Thursday, November 4, 2010

Palin: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward

Sarah Palin penned an op-ed for the National Review today. She provides some valuable advice for the GOP and for those who are considering running for office in the next election. I agree with Palin that some candidates allowed themselves to be defined as "extremists" by veering off message. I witnessed the same thing in the Minnesota Governors race. For some strange reason, Tom Emmer decided to opine on the minimum wage. He suggested that those earning tips should be subject to a lower minimum wage! In all fairness, there were other details to the proposal that may have ultimately been favorable to the aforementioned workers, but the left-wing media was not interested in hearing or reporting that. This monumental gaffe took him off message for nearly two weeks! He may still end up prevailing due re-canvassing, a re-count and suspicions of irregularities in the vote tabulations, but it should not have come down to this. For the first time in 38 years, the MN GOP took both chambers of the state legislature. In addition, 18 term incumbent U.S. Congressman, James Oberstar was dethroned in a stunning upset. Losing the Governors race is inexcusable.

Some excerpts of Palin's excellent op-ed:

[...]

"Does that mean Republican candidates can look forward with greater confidence to the 2012 elections? Yes and no. Yes, objectively speaking the next electoral cycle should be even more favorable than the one that just ended. A large number of red-state Democratic senators will have to defend their seats; and since Obama will be at the top of the ballot that year, they won’t be able to hide from the fact that their party leader is a detached liberal with a destructive tax-and-spend agenda. Whether Republicans will do as well as they did in this cycle depends on whether they learn the lessons from the 2010 election."

"The first lesson is simple: Set the narrative. This year it wasn’t too difficult to tell the story of the election: It was about stopping an out-of-control Congress and an out-of-touch White House. In races across the country, Republican candidates ran on the message that the Left was bankrupting America with budget-busting spending bills that mortgage our children’s future, burden the private sector with uncertainty, and cripple our much-needed job growth."

"The story of the next cycle, though, remains to be written. Its content depends on what Republicans do next. Just as in the 1980s, there are today millions of conservative-leaning Democrats and independents who are ready to join our cause. They gave us their votes, now we must earn their trust. And we do that by showing them that a vote for us will not be a vote for the big-spending, over-regulating status quo. The 2012 story should be about conservatives in Congress cutting government down to size and rolling back the spending, and the Left doing everything in its power to prevent these necessary reforms from happening. In the next two years, if all we end up doing is adopting some tax hikes here, some Obama-agenda compromises there, and a thousand little measures that do nothing to get us out of the economic mess we’re in, the same voters that put the GOP in office will vote them out in the
next election."

[...]

"In the coming weeks, there will be those who lament that some of us endorsed conservative Republicans over liberal ones in blue-state races. It’s a good debate, and one I’m willing to have. First, we must keep in mind that there is no guarantee that any Republican will win in a deep-blue state (as evidenced by the exit polls in Delaware showing that the liberal Republican would have lost too). But even more to the point, we saw in the last decade what happens when conservatives hold their noses and elect liberals who have an “R” after their names. Our party’s message of freedom and fiscal responsibility became diluted. In 2008, it was difficult to claim on the one hand that we were the party of fiscal responsibility and on the other hand that our fiscal policies work. It was clear to the electorate that the GOP had not adhered to fiscally conservative positions, and that the liberal positions they did adhere to didn’t work. If we go on in that direction again, we won’t have a base, let alone a majority. Certainly we can and should back sensible center-right candidates in bluer states, but I see no point in backing someone who supports cap-and-tax, Obamacare, bailouts, taxes, and more useless stimulus
packages. If you think such a candidate will be with us when it comes time to vote down an Obama Supreme Court nominee, you’re living on a unicorn ranch in fantasy land."

[...]

"The second lesson of this election is one a number of the candidates had to learn to their cost: Fight back the lies immediately and consistently. Some candidates assumed that, once they received their party’s nomination, the conservative message would automatically carry the day. Unfortunately, political contests aren’t always about truth and justice. Powerful vested interests will combine to keep bad candidates in place and good candidates out of office. Once they let themselves be defined as “unfit” (decorated war hero Joe Miller) or “heartless” (pro-life, international women’s rights champion Carly Fiorina), good candidates often find it virtually impossible to get their message across. The moral of their stories: You must be prepared to fight for your right to be heard."

"Another important lesson is that we will need the mother of all GOTV efforts if we wish to win in 2012. Sending donations isn’t enough when push comes to shove. Millions of boots on the ground are needed, and voter-fraud prevention must be addressed before election eve."

"The last, and possibly most important, lesson is that a winning conservative message must always be carefully crafted. If candidates are going to talk boldly on the campaign trail about entitlement reform and reducing the size of government, they must be prepared to word it in such a way as to minimize the inevitable fear-mongering accusations of “extremism.” We are quickly approaching a fiscal turning point where these crucial reform discussions will be mandatory. We need to speak about them in a way that the public will embrace."

[...]


Read the entire op-ed HERE ("Midterms: Lessons Learned and the Way Forward," By Gov. Sarah Palin)

12 comments:

BOSMAN said...

Not a bad op-ed. If I thought she actually wrote the thing by herself, I'd complement her.

And here I thought that all the ghosts had gone away until next Halloween.

phil said...

Palin speaks to the Tea Party and far right. There were far more non-Tea Party candidates elected. Only a fraction of those elected were Tea Party backed. Not everyone elected, marches to her drum.

Bill589 said...

What gets me, I think, is the alliteration.

“President Palin”

It flows. It’s balanced. It’s poetic.

Anonymous said...

Bosman and his ghost writing conspiracy theories...other than the help she receives on her books...there is no proof to back your claims. In today's age, if Palin was always using a ghost writer...you can guarantee someone would come out of the wood work and tell the world.

The real question is...does Romney have a ghost comber? There is no way he could comb those locks all by himself.

JR

Anonymous said...

I think this site and this post(comment section) proves that Palin supporters are more congenial than Romney supporters. I posted a good review of Romney's op-ed, yet when Palin writes a good op-ed...the Romney supporters have to bash her with back-handed compliments.

JR

Anonymous said...

JR,

This is a NO BAN ZONE, so speak your mind.

zeke

Anonymous said...

zeke - I did post my mind...I thought Romney's op-ed was well written and on target. As I said before, I noticed his rhetoric was trying to appeal to the Tea Party but I don't think that's a bad thing...if he was being genuine or not.

JR

kelly said...

Not a bad op-ed. More of a battle charge than SPECIFIC SOLUTIONS like Romney's op-ed. She can talk specifics, can't she?

BOSMAN said...

Common JR, lighten up.

At least that's what you non-Rombots tell us all the time.

R&D said...

Not a bad op-ed. I wish she'd talk more about specific solutions like Romney and Gingrich.

Ann said...

I have to give her credit. It is a pretty could piece.

Revolution 2012 said...

All FLUFF!

A good puff piece.