{"id":612,"date":"2015-04-09T17:50:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T22:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=612"},"modified":"2015-09-21T19:39:28","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T00:39:28","slug":"gop-strategy-it-may-be-terminal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/04\/09\/gop-strategy-it-may-be-terminal\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Strategy: It may be terminal"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the key parts of the GOP strategy going forward may be to never, ever say you’re sorry.\u00a0 This fellow (the piece is unsigned) on Unqualified Offerings<\/a> brought it up in a piece in which he suggests Governor Scott Walker may win the GOP nomination:<\/p>\n

\n
Apologizing or even admitting error represents weakness, period. So Mitt Romney titles his campaign book No Apology<\/a>; Ted Cruz insists the 2013 government shutdown is why the GOP walloped the Democrats<\/a> in the 2014 elections.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We can also see this in the public flailing about<\/a> of Governor Mike Pence over the Indiana Religious Restoration Act.<\/p>\n

“Over the past week this law has become a subject of great misunderstanding and controversy across our state and nation. However we got here, we are where we are, and it is important that our state take action to address the concerns that have been raised and move forward.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or here:<\/p>\n

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on Sunday<\/span><\/span> defended his decision to\u00a0sign a religious freedom bill<\/a>\u00a0into law, saying that it\u00a0was\u00a0\u201dabsolutely\u00a0not\u201d a mistake.<\/p>\n

In an interview on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week\u201d<\/a> the Republican governor repeatedly dodged questions on whether the law would legally allow people of Indiana to refuse service to gay and lesbians, saying that residents of the state are \u201cnice\u201d and don\u2019t discriminate and that\u00a0\u201cthis is about protecting the religious liberty of people of faith and families of faith.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a political strategy, you want to say it’s a political miscalculation: adult human beings make mistakes and own up to mistakes; voters will recognize the immaturity (or worse) of the GOP candidates and reject them.<\/p>\n

Sadly, I do not think this will be true, because of the underlying assumption of good knowledge, by which I mean everyone is aware of what’s going on and when public mistakes are made.\u00a0 I believe there are two factors at work:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We’re too busy to keep track of such things.\u00a0 Look at the hours we work – 47 a week<\/a>, and then there’s all of our “leisure” activities, child care, etc.\u00a0 How many folks keep careful, sober track of the candidates and their performance?<\/li>\n
  2. That’s the jobs of the other side<\/em>.\u00a0 Not any longer.\u00a0 It’s hard to believe the other side, no matter who they are.\u00a0 The polarization of politics leaves me shaking my head; sure, some are just ridiculous [DailyJot<\/strong><\/em><\/a>], but when a former Minnesota Rep indulges in ludicrous hyperbole, then I have to doubt anything anybody on either side says.\u00a0 There are precious few with any stature left.\u00a0 Obama I will seriously consider, as I see him as an old-style politician to whom honesty has some weight over Party loyalties; maybe Reid.\u00a0 I’m not even sure of Klobuchar and Franken, my Senators, who generally seem fairly likable.\u00a0 On the GOP side, there’s just no one.\u00a0 They have not cultivated a reputation for honesty, for reasonable analysis.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So this will be the unintended consequence of the GOP culture cultivated over the last couple of decades: they do not have a reputation of honesty, of fair dealing, of mature government (for a glaring example, see the entire Bush years).\u00a0 They have a rep of unreasoning enmity, of extremism, of a failure to acknowledge that their opponents no doubt have the future of the Nation at heart – they just throw mud.\u00a0 As an independent, it’s hard to consider voting for a GOP candidate these days.<\/p>\n

    No wonder the Millenials evidence little enthusiasm<\/a> for the GOP.<\/p>\n

    And the Democrats seem to have a hard time figuring out how to respond to this immaturity.<\/p>\n

    (Updated misspellings and missing links 21 September 2015)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    One of the key parts of the GOP strategy going forward may be to never, ever say you’re sorry.\u00a0 This fellow (the piece is unsigned) on Unqualified Offerings brought it up in a piece in which he suggests Governor Scott Walker may win the GOP nomination: Apologizing or even admitting \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2200,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/2200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}