On Tap

If Barack Obama wins the presidential election - and at this point, that appears to be the more likely scenario — there will be plenty of time to discuss what went wrong. But a couple of observations, one month out:

1) A Republican candidate cannot be afraid to discuss topics outside their comfort zone. You can’t just be a national security and porkbusting guy. When Wall Street runs aground, you have to be able to talk about what happened and why it happened and how you’re going to fix it. And it goes well beyond economics. Every candidate at every level has to be able to say, “Americans feel anxiety about the health care system and their insurance, and here’s what I think we need to do to fix it.”

I think a lot of Barack Obama’s ideas are crappy. But any topic you throw at him, he can explain, “here’s my plan.” They’re crappy plans, but to voters, that looks like preparation and competence. And by comparison, that is preparation and competence.

Beyond elected officials and candidates, the future conservative movement is going to need to be fluent in these traditional “mommy party” topics. I’ve been lax in this myself. But you can’t be seen as having nothing to say on some of the biggest and most pressing issues.

2) It’s hard to lead a party as a maverick. Beyond that, it’s getting a little tiring to be led by a party leaders who trust “their gut”, as this is how you call for the debate to be postponed and then two days later say ‘nevermind’; this is how you get hard-hitting ads and a candidate who is reluctant to make the same argument on the stump.

3) It is difficult to campaign by touting “Bipartianship” in what is, ultimately, a partisan choice before the American people. If you cannot argue why your party is the better choice than the other party, that argument will not be made for you.

4) An unfair and biased media sucks, but you can’t let that be an excuse for defeat. When the press gets the facts wrong, call them out on it, publicly and repeatedly. Beyond that, why are you looking for fair treatment from MSNBC, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, CBS or Newsweek? Are you completely unfamiliar with the past records of those institutions?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at October 6, 2008 - 9:49 am and is filed under 2008 Presidential Campaign, Conservativism, Media & Press, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.