Shocker : The Baltimore Sun is down on the GOP

(Crossposted at Conservative Refuge)

One wonders how many interns got crushed in the editorial stampede for The Baltimore Sun to print its opinion piece “Can GOP bounce back?” (no that’s not a typo the GOP is unworthy of an article in the Sun)

Don’t let the title fool you. The author, self-hating Republican pollster Frank Luntz, paints a pretty dim view of future Republican chances. Ahh, the media loves nothing more than “Republicans” validating their view that the GOP is a gang of washed up losers who can do nothing right.

For the true believers reading this tripe, however, there is great solace in the fact Luntz’s diagnosis is as flawed as his prognosis.

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Click below to read below the fold.

He begins by cherry picking some meaningless, generic poll numbers and then points out the obvious that the President’s poll numbers are low to make his point. It takes a few paragraphs before he acknowledges that the approval of the Democratic Congress is lower. (He dismisses this as one piece of good news is sea of bad.)

Not to worry, though, Good ol’ Frank has the answer. Like all self-important political consultants whose ideological loyalty is as strong as the size of their next payment, his remedy for the Republican party is simple: Stop being so Republican!

His course of treatment is a “forward-looking agenda, unparalleled message discipline, a strict focus on the tens of millions of independent voters, an innnovative candidate and campaign and a lot of luck.” You have to love consultants but let’s break that down a bit.

Luntz claims that “the success of the Republican Party since 1980 was to eschew definition or brand.” In one sentence, Luntz has revised the history of the conservative movement over the last three decades as non-ideological. Correct me if I am wrong, but a commitment to lower taxes, strong national defense, traditional values and pro-growth economic policies sounds a hell of a lot like a definition and brand. It is also the description of the stated beliefs of the Republican Party since 1980.

Even more absurd, Luntz suggests that the GOP develop a “forward-looking agenda” even though since 1980 “whatever hopes, dreams and aspirations people saw in themselves were seen in the Republican Party.” How exactly did that happen without an agenda, a definition or a brand?

These are just a couple of the astounding idiocies in this piece. I will let you, gentle reader, have a field day with the rest.

What Luntz ignores in his independent-loving, Reagan-denying pulp fiction is that the setbacks of our party have been the result of discontent within our party. It is not that we don’t have a “forward-looking agenda” or a brand or definition its that we have leaders who have alternatively, ignored, denied or violated it. Lump in some scandal and a long and difficult war and you still have to be amazed that it will only take a 15-20 seat swing in the House of Representatives and 2 seats in the Senate to swing it back to Republican Control.

Whatever people think about President Bush, he ain’t on the ballot in 2008. The barely more popular than pedophiles Democractic Congress will be.

We do not have to deny our success. We do not have to redefine ourselves. We do not have to change what we believe to court independent voters who choose to consider themselves above partisan identity.

We need to be true to our conservative beliefs, a well sold and markatable brand and recruit candidates that convince Republicans who want to be convinced that they really mean it this time.

While The Baltimore Sun may fall all over itself to print the views of a RINO consultant that our best days are behind us, it does not make it so.

Hang in there, we will get there.



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