"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

A New Platform for the GOP

Republicans have been doing a lot of soul-searching (read: "navel-gazing") about what went wrong in the 2012 electoin and what we should do now.  A lot of the analyses have as their subtexts continuing the gravy train for consultants and insiders and vendors who feed off the multi-billion dollar industry that is politics today. So we talk about data-mining and ORCA and fine-tuning our appeals to different demographic groups and modifying our imagery. It's all about tactics and strategy, the fields where so-called elites and experts and consultants live and breed.

Tactics are important. Strategy is important. Data is important. But more important than these is... what are we fighting for? Why should we care? What kind of world do we want to live in? What does America mean?

The Republicans need a new approach, sure. But the approach they need isn't a matter of more and more sophisticated GOTV efforts or more targeted appeals or more moderate rhetoric. The approach they need is simple:

Tell the Truth.

Do the Right Thing.

On every issue.

From now on.

If the truth and doing what is right don't win, then we're doomed anyway.

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