DNC male outreach effort update goes exactly as expected

To funny to not share:

Tim Walz, bad choice for VP; Democrats can't govern. Act now.

It's not surprising that Kamala Harris, a bad presidential candidate would pick a bad candidate in Tim Walz for her running mate. Tim Walz was a bad choice for VP.  From food, riots and fraud to COVID fails, to blind support for Let's Go Brandon after his miserable debate performance (which has mysteriously since evaporated), to leaning into socialism, the only upside for Walz being on the Harris ticket is that he may help in the rust belt swing states. In other words, it's a political choice not a best-person-for-the-job choice.

But that is how Democrats operate; political hegemony first, last and always, all else (like ability to govern well) be damned.  This should awaken more Americans that the Democrat elite, and the media, DO NOT CARE about America or Americans, only about a combination of personal power, personal wealth and a far left agenda.

The GOP must leap into action and trounce this failed governor for the failure that he is and brings to the ticket. The Harris-Walz ticket clearly represents four more years of the same failed policies of the Let's Go Brandon administration. It represents more of sewing the seeds of division, more China capitulation, more open borders, more deep state growth, more failed green energy policies. In short it means more of everything that weakens America.

This cannot be allowed to stand. It must not be allowed to stand. I've often said the GOP must leap into action, but so too must we.  It's even more crucial.

I urge every American who is voting Trump to find yourself one person who is voting Democrat, and create a collage of arguments (videos, articles, even conversations) that you can then share with that person to convince them to either vote Trump, or at a minimum abstain from voting Democrat. Of course they have to be someone not so delusion that facts won't matter to them, and your argument needs to be convincing.  And you don't need to be combative, you need to be persuasive. There are a lot of resources available to you to make the arguments and even on how to persuade.  Make an effort, it's not just about voting, it's about persuasion.

If we can all do that, we will make a monumental difference in the coming election. We need to stop talking to each other and go back to something I was blogging about back in 2008/2009; outreach.  Talking to ourselves strengthens our bond and commitment perhaps, but it does not strengthen the country. If you want to commit to making a difference, you need to do more than just vote. You start by talking to someone who does not agree with you. Appeal to their emotions first and then to their intelligence afterwards. If Democrats believe you are 'weird' or 'evil' or whatever, first convince them that you want a safe country where people of all ethnic backgrounds, and all creeds or beliefs, can be free and can prosper.  Once they no longer question your motives, they may open up to your ideas.

Some strategic advice for Republicans on Immigration

For what it's worth, here's my two cents on how the GOP can win on immigration.

The president has advertised his next move - after the elections but before the Senate changes control to Republican hands, he's going to use some sort of Executive action(s) to bypass immigration laws and open the floodgates for illegal immigrants to become legalized. 

Rodríguez’s agency will be front and center once President Barack Obama announces the executive action he’ll take on immigration. Obama said he would take executive action after the elections but before the end of the year.

So Republicans, you know what the president is going to do.  He's going to use the window to not hurt the Democrats too much before the midterm elections, curry favor with Hispanics pre-election to help goose the get out the vote effort for Democrats, and more importantly fundamentally change the voting landscape for generations to come.

There's bad news and good news in that for the GOP.

First the bad news.  There's not much the GOP can do to forestall this.  Consider this - if the GOP in Congress and the Senate act immediately after being sworn in to pass legislation negating the potentially illegal executive action, the president is simply going to veto it.  The GOP, no matter how well they do in the midterm elections, are not going to have the numbers to override presidential vetos on legislation.  True, president Obama visibly becomes the roadblock he has claimed the GOP have always been, but he can spin that as the GOP still being the roadblock - to progress.  The media will eat that up.  With the next election cycle representing an opportunity to re-take the senate, don't count of Democrats to join forces with the GOP to override the presidential veto.  If Obama had moved pre-election, some of them might have had to do so.

There's more bad news.  While the executive actions may be illegal, challenging them in court will take time - years most likely.  By the time any result can come out of it, the damage will already have been done.  In fact even a Supreme Court decision could possibly have a decision mitigated with a disclaimer that too much time has passed and those who have been legitimized cannot now be deemed illegal once again.  So legal recourse will not solve the problem.  It might taint the Obama legacy and some sort of censure might be a result.  Those considerations should not be overlooked, for he will clearly be overstepping his bounds.  But the root problem remains: millions of illegal immigrants legalized and beholden to a liberal Democrat president and his hiers.  That means a major tilt towards liberal voters.

That's pretty bad.

But there is a silver lining to all of this.

Firstly, this trajectory and scurrilous plan should be featured in every Republican commercial for the next two weeks.  And there's no reason additional legislation on securing the border cannot be passed or attempted at least after the new Congress and Senate are seated. Those things may move the dial towards Republicans a hair, but there's a bigger picture at stake here.  Hispanics have traditionally been predominantly liberal voters.  Central and South America have a history of socialism and an often negative view of America.  They also have a Catholic slant in their religiosity.  Their brand of Catholicism often has a bent towards charity towards those in need, whom they often regard as fellow Hispanics.  So changing the hearts and minds of these new voters is not going to be easy.  We on the right view socialism with something more than disdain and our version of Christianity is typically a more Protestant oriented view - the work ethic, and charity being more based on teaching a man to fish than giving him a fish.  There's perhaps a disconnect there.

But can these new voters be co-opted into the Republican fold?  Firstly we should ask, "should they be"?   The answer is yes.  Every voter is a potential conservative, no one should be excluded from the big tent and certainly no one should be excluded from the attempt to persuade them that their votes are perhaps misaligned with their ideals.  Every challenge after all, is an opportunity.

I've written before about how to do this. In fact many times, and in relation to many different topics.  The main point is simple enough though.  The GOP cannot rely on the media to get their message out to these groups.  They shouldn't because it won't work.  They need to go directly to Hispanic organizations, churches, etc. and talk directly to them.  Share the conservative message with them.  And most importantly, listen.  Assuming their existing positions are anathema to conservatism is a political poison pill.  Their expressed ideas for solutions may be socialist, progressive or liberal in orientation, but their concerns are voter-based concerns.  Listening opens up the opportunity to communicate (a) another way to solve their problems and (b) the reasons that the Republican way, will better solve their needs.

It's really that simple.  Engage, listen, talk.

Actually maybe it isn't that simple, maybe the GOP need this spelled out:  once is not enough.  This needs to start immediately, and it needs to be happening frequently and regularly.  The ability to convince voters takes time.  You need to understand their issues.  You need to synthesize them into core issues.  You need to distill them into a message that explains how the GOP solution would work for them.  Think of this as a sales process.  You need to move the voters from Awareness to Interest to Desire and then to Action.  That could take years.

But you don't have nothing to work with from the start.  Those who come here from Latin America are not part of some vast socialist conspiracy to overrun American society.  They left supposed socialist paradises in order to take a risky journey to America.  Why?  It's the land of opportunity.  They wanted to be part of that.   Yes, there are those who want to turn the U.S. into another communist state, there are those who came for criminal reasons, and those who just cannot be persuaded to change their views.  All of those potentialities are true of any group coming to America.

Securing the borders and ensuring that the welfare state is not collapsed by an influx of future wards of the state is still important.  It'll be important to those who have already made it here thanks to Obama's largess.  If they are shown the impact of continuing illegal immigration - from anywhere in the world.

From the perspective of Hispanics arriving in America, they do not want to feel excluded from the opportunity America presents.  Those who immigrate legally shouldn't be, and really aren't excluded from what America has to offer.  But with those here illegally, and the rest of the existing Hispanic community, aren't going away.  This is simply a matter of taking the lemon created by Obama's actions and making lemonade out of it. Even getting Hispanics to a 50/50 split would be a big win for conservatives, but even more is possible if you make the effort.

Two Word Opinions - 2013 first edition

No, two REAL words.

I've been busy in my personal life to an extent that it has unfortunately disrupted regular blogging for the time being.  It doesn't mean I'm not following the news and politics or that Nonsensible Shoes is going to fade away.  But lacking time, for now I'm going to revert to some more two word opinions as a means of catching up a bit.

Ron Paul made some pretty damn insensitive remarks about the death of a Navy Seal sniper - Really dumb.

Iran might just be aligning with the newly 'democratic', Islamic Brotherhood controlled Egypt - Conservatives knew.

Post Office is shutting down Saturdays - More please.

Immigration reform on the table again with the secret ingredient being amnesty sauce - Not robust.

The GOP is getting the idea that outreach to minority voting blocks is important - not...really.

CBO claims the US will add $7 trillion in national debt over the next decade - THAT'S conservative.

That's about it for now.  Back soon.

The GOP is getting some things right

The GOP is getting some things right on health care, this succinct video is tough to dispute.

And on Obama versus Obama on the stimulus;

But being the party of NO, is only part of the solution. The GOP needs to come up with it's own alternative plans. The good news is, it has. Here's an example;




The Bad News?

Nice videos. Too bad only 200,000 views or so for those 3 videos combined.

The bad news is that while putting these videos on youtube, the GOP is merely trying to expand their listening audience. The problem is that in reaching out to the American audience they are nowhere near aggressive or proactive enough. There needs to be a big push from the GOP that matches the Tea Parties and Town halls of the grassroots conservatives in middle America. "Good videos - shame about the web hits" won't cut it. Where's the GOP town halls and community speaking engagements? Where's the church functions? Where's the community outreach on these points?

News flash: If you don't reach out to untapped constituencies they'll never learn your position and they will continue to vote while uninformed or misinformed. The Obama administration and the mainstream media are counting on that.

Michael Steele, the GOP chair, needs to get the GOP in uninterested voters' faces, in a kinder, gentler way than say the Obama SEIU thugs would approach it. There's still time, but so far it seems to be lacking as part of the overall plan.

Battling liberal mind control

Everyone knows what the problem is. Hot Air did a story on educational institutions and how liberals are controlling the message right out of the gate. Read the comments section for some personal insights from people frustrated with teachers indoctrinating our children with liberal dogma. From Kindergarten through university, it's one long liberal chain.


Beyond the schools there's the mainstream media. Beyond that there's trade unions. They control the message. It's no wonder conservatives have to play so much defense; liberals have all the offensive weapons. Really offensive ones too. That's the problem. What's the solution.

Whether it's schools, media or unions, there's really only a couple of options available.

1) Take back the institutions that give these unfair advantages to liberals. At least to the point where we have an equal say, an equal footing. The advantage to this approach is that it would foster a true educational environment where opposing viewpoints were discussed and debated. The obvious negative is that it is a massive undertaking, requiring co-ordination, perseverance and time. Decades of time. Further, the liberals who own these channels will fight tooth and nail to prevent this from happening. So add an extra five years to the strategic plan for victory.

2) The other option is to find alternatives. I've harped on this in the past. Use community outreach efforts. Use community events. Develop our own educational alternatives. Devise alternatives to education and the mainstream media. The down side is that it is polarizing to have dueling institutions. The upside is that while it will still take co-ordination and a lot of effort, the undertaking would be quicker and easier than re-taking the schools and TV.

What's a conservative party in the wilderness to do? Honestly, choose both options. This is a long war of ideas. We tend to focus on winning the battles, while liberals seem to have a better focus on winning the war. Or at least, they've put themselves in a better position to do so than conservatives. But while we cannot stop focusing on 2010 and 2012, we also need to take the steps towards making the battle easier for ourselves and the next generation of conservatives to come. We must earn people's trust and take our ideas to them. They may not react well initially, but overall they will be less hostile and more receptive than you might think.

Good followup on How Obama Got Elected

Read this post. It makes some great points on the varying degrees of understanding of what's going on between McCain voters and Obama voters.

I'm usually not a big fan of the constant polling that goes on. Too often the MSM are guilty of attempting their own version of push-polling. By that I mean, pushing you to think a certain way because the polls say that you should. The Get-out-the-vote efforts of Republicans in the election was probably impeded by the constant message of polling showing it was in the bag for Obama. Maybe it was, but the only poll that mattered was the one on November 4th.

I'm a database marketer by profession. I love analyzing data, and discovering knowledge out of that data. I think this is a major untapped opportunity for conservatives (read/assume GOP for now); Collecting as much data as possible, segmenting the population, creating regression models, doing cluster analyses and running strategically targeted marketing and outreach efforts to the right segments can make a big difference, very quickly.

What must be done

I keep coming back to the main points - conservative ideas rule, but it's about getting the education and message out there that really matters.

It's the message

Just a reminder - it's becoming clearer and clearer, this is not a shift to the left.





This is about the medium being the message. And the medium is liberal. PEOPLE - it's about the media. Ideas are important yes, but the message is what wins. It's the ground game and the air war that will win the election.

Obama didn't need to have a message more detailed than Hope and Change. The media carried his water for him. We can't waste time arguing moderate or conservative Republican. We've got to get the pieces in place for 2010 and 2012 and we need to start right now. Outreach can't happen a month before the election. It's got to be an on-going dialogue or it isn't going to be effective.

The 'Vision thing'.

In a post yesterday, Matt Lewis talked about what idea conservatives need to focus on, with an eye towards a providing new Contract with America. I thought I'd add my two cents worth here.

One quick note - whatever the vision is, I think the time has come to not only articulate a vision, but provide voters with a clear road map instead of platitudes and vague ideas. In 4 years, people will likely be asking "How did Obama plan to get us there? He never really told us." If you can't contrast against that, the ideas might sound like hollow promises.

1. Matt mentions science and math. How is it possible to disagree with that? Obama mentioned on the campaign trail music.

Really? Really? What tripe! You want to teach students to fiddle while America burns, Mr. President-elect?

The impacts of being the party of math and science however are far reaching. It impacts education policy. And that in turn may provide an opportunity for in-roads in ethnic communities. Asian communities for example are likely to appreciate the attention on these ares as they keenly understand their importance. No racial comments please, I'm generalizing of course.

But another area of impact is translating the emphasis on these into a realizable economic benefit. For example, patent protection, while not sexy is important. The Chinese violate copyright laws systematically. There needs to be a more robust effort to protect the innovation that results from the focus on the hard sciences. Likely this will affect trade policy.

2. Free trade. Republicans often blindly follow the doctrine of free trade. It's good in theory, but in an imperfect world, it needs to be a finely managed march towards free trade. China does not deserve it's preferred partner status. Why support a blind allegiance to an idea, when practically applied it's taking American jobs. We need to explain the benefits, manage the transition and ensure that equal access, equal playing field free trade is followed.

Free trade has proven very effective. But it has not come without certain pitfalls that need to be addressed and managed.

3. Industry. The Republican party has a huge untapped opportunity to get unions to come onside. Not by pandering to their immediate priorities, but rather by embracing re-industrialization. More factories mean more jobs. More jobs mean more votes, period. Regardless of whether union leadership buys in, union members understand that supporting industry is supporting job opportunities.

We don't want to impede business from taking advantage of cheaper labour, but as we have seen, that often comes at a cost of quality. American workers can produce quality given the opportunity. And I'm sure there are ways to produce quantity cheaply too. Leverage that science agenda, improve the means of production through automation and create volumes that can't be matched in a sweatshop of 5,000 offshore workers.

Promote tax policy that encourages tax breaks for on shoring, and/or heavily favours R&D.

The economy is shifting to a service based economy. Good. But without a sustainable base of production, the country is doomed. You can't offshore all of your production indefinitely. If there's a net capital outflow, it's not sustainable indefinitely. And while services can be exported, clearly it can't be done at the same rate as the importation of goods. Not at this point in time anyway.

There's also a national security risk of becoming a service-dominated economy. What if our clothing and automobile suppliers decided to cut us off? With insufficient means of domestic production it would come as a shock to the system.

So being the party of productivity and re-industrialization has it's logical and populist appeal. As the economy shifts, make sure that domestic production specializes sustainable industries. Do not cede production of the automobile, electronics, defense, communication, transportation, medicine or even resources to foreign interests. Specialize and be the best.

4. Hispanics. Matt is right about the Hispanic community. The numbers don't lie. Not only is this group key as a segment of the population, look at the electoral college potential. If Republicans can keep the south and Florida onside and make inroads in the southwest, particularly California, the potential impact is clear.

I have argued elsewhere that outreach is heavily underplayed by Republicans. It's a missed opportunity. Hispanics have a natural fit with Republican ideology. But we don't sell them on that. Amnesty for illegals may be an issue, but it is not an issue if the broader picture is properly framed. Hispanic (or any) families have the same basic needs from government. Schools, hospitals, crime control, job security and freedom to be who they are. These are basic human needs. If you emphasize the importance of family to a Hispanic voter, do you think he's going to argue with you about it? Probably not.

This is simply a variation of the "all politics is local" argument. Local, in a different context - ethnic/cultural. The Republican party missed an opportunity recently to address the NAACP. Why? Outreach is the key.

Go to community events. Go to churches. Go to their associations. And talk to them. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Invite them to participate in Republican events. Inclusively. Sponsor their events. This is Basic 101 stuff.

This dovetails very well with being the party of family, security and freedom.

On that last point, an aside. Why is it that people would want to give the same group that managed to create the current financial crisis the keys t their 401k's? Could anyone manage it better on their own. Even by throwing darts at an investment dartboard seems like it would have yielded better results.

Fiscal Responsibility. Let's take another crack at this one. Balanced budgets. Innovative solutions to the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. I'm sure there are myriad ways out of the mess. Let's table some and pick the best ideas.

While on the subject of finance, what about becoming the party of banking? Every great empire has had its financial vehicles to leverage. Controlling international money flows is key to a prosperous empire/nation. Smarter banking. Stronger banks. Perhaps the Fed could benchmark it's prime rates based on criteria of banking stability. Just a random thought. Anything to bolster the foundation of stronger banking institutions is good.

Energy. Yes, energy independence is an imperative. Drilling wherever possible, clean coal, natural gas, and nuclear power should be at the forefront. Yes, hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels and other alternative sources should be investigated. But they may take 10, 20, 50 or 100 years to come to fruition. The country doesn't have that time to spare.

Those areas I think are good starting point.