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A Teachable Moment for the GOP
Uber-consultant Mike Murphy believes that the way forward for the Republican Party is to ditch conservatism, particularly its social variety; stop doing campaigns the way they were done 25 years ago; and push back against the Jim DeMints of the world, who recruit “unelectable” candidates.
This is a teachable moment for the GOP, and I’m glad Murphy is publicly making this argument, given that it is a good encapsulation of the message he’s been advancing for a quarter century or so. It provides an opportunity for Republicans to decide who really represents the anachronism in the room and to engage in some creative destruction likely necessary to adapt to the future.
And for this case, Murphy is an ideal spokesman. He is a millionaire thanks in large part to the ad sale commissions from countless campaigns. He represents a way of campaigning based on massive air wars, top down direction driven by ad men consultants, the time when you dominated the three television channels and controlled the narrative from on high … all methods which have proven particularly irrelevant to electoral results in the internet era. You can practically taste the longing of John Weaver for all the ads he could’ve done for a Huntsman general – let a million desert motocross heli shots bloom.
What’s really out of date here – conservative ideas and ground-up grassroots activism, or the rich guy paired with genius consultant, advertising carpet-bomb, write off the electorate as idiots approach? I am increasingly of the view that these two approaches cannot both survive as a house divided – pick one, and send it out hunting with Dick Cheney.
As for Murphy’s social issues argument: as I’ve pointed out before, Mitt Romney won white voters under 30, even winning white women under 30. The youth voter barrier to the Republican Party is really the same barrier as it is for all age demographics: an ethnic barrier which concedes black, Hispanic, and Asian voters to Democrats. If abortion and gay marriage really are the decisive issues preventing Republicans from winning those voters, why aren’t they rated higher in the polling data among those voters? Is Murphy basing his argument on data, or on the same cultural biases he’s been peddling for a decade or more? And if it’s the latter, what approach is more adaptable to the future: DeMint and his unelectable social conservative recruits like Marco Rubio, or Murphy and his social liberal recruits, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Though of course, I’d have to concede Schwarzenegger understands outreach to Hispanics.
This essay was adapted from The Transom, a daily email newsletter for political and media insiders, collecting news, notes, and thoughts from around the web.
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I have read their platform and know the congressional voting record and never the two shall meet. ·13 minutes ago
And that’s why my donations to the NRCC and NRSC this year amounted to zero dollars and zero cents. ·1 hour ago
Whenever the RNC or the NRCC or the NRSC call, I tell them I’m saving my money for more conservative candidates. They lost me with Arlen Specter, Jumpin’ Jim Jeffords, Charlie Crist, Dede Scozzafuzza (or whatever her name was), etc.
And I’m still furious about the way Soc Cons get blamed for the losses of Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angel, Mourdock, et al, when those candidates won their primaries and promptly got trashed by the establishment before election day. They didn’t care about winning the seats for Republicans as much as they cared about keeping the Soc Cons down.
Good example. Go to an unemployed guy and spend all you time complaining about the size of the budget and how we need small government.
·34 minutes ago
Perhaps if the government wasn’t so bloated, choking innovation with regulation, and crowding out investment with astronomic debt there would be more new business and greater demand for labor and a less unemployment.
Or we could just tax free enterprise to pay benefits to the people the taxes put out work and repeat the cycle hoping for a different outcome.
Does the unemployed person you speak of want a job in private enterprise or a hand out?
Does it really matter if Republicans win the White House in ’16?
By then, the national debt will be over 20 trillion, our influence on world affairs will be significantly weakened, the health care industry will be in shambles, millions more people will be dependent on an already over-burdened entitlement state, and several large states will more than likely be bankrupt.
So do these “realists” really believe that coming out for gay marriage and amnesty will give a Republican a mandate to even approach these issues?
By then, the national debt will be over 20 trillion, our influence on world affairs will be significantly weakened, the health care industry will be in shambles, millions more people will be dependent on an already over-burdened entitlement state, and several large states will more than likely be bankrupt.
So do these “realists” really believe that coming out for gay marriage and amnesty will give a Republican a mandate to even approach these issues? ·33 minutes ago
This is it, more or less, in a nutshell. The entire thread, summarized right there.
Hello…Helloooooooo
Pretty cool echo effect going on here.
The next four years will determine whether I continue to support the GOP or not. If they stand firm on their principles, I will. If they continually cave to the Democrats, they’ve lost me. I’ll give to specific candidates but not a single penny to the party itself. ·3 hours ago
…which holds true for many conservatives, hence the reason that Senator DeMint is able to raise millions of dollars to support ‘conservative’ candidates across the country, thus, cutting out the ‘middleman’ (the National Republican Party and its onerous overhead and ‘Herod-like’ interest in picking ‘their man’), and helps good, trustworthy candidates win election.
It’s brilliant; and because a senator is elected for six years, may eventually succeed in retiring Harry Read.
I’m starting to suspect the GOP is roughly today’s equivalent of the Whig party- but If Murphy gets his way I’m sure it will be.
You just can’t ditch the base of your party and expect your party will survive.
If you favor gay marriage or abortion or endless amnesty/open borders why would you vote GOP if the GOP changed positions, considering that the other party has favored the above all along?
Why would anyone in the above categories believe the GOP had sincerely decided to change? No, they would just conclude that the GOP knew it had been wrong all along, and had cynically been pandering to the loathsome white racists who make up the party.
Those people would vote for the left even more smugly, hating the GOP even more.
And conservatives would leave the GOP forever and all time, finally tiring of being taken for granted by the failed GOP establishment.
Bluntly, if the GOP is to survive it needs to stop stabbing its supporters in the back, and figure out a way to appeal to the vast swarms it ignores now.
Easy for me to say, no doubt. But also true.
If you favor gay marriage or abortion or endless amnesty/open borders why would you vote GOP if the GOP changed positions, considering that the other party has favored the above all along? ·11 minutes ago
Precisely.
If you like Pepsi, you’re going to buy Pepsi, no matter how much New Coke (remember that debacle?) tastes like Pepsi. And trying to change the flavor of Coke will chase off the Coke “base.”
Ever since social conservatives were brought into the GOP by Ronaldus Magnus , we have been keenly aware of our position within the party, call it ‘in, but not of ‘. We have been content to be condescended to, paid lip-service to and mined for votes and money, as long as the party pretended to, and to be fair, often genuinely, support our values regarding the social traditions we believe are essential to maintaining a viable republic. We have even supported heretics (Romney), apostates (Gingrich), and liberals (Schwarzenegger) with a view to the long term greater good. (that last line was my poor attempt at self derisive humor so don’t get your panties in a twist about it).
What we will not brook is the wholesale disregard for our concerns at the outset. We will not engage in a fight to re-take the GOP if we are dis-invited. With heavy hearts we will leave the party, more in sadness than in anger. If there is no room in any existing ideological Inn, we will set about constructing our own. And there will begin the unraveling of our Republic.
FWIW-I’m gay, and don’t go to church.
I fear this is all debating “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
This nation is approaching a nuclear financial meltdown. I don’t know if it’s next month, next year, or the next few years, but it’s coming. We all (at Ricochet) know it.
The issues will be restoring financial confidence and calming down rioting Americans whose savings and retirement have gone poof. Where Murphy IS right is that Americans aren’t making their voting decisions over social issuestoday (they might later). The next leader will be he/she who promises like FDR and reassures like Reagan.
“Fear itself” will be the issue. Republicans had better be ready with a credible approach.
What we will not brook is the wholesale disregard for our concerns at the outset. We will not engage in a fight to re-take the GOP if we are dis-invited. With heavy hearts we will leave the party, more in sadness than in anger. If there is no room in any existing ideological Inn, we will set about constructing our own. And there will begin the unraveling of our Republic. ·24 minutes ago
Amen, brother.
Without SoCons, the party will get about as many votes as the Libertarian Party does… which makes sense since in most cases (there are exceptions) the LP is the GOP minus the social issues.
How many presidential elections has the LP won? How many LP members of Congress are there?
The LP can chase the SoCons off if they want… but they’ll doom themselves to failure if they do.
Duane Oyen: It will regularly win 20% of the vote, just like the Dems, if they only welcomed the MSNBC ideologues, would get 20%.
A conservative party would garner more than half the GOP votes. Currently using the stacked deck provided by the GOP, we are ensured that the McCains and Romneys are the nominees. That doesn’t seem to be working very well as the McCains and Romneys aren’t getting that other portion of the conservative movement needed to actually win an election.
There is an additional consideration. Bush 43 won in part because of the Swift Boat allegations that Kerry was a traitor. Kerry was demonized. Romney, being a nice guy he is, never bothered to demonize O, who really deserves that position given his bias against this country and her sons and daughters.
I would prefer a conservative party to which I can both contribute and speak in favor of to a GOP establishment which doesn’t really represent me or my positions. If that means 20-percent, at least that 20-percent will get it right.How well is the “big tent” working? Check the election results.
No doubt.
But for a “realist” he’s rather unconcerned about reality—such as the reality that the break down of the family leads to social dysfunction, which plays right into the hands of big-government liberalism….
Edited 17 hours ago
I think this points precisely to the difference between the principled and the pragmatic “marketing” approach to politics: the one treats human reality as a changing dynamic, the other as an embedded geography which must be accommodated. Obviously, each approach can be carried to excess: Mourdock and Akin were examples, as was Bush I’s cynical abandonment of his no new taxes pledge on the other side. Conversely, even principled politicians need practical marketing to get elected.
But pragmatism as a policy has consistently disserved the conservative cause. In order to get lower marginal tax rates for those who pay the bulk of the taxes, Bush agrees to take millions more off the tax rolls: voila, the 47%. Simpson-Mazzoli and a cynical defacto open borders series of amnesties creates a fast-growing natural Democratic constituency. The explosion of single parent households similarly creates a natural Democrat constituency.
If the goal is just to win elections, and the solution is to ape the Democrats, and become ” Democrat Lite”, what’s the point? So that Republican insiders and operatives can get some of that sweet Leviathan swag? So that we destroy the country a little slower? Run principled conservatives who can articulate a real alternative agenda and don’t be afraid to fight for those principles. If the public rejects that, so be it. We did what we could.
I really have no patience for the “Mike Murphy” spin machine. He is a salesman period. He always says the same message-maybe dressed up with distorted “new” “facts”. I really do not grasp why he is promoted on the podcast. Mike Murphy is what ails us.
How about Domenech on at the same time? ·22 hours ago
Amen, brother.
Without SoCons, the party will get about as many votes as the Libertarian Party does… which makes sense since in most cases (there are exceptions) the LP is the GOP minus the social issues.
How many presidential elections has the LP won? How many LP members of Congress are there?
The LP can chase the SoCons off if they want… but they’ll doom themselves to failure if they do. ·2 hours ago
Aren’t you overlooking a third category of Republican; the ‘Carl Rove’ and ‘Tommy Thompson’ genre?
These are they who occupy or work for those in elective office.
With each reelection cycle they become more ‘experienced’ and less principled. They are hugely over-represented in all areas of public life; much the way that lawyers are over-represented in the U.S. Congress.
If I could wave a magic wand and get two laws passed, they would be that:
Congress shall pass no law that does not apply to itself, in every respect, and
No elected official or employee of the U.S. Government, after he leaves office, may earn anything as a lobbyist for fifteen years!
Pretty cool echo effect going on here. ·17 hours ago
If your point is, we’re wasting time agreeing with each other, I tend to agree. ;-)
I want to say to my Obama voting neighbor, “The difference between us is, I want you to pay for the big government you want today; you want me and my kids to pay for the big government you want forever. And the reality is, none of us can afford it. Oh, and, one of us has bullying tendencies.”
The truth is, I probably don’t have the courage and it’s too late anyway.
I wouldn’t be too hard on Mike Murphy, though. You can’t expect a guy to completely obliterate his ability to make a living by admitting he’s been horribly, tragically wrong his entire career.
Pretty cool echo effect going on here. ·20 hours ago
The reason it seems like an echo chamber is because those Ricochetti who agree with Murphy that the GOP should jettison the SoCon wing are being very quiet on this thread.
Gee, I wonder why…
A teachable moment, or yet another opportunity to equivocate? If the GOP equivocates on principle any further, the party may win, but conservatism will not.
Thank you, Ben!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As I mentioned elsewhere, the Sales Department always blames the product. And when the Sales Leader says, “I can’t sell that,” we all say the same thing … “yeah, and your sales totals prove it.”
We didn’t lose people because they looked at every issue and, after months of intellectual investigation and google research, came to the conclusion that Barack Obama’s program fit their position profile more closely.
The GOP lost because enough people thought that Mitt Romney [insert sound of toddler crying] “didn’t care about me!” They were convinced that despite high taxes and strangling regulations, Obama just needs a little more time.
Let’s face it – we live in a country where there are a lot of people who for some reason don’t think we’re the droids they’re looking for.
My advice? Find the guy nearby who’s mysteriously waving his hand across his waist. Learn to stop him from demonizing, or learn how to answer it.
The call to abandon social issues is a call to abandon the culture. How would the country fare with the triumph of lower taxes yet harnessed to more dead babies and more sexual confusion? An odd mix that. These issues are worth fighting for. This Murphy sort of talk is an attempt to provoke surrender of the stronger force in the confusion of as yet not completely understood election. Don’t be stampeded.
Great post, Ben! It took real brass for Murphy to blame it on everyone else when the candidate who failed was exactly the kind of candidate he keeps telling us we have to run in order to win.
Let’s cut to the chase here. Thanks to the demographic changes (starting with the 1965 Immigration Act and accelerated by Simpson-Mazzoli and subsequent amnesties) to the American electorate, the Republican Party’s viability as a national party (winning presidential elections) depends on becoming a version of the Tory Party post-Thatcher: Pepsi to Democrat’s Coke, a mere alternate brand of the same big government/crony capitalist regime, creating the illusion of democratic choice with no fundamental challenge to the status quo.
Murphy no doubt sees himself as a simple realist, bringing the bad news to the Republican base that all of its passions (whether of the anti-abortion/gay marriage sort, the anti-illegal immigration sort, or the anti-tax small government sort) are inconsistent with winning Presidential elections. Political principles (at least those of the right) are always at odds with marketing to the young, where the ideal product is hip, smooth and “flexible.” For 50 years American media have turned father figures into Archie Bunkers, their fixed ways the butt of all humor. The last thing a Murphy wants is someone whose principles, whose sincerity, allow him to be cast as a retro father figure.
How about Domenech on at the same time? ·18 minutes ago
Fight! Fight! Fight!
I’m getting ahead of myself.
It would be fun to have Ponnuru vs. Domenech vs. Murphy. All on there at the same time mixing it up. ·16 minutes ago
I view the rare appearance of Mike Murphy on the podcast like finding a nickel bag of hashish on the ground when I walk by my old junior high school: I enjoy the inhale, the buzz and the ravenous appetite for 600 Oreo cookies and 3 gallons of Classic Coke, but after the fog clears and my blood sugar stabilizes, I have to get moving unless the feral youth gangs come along to show me the neighborhood has changed.
We didn’t lose people because they looked at every issue and, after months of intellectual investigation and google research, came to the conclusion that Barack Obama’s program fit their position profile more closely.
The GOP lost because enough people thought that Mitt Romney [insert sound of toddler crying] “didn’t care about me!” They were convinced that despite high taxes and strangling regulations, Obama just needs a little more time.
Let’s face it – we live in a country where there are a lot of people who for some reason don’t think we’re the droids they’re looking for.
My advice? Find the guy nearby who’s mysteriously waving his hand across his waist. Learn to stop him from demonizing, or learn how to answer it. ·4 minutes ago
Yea, this. The problem is not the message, SoCons, libertarians, neo-cons, nativists, or <insert internet red-headed step child here>, it’s the people receiving the message.
* Pro-lifers
* Opponents of amnesty for illegal immigrants
* Supporters of traditional marriage
* Religious believers
* Whites
* People who want to keep taxes low
In other words, people like me. (They have also blamed “old” people, even though the “graying of America” phenomenon means there will be a lot more of those in the future.)
I don’t know what these analysts think that are accomplishing with all this, but they have me considering leaving the party (and politics in general).
Once I’m out of the way, Mr. Murphy and the rest of the GOP will have a clear path to attracting all those young, gay, secular Latinos who pay no taxes. ·21 minutes ago
Amen. I’m a conservative but not a Republican, though I almost always vote for the GOP candidate. Sometimes it’s really tough to hold my nose and pull that lever, but I do it because the alternative is twice as bad.
Ann Coulter nearly won me for the GOP with Mugged, but the aftermath of this election cycle really has me wondering whether there is any place for conservatives in the GOP.
Amen. I’m a conservative but not a Republican, though I almost always vote for the GOP candidate. Sometimes it’s really tough to hold my nose and pull that lever, but I do it because the alternative is twice as bad.
Ann Coulter nearly won me for the GOP with Mugged, but the aftermath of this election cycle really has me wondering whether there is any place for conservatives in the GOP. ·1 minute ago
The next four years will determine whether I continue to support the GOP or not. If they stand firm on their principles, I will. If they continually cave to the Democrats, they’ve lost me. I’ll give to specific candidates but not a single penny to the party itself.
The only way a conservative Republican candidate will win the presidency is for the GOP to create enough outrage by exposing the waste and corruption within the federal government, and how states like Virginia and Maryland screw over their residents by doing DC’s bidding. Could someone please write a contemporary scathing critique of this cesspit called the Mid-Atlantic Region? The Capital in The Hunger Games has nothing on Metro DC. Nothing. The problem is, the most damning evidence remains classified. It is no coincidence that the number and level of secret security clearances, particularly among finance people, have increased since Obama took office. Oh, how I wish investigative journalism still existed. We are dealing with a party that is taking over our government and our culture in a manner that would impress history’s most feared tyrants. They succeeded because they intimidated people into silence and inaction. Exposing their secrets is the only way to defeat these statists. And I’m not being vague or conspiratorial, the hard facts are available to the person willing to ask the right people the right questions, instead of nibbling at the edges.