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LEARNING FROM MISTAKES

Republicans Look To Fix Campaign Mechanics

RNC study recommends fewer debates and earlier conventions

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by David Mark

Editor-in-Chief t

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. Image: AP.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is party's post-election review. "We're going to be announcing a $10 million initiative just this year," Priebus said on CBS's "Face The Nation".

The program "will include hundreds of people, paid, across the country - Hispanic, African American, Asian communities - talking about our party, talking about our brand, ... going to community events, going to swearing-in ceremonies, being a part of the community on an ongoing basis, paid for by the Republican National Committee, to make the case for our party and our candidates."

Priebus further observed, "One of the reasons why Mitt Romney was a sitting duck for two months over the summer is under the campaign finance law, he couldn't use money he had already raised until after he received nomination for president in August. I believe that our primary process is way too long. I think our calendar needs to be looked at. I think our debate calendar needs to be shrunk. I think we had way too many debates with our candidates slicing and dicing each other and I think they had to wait too long to get to the convention. I'm calling for a convention in June or July."

The long-awaited political autopsy is sure to spark debate about whether it's Republican marketing - or its core policy and message - that really need fixing.

Via "Face The Nation".

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • DARSB
    !
    I think Mr Priebus is still missing the lesson from November. A party that is driven to hiring shills instead of welcoming volunteers is still well removed from the issues that matter to voters.
  • u
    ctc
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    Does seem a little insulting that Priebus, who obviously has more money than brains,would admit that he has to pay these minorities to represent and carry the message of the Republican Party. That's pretty arrogant when the actual candidates and Represenatives of their party feel that doing the things he mentioned in this new "program" are a little beneath them.
  • armed_liberal
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    The Republican machine is fueled by stupid people. Education and intelligence are like global warming bringing an end to the Republican Party. The USA is running out of stupid people to vote for the lies that are the Republican platform.
  • Post Removed by Moderators
  • View all 7 replies >
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    Amen. I can't tell you how many conservatives, staunch proud conservatives, sat home during the last election. While I consider that akin to treason, many of them just didn't feel there was much difference between Romney and obama. If we nominated a true conservative, united the base behind this person, they would win.

    PNWest, since you're going to say it, let me head you off at the path. First off, obama only won by less than 4M votes. That's about how many conservatives sat home. A real conservative, not some shiftless RINO -- a true conservative, would have inspired those people to go vote.

    The failure of the Republican party is simply becoming Democrats-lite, instead of true patriotic Americans who put country before entitlements.
  • CATTLEPROD
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix I also wonder how many of those 4 million votes were say, fraudulant. We already know the motto in chicago is vote early, vote often. And as far as I know, you dont even need to be alive to vote in chicago. Had Mitt Romney won by those tactics, the dirt digging by the obama media harem wouldn't have stopped. But with barry, we aren't even allowed to raise the possibility of voter fraud with him. That would be racist first, then laughable, with no need for further investigation.
  • WallStreet
    !
    @Neo_NtheMatrix The display at CPAC was quite telling. I couldn't conceive of any Conservative winning on the national stage based upon the performances this week. Why the parade of discredited losers?? Trump, Palin. Romney what do they bring to the party that hasn't been tasted by the American voter and spit out as unpalatable George will describing it "the Land before Time...,,,People running for the Grand Poobah of the Water Buffalo Society" referring to the Flintstones. Carly Finorna " It's time for these iconoclast's to stop preaching and work on things that will work and pass. Be careful what you wish for.your candidates can't win in the USA in this day and age
  • CATTLEPROD
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix And of course, had we had a true conservative up for election this year, maybe he would have had the cajones to check every last vote and fight for it, even if that meant another 2000.
  • Zazziness
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix The kind of extremist candidate you long for may have brought out more of the fringe rightwing but would have kept the moderates home by the millions. And Neo, this nation really needs moderates a good deal more than the fringe.
  • View all 17 replies >
  • Dan_Tien
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    They want the debating to stop because they don't want their candidates telling the truth about each other. It is the Republican version of the Mushroom Treatment: Keep the public in the dark and feed them lots of shit. Otherwise, it makes it hard to sell your Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees as best buddies reading from the same page after they have spent months talking trash about one another.
  • LoveHasNo82
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    This is a total joke because this is the party that is unwilling to change. If you are not someone who is a rich white male then they don't care to have you in their tent. Its a proven fact they fail to learn after they have lost the last 2 elections for the Whitehouse. I mean they you have the House that is spending tax payer money to defend a law that the majority of the population does not care about. If they fail to change the thinking when it comes to the same sex DOMA thing this next election cycle or the 2016 cycle they can forget it because this is a party that is going to cease to be. Its a fact that they try to hard to cater to the far right nuts and can't come back to the center this is why the Republicans are failing as a party.
  • LoveHasNo82
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    @EzraBlade I am going to tell you the truth I would love to see Chris Christie be the Republican nominee for 2016. I however as well as I am sure you know because this man speaks his mind and is someone who I think would work with both sides of the isle he will not be. The Republican party fails to change and try to reach other people women for one its like they forget what happened this past election cycle. Its something that they are going to have to wrap their minds around women out number men 2-1 now and vote more often than their male counter parts. The reason you wont see Christie is because hes not so far to the right that he can't come to the center. I have to say that on the Democrat side I would love to see Clinton give it another try. The Republican party is going to have to wake up and see that they are going to have to be more inviting to outsiders of the party. I will state one fact and that is I am a Democrat that is fiscally conservative. I have not see anyone on one side of the isle or the other that I would come to bat for in 2016. I could however see myself voting for a Republican in 2016 if the top ticket had Christie on it. Then again we are talking about a party that lets the leadership pick and choose who will be in and whom will not if you not rich and white well you don't matter.
  • o
    EzraBlade
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    @LoveHasNo82 Christie is dead to the right. Not going to happen. I couldn't vote for Hillary ever. It's funny that you say the GOP needs to go to the center. They won the center last time. It was the right that didn't vote. It comes down to if you want more government or less. I can't understand wanting more government or more taxes.
  • LoveHasNo82
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    @EzraBlade There are tons of loopholes that Congress could fix as well as the tax code in this Country. When I talked about Christie is because he speaks his mind this is something that you don't really see on either side of the isle. I will point out the filibuster that was given by (R)KY Rand Paul. This is someone that I could see maybe as a top ticket name in 2016. I don't think he would be given that chance why because the people that are at the highest levels of the party are the ones who fail to change. If you really look at it over all they come out and say they are going to give the party a face lift. It always fails and never happens. If you look at this past election cycle the President won by over 5 million more votes that Romney. That was at a national level if you look at the numbers Democrats got more votes nationwide. The Republican party is going to have to back away from the social issues if it is ever going to grow again. I will point out again if you look at the majority of the population says that same sex couples should have the same rights as their heterosexual counter parts. Its a fact that if you speak with most anyone who attends a college campus it be a Republican or Democrat your going to get the same response. Its something that the older generation is going to have to move fast. I mean tell me why the media is not covering the fact that the debt is a HUGE ELEPHANT in the room. The population is not aware the people younger whom are paying into Social Security are paying for the older generation now to the tune of 10,000 per day.

    http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/12/20/bab...
  • twinertia
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    First and foremost, try staggering into modern times. Get your noses out of bedrooms and wombs. Stop coddling the uber-rich. Drop the Bible weirdies and the Birchies. Condemn racism whenever it pops into your tents. Embrace science. Fight FOR the environment, not against it.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    We have to nominate a candidate Americans can be proud of. Spending in this country must be cut, but we must empower people to have jobs so they can depend on themselves instead of government. To do this education must be prioritized. However, no amount of spending on head start programs or things of the like will make a difference if we keep subsidizing the deterioration of the family.

    We need a candidate that can articulate the vision of a man and a woman graduating high school/college, getting a good job, then getting married and having children. Do liberals really think this is a bad model? This country worked best when this was our model. Now we have baby daddies and baby mommas and step daddies and guardians and every other liberal utopian vision of a family. When is the last time you saw a welfare check play catch with a little kid? When is the last time a welfare check tucked a kid in to bed at night?

    A child needs a mother and a father to nurture them and help them develop. I'm sorry liberals, I truly am, but government just can't be that parent. It just can't.

    If Republicans truly care about America, they will nominate a candidate that will show us how working together as a family, as communities, with a faith in God and hard work, that we can overcome any obstacle. We fail as a nation when we just expect handouts. It does a disservice to everyone. Too many Americans have no idea of what they are capable of because they have been paid to give up. Conservatism is the solution. The second Republicans realize this and embrace this, we will win the presidency again, and then restore America to her rightful greatness.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    "We have to nominate a candidate Americans can be proud of." Which Americans, Neo? You'll never find a candidate for public office who pleases everyone. As for empowering people to have jobs, those jobs need to exist first. There's currently a rather major shortage.

    " ... the vision of a man and a woman graduating high school/college, getting a good job, then getting married and having children." There are just as many married, working, liberal parents as there are conservatives, Neo. Republicans don't have a lock on that. "This country worked best when this was our model." If you mean, like, back in the 50s, when men worked and women stayed home, there are many things keeping us from returning to that idealistic vision of yours. First of all, how many families can thrive on one income alone? Second, those were the days, indeed -- the days of double standards and women being expected to keep quiet, stay home, have babies, and cook. Nothing wrong with those occupations if that is what a woman chooses, but we didn't have the choices then that we do now. I had two brothers, and my parents put aside a little money for both of them to attend college. For me, they insisted that I take secretarial courses like typing, shorthand, and bookeeping with the hope that such skills would allow me to get a job "until you find a husband" even though my grades in the college prep English, History, and Science classes that I insisted on taking in high school were always better than my brothers. No thank you, I don't want to return to the "dark ages" for American women.
  • NormalFlora
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix First please explain EXACTLY what "pro-family" means. Pro replication? Pro overpopulation? Pro "Dad is the boss and all the rest of you can STFU and deal with it?" Pro dressing the kids up and taking them and the timid, subservient missus to Sunday Morning Circus?
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
    !
    Zazziness, you know what word I really like the ring of? Family. I love how that word sounds. It's just so beautiful. Maybe we should promote more of it. You think?
  • Zazziness
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix I promote it all the time by strongly encouraging people to support the legal recognition of same-sex marriages.
  • Zazziness
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix When you know married same-sex couples in real life, you can see the love is absolutely the same and the forming of a new family is a blessed cause for celebration, as always.
  • harold_lloyd
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    That guy just looks like a stereotypical carpetbagger...

    It's not the mechanics, it's the substance.

    Republican economics is the great sellout of the middle class for the benefit of the plutocracy, for whom the party works.

    Republican social doctrine is repressive, regressive, and obsessive.

    So their response is to tweak their marketing campaign...
  • mimi57
    !
    This was no landslide... Republicans may need to change a few things, but the change should not be caving to special interests as Obama has done. He won
    because he basically bought votes. Giving entitlements to anyone and everyone
    who asked, whether they truly qualified or not. If Republicans need to 'fix' some
    things, then the POTUS better get started fixing things real soon. We still have a
    budget that hasn't been passed! Let's blame the Republicans AGAIN..as for the
    'staying out of peoples bedrooms', yeah, that's good. I won't parade down the street
    nude or semi-nude, wearing dog collars & getting whipped, or 'impersonating' Nuns,
    because I need to make fun of Catholicism and every other Religion. Do what a consenting adult does in their bedroom, just don't tell me about it...don't want to
    know, don't care. Republicans are not out, people will get tired of the 'plantation'
    mentality and figure it out eventually, at this point we are our own biggest problem.
    We need an 'adult' who cares about America, the Constitution, what it stands for,
    and when the 'freebies' run out,... and they will...A Conservative voice and reason
    will once again prevail. It's temporary insanity right now, not permanent psychosis!
  • Zazziness
    !
    One one hand, this nation's founders insisted that people have the unalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." How to you reconcile your desire to use government as morality police with our founders' fierce love of individual liberty?
  • mimi57
    !
    @Zazziness I'm not sure of your question..? However, I think your speaking of 'negative freedom'. I strongly believe in 'positive freedom',your right to 'happiness'
    ends in my space, and freedom of religion is an unalieable right.
  • Zazziness
    !
    @mimi57 The parades you are talking about take place in public. Which means all you have to do to be comfortable is stop looking. That's a lot more sensible than asking all of society to behave just as you'd like them to -- that isn't freedom.
  • mimi57
    !
    @Zazziness I don't look, however, I should have the 'freedom' to walk down the street without covering my eyes, you know to see where I'm going. I also, should
    not have to explain to my children, or any child why S & M. and 'Nudies' don't have the common courtesy to cover their hairy a$$ in public. That freedom, gets into
    my space. I wouldn't act in such a vulgar way in front of the public, as I have self
    respect and respect for others. Only those who have no respect for anyone, shows
    their private parts to the world and calls it 'freedom'. I doubt that is what our founding fathers had in mind...
  • View all 63 replies >
  • AtheistStand
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    Yeah its the "campaign mechanics" thats why they aren’t winning....its not things like sexism, social injustice, non compassion/empathy, money loving greed, forced religious dogma....nor the fact that CPAC focused on palin and trump as republican representatives.....hummmmmm yeah campaign mechanics....thats the ticket!!
  • u
    ErnestPayne
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    Having managed to offend virtually everyone but OWG's (Old White Guys) the republicans are going to have to produce an immense quantity of smoke and mirrors to make themselves palatable to all but the most ignorant. Personally I am in favour of debates but the american system of "debates" are not real debates.
  • Ryuo
    !
    The campaign mechanics were not the problem - a dearth of good candidates was. A Republican candidate needs to have a couple things:

    1. Fiscal conservative values
    2. A record of success
    3. Youth and/or charisma
    4. Political skills

    Out of the last two elections, only a couple of the "serious" candidates had more than two of the set. Look ahead to 2016, though: Rubio, Paul, Ryan, Cruz and Walker have all those qualities, and newcomers like Carson and Love may be ready by then as well.

    The GOP will be great as long as they don't screw it up; and given the specter of Obama's legacy haunting the Democrats, anybody better than Warren G. Harding should win.
  • o
    Sonny
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    I keep telling them what they need.....1) Better Candidates!!!!---2) Policies that the American people want...& 3) Lose the wack-jobs.....(and you know who they are by now)...LOL
  • u
    KyleMFb
    !
    NOTHING CAN HELP!!!! You can't help someone (GOP) who is determined to kill themselves. Republicans are hellbent on dying out there nothing we can do to help those idiots with poster boys like trump,rush Ann,Pailin the list is very long but I think y'all get the point if the republicans can't tear away from the village idiot syndrome then there doomed
  • u
    Hireman
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    The first thing they should do is get rid of Reince Priebus. He's pompous and out-of-touch. IF the GOP wants to get connected with the masses, it needs to have someone that understands how to appeal to them. Priebus is great at country clubs, but while many may actually agree with some of his messaging, his style disgusts most.
  • oldman75
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    Their campaign mechanics are easily rectified. Stop nominating stodgy,racist,rightwing,religi ous nutbags . They got a new Joe McCarthy use him -with Palin to guarantee another loss in 2016.
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