Republicans’ new play book
In the wake of their stunning defeats in special elections in Illinois, Mississippi, and Louisiana House races, the National Republican Congressional Committee has put together a presentation (via the Politico) on what went wrong and what Republicans in tight House races should do this fall.
The conclusion is pretty simple: the Republican national “brand” is badly damaged, the losing candidates’ failed to differentiate themselves from it, and the Democrats had more money to spend. The suggested solution is that Republican candidates spend more time on local issues
The big question for Christopher Lee, Dale Sweetland, and Randy Kuhl is what local issues they should focus on and whether or not they have the political acumen to act independently at all. Remember, Kuhl was bailed out in the 2006 election by NRCC and RNC advertisements about Social Security.
This bring up another question: how well will local Republicans’ energy gimmickry play, given that it is part of a concerted national Republican strategy? Will voters who are skeptical of the Republican party be that much more likely to reject such gimmickry given that it comes from the national Republican party?
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“The conclusion is pretty simple: the Republican national “brand” is badly damaged, the losing candidates’ failed to differentiate themselves from it, and the Democrats had more money to spend.”
So would you say that Maggie’s separating herself from Stevie is, literally, a textbook response? In other words, not an intentional step away from the corrupted, destructive style of local and national politics, but merely an effort to dress up the emperor in a new outfit?
I’m not sure yet. I think we’ll know better when we see how MCC and other key appointments shake out. Maggie should be smart enough to realize that the state is going Democrat and that she’ll have to deal with this if she’s going to have a political future. I hope she’s smart enough to realize that. If she’s not, we’re in bigger trouble than I thought.
Another thing to watch is all of the anti-gay, anti-immigrant stuff. That’s right out of the Minarik playbook and it’s also the kind of foolishness that is alienating voters from the Republican party. Will it continue without Minarik?
So either she’s doing this because it’s politically expedient, or because she actually hopes to be more collaborative. I wonder if her motivation matters. I think it does. If it’s just doing what she can to keep Republicans in power, even if that means recognizing the reality of the times, then she and her party will continue to try to use nepotism and cronyism, while at the same time continuing to attempt to mislead the public (an increasingly difficult job with an increasingly aware public and increasingly focused media). On the other hand, if she believes that this community can genuinely benefit from all branches and all parties coming together to further the interests of the community (what a novel concept) then maybe the coming appointments will reflect that desire. I agree - this will be an interesting time for us to watch.