02/22/13
NYT on Future of GOP
By Too Conservative
For those who missed it, the New York Times has a fantastic cover story which discusses the failure of the GOP leadership (and many at the RNC) to look at new technologies and ways to reach voters.
I was glad to be a part of the profile and would of course welcome feedback.
Upgrading the tech is all well and good, but that will not change the fundamentals on the ground. As the article stated, claiming to be a Republican is definitely an embarrassment. Instead many have opted to claim to be “conservative” (a meaningless term that’s been co-opted and turned into a brand) or Libertarian or otherwise, but certainly not Republican. Why? Because of the very things associated with the GOP the pollster wrote on the board: “old”, “greedy”, “hypocritical”, etc…
The truth is that even many who actually vote for the GOP see them that way as well.
Anecdotally, I am hearing more people disengaging from national politics entirely and getting active in the local church, PTA and so on . Talk of some savior in 2016 just doesn’t interest them (or me).
In my own estimation, the natural inclination of many of being “conservative” is to NOT get involved in politics because of its corrupting influences and to try and prevent most things from becoming political.
The most damaging word associated with the GOP that was seemingly glossed over in the article: “HYPOCRITICAL”
That is massive IMHO because NO ONE likes a hypocrite. And many of those who are inclined to vote GOP just don’t think they really hold our values. The average Republican is indistinguishable from the average Democrat. They go to the same universities, cocktail parties, golf courses and restaurants.
They both hold us in contempt. The only difference is that Democrats openly SAY they hold us in contempt. The Republicans pretend to be one of us, while privately holding us in contempt.
I think the main reason Republicans are perceived as hypocritical is that the hypocrisy of the Democrats is never reported in the main stream media. You can have Kennedys, Chris Dodd and BJ Clinton with a lifetime of abusing women held up as shining examples of feminist advocates while a Republican senator who kisses a women in an elevator is immediately drummed out of office. A Democrat senate majority leader who was a Grand Wizard in the KKK is memorialized while anybody who disagrees with The Messiah’s socialist and spendthrift goals is immediately branded a racist.
But that’s the way it is with the low information voters who don’t observe or think for themselves, and until the demagogues and their lackeys in the media lead them all down the toilet bowl I don’t think they will ever discern the truth from the branding.
Well if the GOP “Leadership” in Loudoun is any indication of the Party’s future, we’re doomed. Can’t you morons find one credible and dependable candidate to run for anything. Thanks to you bozo’s you put in place a delegation to Richmond that voted in favor of the Transportation Monstrosity, virtually to the man (and woman). I don’t want to hear any bitching about higher taxes in NOVA on this blog as you clowns are responsible for the morons who enabled them.
http://www.loudountimes.com/index.php/news/article/house_of_delegates_passes_major_transportation_bill
Looks like one man and one woman voted against.
Gerson’s column in the Post today was excellent. Look it up before you toss it out.
@ T. Doom Pickens
Hypocrisy is probably the political cardinal sin. I think that one of the reasons Clinton, Ted Kennedy et al are not considered to be hypocrites is because they never claimed to be upholding any family values. Everyone knew that Clinton and Kennedy were philanderers. On the other hand, those that uphold healthy marriage and family values are going to be held to a higher standard (and they should be)
Similarly, if a notoriously anti-gay marriage politician is caught in a gay affair (and the GOP has had a few of those), it is much worse than if a pro-gay marriage politician were outed because of the blatant hypocrisy.
So when somebody like Al Gore or The Messiah lectures about planetary husbandry while living a lifestyle with fifty or a thousand times times the carbon footprint of you or I it is perfectly acceptable. When a Treasury Secretary nominee cheats on his taxes or, as with the current nominee, is found to have Cayman bank accounts, that’s fine as long as his name isn’t Romney.
@ T. Doom
What you say above are good points, but we are talking about the GOP here and Liberals don’t seem willing to run their politicians out on a rail for hypocrisy the way we will. I don’t think that we should start looking the other way in the manner Liberals do for their favored politicians. Besides, I’m not sure they see Al Gore’s fabulous lifestyle as hypocrisy since they seem to think that there should be one set of rules for ruling class and another set for the rest of us…
A $100 TAX on hybrids? No hypocrisy there GOP.
There is definitely hypocrisy.
hybrids and alternate energy cars use the roads and other highway infrastructure. No reason they should not be taxed for that.
“Use” should be they way we tax roads. And we can define “use” using several factors — mileage on the road, weight of machine…
Hybrids actually might use the roads more due to their range so, I see the logic in that “use” argument. There are probably other ways the hybrids reduce costs on other forms of “infrastructure”.
Why should hybrids be tax extra for their particular road usage?
They shouldn’t be taxed “extra”, but, as long as a gas tax is used as all or part of the funding mechanism, their gasoline efficiency has the effect of allowing them to avoid that funding contribution. This is particularly true of the all-electrics. They’re still using the roads.
There are a lot of warts on what finally went through the GA, and it is something of an anomaly that, contrary to the Governor’s proposal, we are left with a percentage tax on gasoline (albeit at rather low levels). I’m not sure how it all plays out, but I am convinced that doing nothing this session was not a responsible option for the Commonwealth’s leadership.
Since there’s only a snowball’s chance in hell that VA will be able to tax on-line shopping, the wholesale gas tax will go to 5.1% on January 1, 2015. So, at least at current gas prices, the direct tax on gas will be about a wash, maybe a penny or two more than the 17.5 cents currently taxed at a flat per-gallon rate.
So, the new taxes – the statewide sales tax, the regional sales tax in NoVA and Tidewater, the increase in the new car titleing fee (which is just a sales tax) and the other fees are all new revenue.
I would have been happier if they had done the easiest tax increase they could: keep the current 17.5 cents flat per-gallon tax, and then levy the full 5% state sales tax on wholesale (or retail) gas sales. That would roughly double the current gas tax, and keep the tax increases on the users of gasoline.
Doing the wrong thing is worse than doing nothing.
What we will end up having is a whole new area of “use” taxation thanks to technology. Hybrids will be required to have GPS, occupant seat detectors and log all transportation, then the “use” will be determined by where you and your passengers went and by what route… state highways, you’re taxed by the state, Interstates, the Feds, etc., and now they can crank out a whole new bunch of deductions and exemptions… no tax if you go to the hospital, doctor’s office or supermarket, normal tax for commuting, general recreation and consumer activity, and treble taxes if you go to an expensive restaurant, the country club, airport or marina.
As The Messiah says, “Extreme technology in the pursuit of redistribution is no vice.”
LA; That may be a truism, but it is a little fragile if doing nothing is the “wrong thing”. I think that is where we were in Virginia on transportation funding. I understand the criticisms from various sources that there may have been better ways of providing for transportation infrastructure funding. In theory, the points are interesting and meritorious (e.g., raising the gas tax, indexing it for inflation, going to a mileage tax etc.). But the Governor’s original proposal appears to have represented a fairly shrewd assessment of what was politically achievable (I don’t think anyone thinks that the GA would have signed on to an increase in the gasoline tax). Of course, the Governor’s proposal encountered the meat grinder of the legislative process and didn’t come out the way it went in. But something happened, and it is not at all clear to a lot of us that doing nothing at all was far preferable.
There was a time when being a conservative Republican meant commitment to fiscal discipline in governance. Fiscal discipline means, among other things, expecting to pay for what you acquire. I have no idea why being a conservative Republican has to mean that one never raises revenues to meet requirements. It does mean, however, that you have a flinty, sharp-penciled approach as to what you decide to spend the People’s money on in the first place.
The items should not be acquired by government. With transportation, private money should have dominated. If you respond, please do so in the new thread LI put up.