The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Jay Cost, At Least, Agrees With Me

Posted on | August 8, 2014 | 26 Comments

by Smitty

Emphasis mine:

What, then, is the best response for the GOP? It is simply this: The party must wrap itself unabashedly in the garb of reform. If Hillary Clinton offers herself as the wise and learned hand who will rely upon her decades of experience to guide the ship of state, Republicans have to argue that her experience is exactly what the country doesn’t need at this moment. They need to convince the public that, by being in Washington for the last quarter-century, she is too committed to a broken status quo that is in desperate need of change. The party then needs to lay out a credible and salable agenda for that change.

This should sound familiar, for it is how Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in 2008. A message of reform resonated six years ago, and it could very well resonate again (so long as it is carried by somebody other than Obama!). Now as then, the country is tired and frustrated with the status quo. The people appear to want a change in course.

The GOP will have two years to preview that reform agenda. The Republicans should saturate the media with news of Benghazi, the IRS, and ObamaCare between Labor Day and Election Day.

Make the election a pre-impeachment vote. Tell the voters: “Look, if you want to throw #OccupyResoluteDesk under the bus, you know how to vote.” If there isn’t a sizable GOP wave election, then such an undertaking is a dead letter.

Irrespective of that question, the GOP should be (a) confessing that Progressivism has run its course, (b) articulating how it intends to rebuild public confidence in our soiled institutions, and (c) charting the domestic/foreign aspects of what a new course would look like.

tl;dr: we’re baked. There is no way under the sun that the party of ancient warhorses like Roberts, Cochran, and J.S. McCain is going to re-orient their collective iron lung in any new direction. My hope is in the Convention of States.

via HotAir headlines.

Comments

26 Responses to “Jay Cost, At Least, Agrees With Me”

  1. Jay Cost, At Least, Agrees With Me | That Mr. G Guy's Blog
    August 8th, 2014 @ 6:45 pm

    […] Jay Cost, At Least, Agrees With Me. […]

  2. Mike G.
    August 8th, 2014 @ 6:55 pm

    The GOPe keeps propping up the old warhorses like Cochrane, McCain and McConnell. Until they put these tired old nags out to pasture, the GOPe will keep slowly sliding under.

    We just don’t have enough Ted Cruz’s,Trey Gowdys and Mike Lees to make a difference right now.

  3. Finrod Felagund
    August 8th, 2014 @ 7:14 pm

    They ignored us.
    They laughed at us.
    They’ve been fighting us, recently.
    Soon we’ll be winning.

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    August 8th, 2014 @ 7:16 pm

    The GOP’s failure is not being the party of ideas. Okay we are against ObamaCare (except of course when it isn’t so against ObamaCare), what does the GOP stand for?

    If it goes on 1) lower taxes, 2) less regulation of small businesses and homeowners, 3) more personal freedom (keep the feds out of it, let the states handle issues like marijuana, marriage, etc.), 4) less micromanagement of people’s lives through evil souless bureaucracies like the IRS and EPA, 5) more government fiscal accountability…do you think a majority of people would agree with that?

    If the GOP won’t do it, then the Tea Party has to do it.

  5. If the GOP won’t say what it stands for, then the Tea Party has to do it… | Batshit Crazy News
    August 8th, 2014 @ 7:21 pm

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  6. Coulter76
    August 8th, 2014 @ 8:19 pm

    The GOP needs a new coalition, the only figure out there I see that can reboot the Party is someone like Rand Paul.

    Conservatives also need to figure out a way to fight the “War on Women” nonsense, I really think that had a lot to do with Republicans losing in 2012.

    We had some incredibly bad candidates saying some really stupid things. The SoCon nonsense needs to to be stamped out, that stuff doesn’t even play in the Bible Belt anymore.

  7. Mike G.
    August 8th, 2014 @ 8:50 pm

    Social conservatism still plays in the Bible Belt, but it isn’t the most important issue at this time. It’s down the list of issues right now in lieu of the unrest at our southern border, the health care debacle and bureaucratic overreach by the Obama administration.

  8. Dave Mears
    August 8th, 2014 @ 9:16 pm

    “The party then needs to lay out a credible and salable agenda for that change.”

    Obama offered a salable agenda, in the sense that it was so much marketing that people forgot they were comparing products, but not a credible one. It was all adjectives and abstract nouns. No one actually had any idea what they were getting, except that it was different than what they had before. They could have had a pound of beef and had it replaced with a small bag of turnips, and they couldn’t complain. Republicans are somewhat more distinguishing shoppers than that, so we can’t get away with what would work for a Democrat. We’d need the credible bit, and right now it’s rather lacking in the platform. I don’t have an especially large expectation they’ll manage to offer anything except “not Obama” in the next two years, which isn’t enough.

  9. Coulter76
    August 8th, 2014 @ 9:29 pm

    The type of Social Conservatism I’m referring to is the “rape baby” nonsense with candidates like Akin and Mourdoch (both lost easy layup in their respective conservative states) or Santorum taking up the issue of birth control among married couples.

    I’m not saying the GOP has to become pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, but the extreme SoCons need to be shown the door.

    That type of nonsense has no place in politics, and it unfortunately taints the entire Party.

    An example, I saw countless ads misrepresenting candidates’ pro-life position as the extreme fringe with “no exceptions, even in cases of rape”

    Our Social Conservatism needs to be mainstream, otherwise voters will run into the arms of Democrats.

  10. Beeblebrocs
    August 8th, 2014 @ 9:52 pm

    Read http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/libertarian_folly_why_everybody_is_a_socialissues_voter.html

    Social conservatism IS mainstream. Meanwhile, Rand Paul is looking more kookish all the time.

    Akin was not a TEA candidate and Mourdoch never said anything as stupid as Cochran, Alexander, and McConnel have said.

    Without social conservatism, there is precisely ZERO chance to ever elect a conservative in this country to high office again.

  11. TroubleAtTheMine
    August 9th, 2014 @ 5:47 am

    I couldn’t disagree more. Social conservatism is the heart of the the right wing. If you convince conservatives to keep their mouths shut and go along on things like abortion and gay marriage, you might as well fold up and go out of business. And the left knows it, that is why they try to nudge us along, making one little concession after another.

    We don’t need to get more centrist, we need to get more conservative!
    You sound very much like a concern troll to me. I’m not saying you are one, but if you aren’t, you might want to listen to yourself. Because you really sound like one.

  12. NeoWayland
    August 9th, 2014 @ 8:26 am

    The GOP is never going to reform.

    It’s only hope is that there is a candidate who can drag the leadership along.

    The last time that happened was Reagan.

  13. Squid Hunt
    August 9th, 2014 @ 9:17 am

    At this point, people don’t want smaller government. Progressives have them terrified that corporations are going to load them up on slave flights to dig diamonds for the rest of their lives. Step one is going to be convincing people that government is the problem, not business. That doesn’t sound like a healthy platform for a national political party.

  14. Squid Hunt
    August 9th, 2014 @ 9:18 am

    Yep. For all their screaming and crying, nobody showed up to vote for Mitt “What do you want me to say I believe in?” Romney. They still haven’t learned, though.

  15. Lisa McNatt
    August 9th, 2014 @ 3:17 pm

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  16. Billiam
    August 9th, 2014 @ 4:51 pm

    The ‘Party’ has a bigger problem than an agenda they can sell. The ‘Party’ has NO CREDIBILITY! Why should I vote for lying asshat repubs instead of lying asshat dems? The Republicans have given me no reason what so ever to support them. They are cowards, and, worse yet, sniveling progressive wannabe’s. They won’t stand for the Constitution, or their oath of office, and defend against Obama’s excess. They’re afraid of being called the names their already being called. Gutless cowards get no support from me. The ‘lesser of two evils’ game doesn’t apply here. Republican pols haven’t shown themselves, overall, to be any different than their dem counterparts. In fact, as despicable as the dems are, at least they fight. Repubs? Milquetoasts.

  17. Quartermaster
    August 10th, 2014 @ 9:45 am

    Business has been bending Government to its will for two centuries now, in the US of A. It was doing it when it was smaller, it does it now. It can do far less, however, when it’s smaller.

  18. Quartermaster
    August 10th, 2014 @ 9:47 am

    There would be a lot fewer GOP candidates elected as well. Without the SoCons, the GOP is toast.

  19. Quartermaster
    August 10th, 2014 @ 9:48 am

    Actually, we do need to get more centrist. The problem is the GOPe is left of center.

  20. Quartermaster
    August 10th, 2014 @ 9:48 am

    And they have done all they can do to prevent another Reagan.

  21. Quartermaster
    August 10th, 2014 @ 9:49 am

    You have gravely insulted Milquetoasts and should apologize.

  22. Billiam
    August 10th, 2014 @ 11:17 am

    Darn. I figured it was appropriate. What would you recommend, sir?

  23. NeoWayland
    August 10th, 2014 @ 4:43 pm

    Okay, this is probably the Arizona in me, but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Goldwater had won in 1964.

  24. Quartermaster
    August 10th, 2014 @ 4:55 pm

    I plead utterly clueless. I doubt much would have happened.

  25. NeoWayland
    August 10th, 2014 @ 8:12 pm

    *shrugs*

    I know it’s idle speculation. But I like to think we could have skipped Nixon, Ford, and Carter.

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    August 13th, 2014 @ 12:40 pm

    […] Jay Cost, At Least, Agrees With Me […]