 minutes ago

    • #20
  21. Profile Photo Member
    @

    Well…. he’s smug and supercilious in the same way that John Stewart’s team often is when they are interviewing someone in order to make fun of them. He’s not really “trying to draw out the beliefs of others,” so much as he is trying to show they are stupid and mock them.

    Ningrim: If you watch any of Crowder’s “man on the street” type videos he is extremely polite and nonconfrontational, trying to draw out the beliefs of others.

    It’s not whining to point out media bias. It can serve to possibly shame the perpetuators of bias by calling attention to it. Or even better, it can discredit them over time. · 26 minutes ago

    • #21
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    @LeslieWatkins

    Agreed. I’m not carrying water for Crowder. And I’m not a Republican. But when Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus deliberately try to provoke a crowd of protesters at the Kill the Bill rally in March 2010 by walking through it on the way to a vote, and then one of them later claims, without proof, both slander and physical assault (spitting) on the part of those in the crowd, and when that assertion is reported as fact by the media, never to be countered, and still believed by most Americans (remember, Republicans are mean and hateful), well, I guess I’m not put off by an activist’s desire for confrontation—by asking questions. I’m not serene about the possibility of a standard Republican message getting across in cocktail party fashion.

    Trace: Well to be fair, both things are against the law. I am not advocating anyone punching Stephen Crowder in the nose. But I actually found the tent being torn down more disturbing and more deserving of coverage. 

    0 minutes ago

    • #22
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    @Franco

    I’m getting tired of hearing Rob and others on the podcasts adhere to the existing double-standard of the left. 

    In the last podcast they were talking about embarrassing Republicans, as though there aren’t embarrassing Democrats by the score. Somehow we have to purge all our weirdoes and they, along with the MSM, ignore the parade of crazies in the Democrat party.

    Now with Crowder as provocateur – of course the story wouldn’t be the same if a Republican had punched some Democrat, would it?  Get out of the bubble, guys! Youse got Stockholm Syndrome!

    • #23
  24. Profile Photo Member
    @

    Good point.

    Leslie Watkins: Agreed. I’m not carrying water for Crowder. And I’m not a Republican. But when Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Black Caucus deliberately try to provoke a crowd of protesters at the Kill the Bill rally in March 2010 by walking through it on the way to a vote, and then one of them later claims, without proof, both slander and physical assault (spitting) on the part of those in the crowd, and when that assertion is reported as fact by the media, never to be countered, and still believed by most Americans (remember, Republicans are mean and hateful), well, I guess I’m not put off by an activist’s desire for confrontation—by asking questions. I’m not serene about the possibility of a standard Republican message getting across in cocktail party fashion.

    26 minutes ag

    • #24
  25. Profile Photo Member
    @

    But the point is no one but our side cares. So there needs to be a more effective strategy for marshaling this indignation. Maybe we need to publish the telephone number of mainstream newsrooms and flood them with calls demanding coverage of whatever the latest hypocritical outrage might be. Because the way it works now does not advance the ball one bit and I think that was Rob’s message. All the inside-the-bubble outrage is wasted breath.

    Franco: I’m getting tired of hearing Rob and others on the podcasts adhere to the existing double-standard of the left. 

    In the last podcast they were talking about embarrassing Republicans, as though there aren’t embarrassing Democrats by the score. Somehow we have to purge all our weirdoes and they, along with the MSM, ignore the parade of crazies in the Democrat party.

    Now with Crowder as provocateur – of course the story wouldn’t be the same if a Republican had punched some Democrat, would it?  Get out of the bubble, guys! Youse got Stockholm Syndrome! · 23 minutes ago

    • #25
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    @MTabor

    Over on the Member Feed I asked whether one of our staunch-but-charming Ladies of the Right — MK Ham, S. E. Cupp, Michelle Malkin, etc. — had asked questions and been punched, would she have had it coming just the same?

    Would the disapproval of punching someone who has the gall to confront you on policy issues be just as manufactured?

    • #26
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    @MTabor

    Trace, I agree with you that there’s a more effective way to bring the message across.

    But if the topic is the value of discussing things in an echo chamber populated by one another, then 99% of discussion on Ricochet is fair game for that debate.

    • #27
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    @Sumomitch

    Rob’s suggestion that non-journalist provocateurs who show their face in public deserve a good beat down shouldn’t be rejected out of hand. Next time someone runs into Chris Mathews, Ed Schultz or Lawrence O’Donnell at the airport, a knuckle sandwich may be a more effective riposte than any mere verbal putdown a Buckley might have essayed. Certainly more satisfying than whining about liberal media bias.

    • #28
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    @LeslieWatkins
    Trace: So there needs to be a more effective strategy for marshaling this indignation.

    Very much agree. I’d settle for finding a way to keep my mother and sister (both of whom are highly intelligent) from always—and I do mean always—stopping me midway into an explanation of my POV on a given subject with a wave of the hand and the quip, “Oh, you just don’t like the president.” And where do they get this? In the case my mom, the Raleigh newspaper and public TV; in the case of my sister, NPR, public TV, and MSNBC. (By the way, I don’t watch Fox News anymore, but I do think the Pew research is correct when it says there are more varied voices on Fox, despite its rep.)

    Trace: Because the way it works now does not advance the ball one bit and I think that was Rob’s message. All the inside-the-bubble outrage is wasted breath.

    I don’t know. Frustration is a dangerous thing. Blowing off steam may well be a useful pressure valve—unless, of course, it morphs into collective aggression or worse.

    7 minutes ago

    • #29
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    @ScottR

    @Trace and Rob:

    Haven’t listened yet, so nevermind if someone made this point: Isn’t the problem with Crowder more that he  just isn’t as talented and clever as a provocateur as, say,  Andrew Brietbart was?

    Does anybody doubt Andrew would have been in MI this week “provoking” and “asking to be punched” and that we all would have been laughing and rooting him on?

    • #30
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