GOP Strategy

With less than four weeks to go before the midterms, the Republican strategy is coming into focus. They want their candidates to be seen and not heard and they want to go negative with their opponents.

Second point first. Negative campaigns are effective. The Obama 2012 campaign was nothing but smears and character assassinations leveled against Mitt Romney. One of the worst--possibly the very worst--incumbents in history maintained the levers of power because they turned their opponent into a caricature of himself. The Republicans should have taken notes.

The brains of the GOP, for lack of a better term, need to realize that what works for their opponents might not work for them.  They expect the news media to connect the dots and to be impartial. Keeping one's silence--i.e. refusing to define oneself or tell the public what they will do if elected, or to discuss core values even when the stated core values are wildly popular--can be a deadly passive strategy. Define or be defined.

It's not as if the Republicans do not have some memory of success. 1994 and 2010 were two campaigns where the Elephants shouted the concerns of the silent majority. In 2012 the Republicans nominated a presidential candidate who was absurdly combative in the primaries but chose to play nice and go on the defensive and run out the clock. The GOP establishment likes to blame uberbuffoon Todd Akin who stupidly declared that a woman could not be impregnated by rape. They don't lay any blame on Romney who had an opportunity to drill the disgraceful president for his flagrant dereliction of duty and subsequent lies surrounding the Benghazi tragedy and chose to punt.

The problem with advancing undefined candidates is that the fourth estate is greater than 99% pro-Democrat. They cannot be expected to remind the public of the horrors of Obamacare, the still-growing national debt, the decline in median income, the loss of jobs, the real dangers of ISIS/jihad/workplace safety, the porous southern border that spews terrorists, gangsters and disease vectors, institutionalized corruption, abuses of power...things that used to be considered political fodder. Don't expect APMSNBC to call attention to a Democrat's deficiencies. We are left with two machines slinging mud. What is lacking is product differentiation.


We have a half dozen Senate races that were favoring the Republicans that are now too close to call. Same with gubernatorial races. In New Hampshire the Republicans grabbed both congressional seats in 2010 with a vocal strategy and lost both of them in 2012 with a strategy of silence. Both races are too close to call in 2014.

Maybe Priebus will run the tables and surprise us all.  Doesn't look that way now. The Republican establishment is much more fearful of its grass roots (the tea party before it got hijacked) than of their friendly rival Democrats. Shut up and let us do the talking. We will soon see how this game plan works. I am not optimistic.