In my non-blogging life, I work in direct marketing, using databases and sophisticated models and customer segmentation to best target - well, junk mail and telemarketing campaigns among other things. In that regard, you develop knowledge about how to maximize the benefit of your efforts. You test theories and you constantly try to improve on your results through the use of post analysis using statistical methods and an understanding of the business and the marketplace.
The same is, or at least should be, true in politics. What wins political contests is not just who has the most money, but who uses it the most effectively. My fellow blogger frmrDJ at Another Colorful Day in Colorado gets it, talking about how his Church spends it's 'marketing' dollars. I've commented on many occasions about how the McCain campaign was ineffectual in its marketing efforts in 2008 - a luxury he could simply not afford in the election climate he faced.
This is knowledge that is essential to the future success of the RNC, regardless of who becomes the next RNC chair. Let's face it, like most of the artsy professions, liberals dominate the marketing realm. But they don't own it. There are enough conservatives out there who understand marketing, and definitely enough who understand analytics that we should have a strong footprint in direct marketing. Even that's not enough. We've got to dominate the field.
Liberals get this stuff, they practically own the education and the media, we can't let them have the science side of marketing too. They understand it so well that they are very clever at branding and image and message and now GOTV. We have to be better or we will lose every time.
I've written before about bypassing the mainstream media, about having principles but understanding that communication and education is what wins elections. I've written about outreach and analysis of key demographics. The science is where we still have an edge and it's critical we capitalize on it. And also that we don't forsake the areas we are behind in like media, but try to find new and creative ways to compensate for our deficit or overcome our deficit.
Karl Rove got it 100% right in understanding the the media (the air game) was not winnable at the time so he had to have a better ground game (GOTV) to compensate. That's strategic thinking. Now it's come to having to take things to the next level - understanding best where to focus the efforts in addition to outperforming in the ground game and catching up in the mass media and chattering class of talking heads.
A tall order, but one that must be filled nonetheless, otherwise our years in the wilderness will not be over any time soon. Look at all the scandal going on for the Democrats right now. In 18 months they won't even be blips on the radar because the economy will be so much of a focus for everyone. And having the MSM run interference keeps that air war advantage for the Democrats in play - any recovery they will take credit for, any deepening or stagnation will be blamed on Bush. It's the play they ARE GOING TO RUN. Guaranteed. How easy is it to say 'things would have been so much worse if we hadn't reversed the errors of the Bush years.' and then have the media fly with it for you. Unemployment is 9%? If we hadn't interceded when we did, it would have been 11%. You're so lucky we arrived when we did. How do you counter an unprovable statement? Not with facts, because the medium will drown you out. Hyperbole sells. Not to suggest we use it, be we have to be ready for it and be able to counter it.
I'm just saying...
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