Karl Rove has a new scam plan to vaccum money from gullible donors who don’t know that he is out of touch save the Republican party. Rove’s super-PAC is supposedly going to help “electable” Republicans against unelectable Tea Party insurgents. Who knew that the problem was that establishment candidates were being outspent? Even counting the outside group money, Richard Lugar still outspent Richard Mourdock by a couple of million dollars. Lugar ended losing the race by about twenty points. Some Karl Rove ads were not going to change the outcome. Mike Castle outspent the absurd carny Christine O’Donnell by about two-to-one even when you count the spending by pro-O’Donnell conservative outside groups, and she still managed to win despite her history of personal and financial problems. The “establishment” candidates aren’t losing because of a lack of money, and giving Karl Rove more bucks won’t lead to better Republican Senate candidacies anymore than the $300 million that Rove raised and spent in 2012 helped Republicans win the presidency and pick up Senate seats. So here is some free advice for “establishment” Republican Senate candidates:
1. Treat your party’s conservative base as an ally rather than an obstacle or an election year nuisance. Scott Brown is on the left edge of the Republican party, yet Massachusetts conservatives backed him enthusiastically. That is because he focused his campaign on where he and conservatives had common ground. He was against Obamacare and they were against Obamacare. He was against civilian trials for terrorists and they were against civilian trials for terrorists. He was for lower taxes and they were for lower taxes. Conservative Republican differed from Brown on this or that issue, but it was clear that, in many ways, a vote for Brown really was a vote for their own principles.
2. Explain. If you think that your “insurgent” opponent has a history of saying stupid things, explain why those comments are stupid, but do so in a way that doesn’t insult your audience. You want to explain why your opponents positions are bad for your voters, but you don’t want to come across like you think the voters are idiots for even considering your opponent. Don’t act like explaining why you are right is beneath you. If you think your opponent’s Medicare plan is bad, explain how it will hurt the parents of the very people who will be voting in the primary. You might think the primary voters are too irrational and ideological for these explanations to work, but that is your mistake. Mitt Romney marginalized Rick Perry among Republican primary voters partly by getting to Perry’s left on Social Security. Most Republican primary voters don’t want to vote for someone who might be an unelectable extremist. But if their only choices are someone who treats them like pests, and someone who treats them with respect but is called an unelectable extremist by liberal-leaning media, Republican primary voters will go with the candidate who treats them with respect.
3. Start right away. Candidates build relationships with voters over months. If you wait until a week before the election and find that your opponent has the “momentum”, then it is probably too late. That momentum represents hundreds of thousands of contacts over many months. Impressions have hardened. Those impressions could change again, but it will take time and you don’t have enough of it. Treat your opponent and your voters with respect. Explain what is wrong with your opponent early on. Win the argument right away. And if you can’t win the argument right away, maybe you don’t deserve to win at all.
And now some advice for Republican donor:
1. Stop giving money to super-PACs who will spend the money on thirty second ads designed to win elections in 1988. All you are doing is making old school Republican consultants even more rich without their even having to think through the specific problems of our time.
2. Spend money explaining how particular conservative policies would save young people money on health care premiums while maintaining their health care security.
3. Spend money on ads that demonstrate the visible humanity of the late-term fetus and explain the abortion extremism of the national Democratic party.
4. Spend money on ads that explain conservative policies that will increase the take home pay of parents.
5. Run experiments and conduct in-depth interviews on how to better reach younger and nonwhite voters in ways other than the traditional thirty second network television ad.
Spending money on particular candidates in election years isn’t the best way to help the center-right. The Republicans will raise enough money to get their message out. The problem is they don’t have a message and they don’t have a map for getting that message out to much of the country. Conservative donors can familiarize the public with a positive conservative agenda and create set of techniques for conservative candidates to communicate with constituencies that never hear a conservative message today. Doing those two things would be far more valuable than helping some consultant pick primary candidates.
February 4th, 2013 | 12:32 am
[...] Republicans And The Conservative Base Part I: How “Establishment … Go to this article [...]
February 4th, 2013 | 4:16 am
[...] Karl Rove has a new scam plan to vaccum money from gullible donors who don’t know that he is out of touch save the Republican party. Rove’s super-PAC is supposedly going to help “electable” Republicans against unelectable Tea Party insurgents. Who knew that the problem was that establishment candidates were Source: Postmodern Conservative [...]
February 4th, 2013 | 5:53 am
[...] “The ‘establishment’ candidates aren’t losing because of a lack of money, and giving Karl Rove more bucks won’t lead to better Republican Senate candidacies anymore than the $300 million that Rove raised and spent in 2012 helped Republicans win the presidency and pick up Senate seats,” blogger Pete Spiliakos wrote. [...]
February 4th, 2013 | 9:31 am
There’s really only one piece of advice that matters: Don’t act as if you are entitled to your job, and that it is insulting to you to actually have to defend it.
The outside-the-beltway GOPers need to revive term-limits as an issue. The public loves them by any measure I’ve ever seen. They’re not going to happen, but that makes them that much better as an issue.
February 4th, 2013 | 12:02 pm
[...] Conservative Victory ProjectRedStateConservative Groups Mock Crossroads' InitiativeNewsmax.comFirst Things (blog) -Huffington Postall 26 news [...]
February 4th, 2013 | 3:44 pm
I think that this is a bit harsh. I myself lean toward the Tea Party side of Republican politics, but I think we get better candidates by having vigorous primaries with all points of view going at one another to elect a candidate who I hope will be supported by all sides against the Democratic Party candidate. Sometimes that turns out badly as 2012 showed. But the voters of a state rightly chose the party candidate with whom they identify. In MA that was Scott Brown, a man whom I personally like but would not support in my native SC against a DeMint. On the other hand I’d support him 365 days of the year in MA against a Kennedy or a Barney Frank. I would also back him against the other Republican Senator from SC, Lindsey Graham, who makes me gag when I see him or write his name.
February 4th, 2013 | 4:51 pm
Michael, I think vigorous debate is fine, but there are reasons why Scott Brown was better thought of by conservatives than Michael Castle in 2010. Some of it had to do with the lack of a conservative alternative candidate in MA, but a lot of it had to do with how Brown treated conservatives. That would be a good lesson for “moderate” and “establishment” Republicans to learn.
February 4th, 2013 | 6:51 pm
Pete,
There was a movie in the late 80s entitled Pascali’s Island, set on a Greek-speaking Aegean Island under Ottoman rule before WWI. Ben Kingsley starred as an undercover agent of the Ottoman secret police, who has spent many years on the island pains-takingly writing lengthy and detailed intelligence reports on the situation on the island for the eyes of the central imperial government. He sends the letters to Istanbul, each one opening with lavish, overwrought formulaic praise of the Sultan. By the end of the movie, Kingsley comes to realize (I don’t remember how) that his many missives to the Sultan, to which he has devoted his life, and in which he takes great pride, have simply been filed away and ignored by the corrupt, incompetent and decadent central authorities.
That movie comes to mind when I read the excellent advice for the Republican Party written by yourself and other insightful conservatives who recognize that the old tactics won’t work anymore (Ponnuru, Salam, Douthat, Levin, Manzi, maybe a few others).
The letters go to the sultan, but do his ministers read them?
February 4th, 2013 | 7:05 pm
DJF, I’ll put myself to the side, since I think of my posts as participating in conversation rather than actually moving events so I have no expectations on that score.
As for Douthat, Levin, Ponnuru, and the others, I think that they will move the Republican party and conservative politics in a healthier direction. My guess is that it will look like they are having no influence, then a little influence will be visible and then, almost suddenly, their ideas will become a big part of the Republican message and issue agenda.
February 4th, 2013 | 7:33 pm
[...] agree with about eighty percent of this Liz Mair post. Some of it is similar to the stuff I wrote yesterday, but better written and more [...]
February 5th, 2013 | 2:20 pm
Well, Pete, I sure hope you’re right. At this moment, the only changes of agenda that seems to interest the Republican establishment are abruptly dropping social conservatism and immigration “reform.” (I won’t comment on how I think immigration “reform” will “help” the Republican party and conservatism generally, although I will concede that GOP support for it is likely to boost the career of George P. Bush in Texas, if that’s something to wish for.) According to John Podhoretz (who is no Tea Partier), the GOP establishment is not even interested in updating the GOTV tactics that failed in just about every swing state in the last election; Romney lost, but his consultants made out like bandits, so I guess there’s no reason to switch to new methods those consultants are unfamiliar with (and therefore can’t profit from).
As always, I wish I could share your optimism. ;-)
February 5th, 2013 | 9:32 pm
DJF, I do think that we were going to have some kind of change to immigration law, but the prominence of amnesty as Strategy Number 1(led by Hannity’s deeply felt change of heart when he saw the election returns) indicates some real shallowness. It is an issue, but I think it is intellectually unhealthy to start there since we will end up there (in some form)anyway.
February 5th, 2013 | 10:12 pm
As I said, Pete, I’m not going to get any deeper into the immigration swamp than my previous comment. I don’t necessarily disagree with your analysis of where we’ll probably end up, though.
One thing about Hannity – he’s ALL heart, since he has nothing else to go on. My Obama-worshipping brother (a hopeless political junkie) tells me that he often listens to Hannity – apparently it confirms him in his lefty ideology.
February 8th, 2013 | 5:03 pm
[...] Culture doesn’t happen once every four years. As always, Pete Spiliakos is a must-read on this topic. [...]
February 10th, 2013 | 12:10 pm
[...] didn’t lose for a lack of money. Even when you count the outside spending, Castle and Lugar outspent their opponents substantially. Conservative groups spent money on the Indiana and Delaware races to help out Christine [...]
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