{"id":6494,"date":"2012-08-31T08:32:23","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T12:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=6494"},"modified":"2012-08-31T08:38:34","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T12:38:34","slug":"100-day-sprint-8-reflections-on-tampa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2012\/08\/31\/100-day-sprint-8-reflections-on-tampa\/","title":{"rendered":"100 Day Sprint: 8 Reflections on Tampa"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So the Republican National Convention is over — I’m sure all of you followed the coverage closely on NCPR’s airwaves.\u00a0 Here are my eight takeaways, before I head out camping for a few days and leave politics behind.<\/p>\n

Four Positives<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 The message of America as a fundamentally entrepreneurial society, a place where progress happens because individuals hustle to make a buck and build stuff, is a powerful one and it came through loud and clear this week.\u00a0 Even when all the fact-checkers have done their work, and the footnotes have been applied, Republicans make a strong claim to the idea that this is still the core mission of their party:\u00a0 freeing up individuals to succeed (or fail) economically.\u00a0 Like all great political rallying cries, it’s simple and straightforward and, for a lot of Americans, intensely desirable.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 The Republican Party as an institution is far more diverse than the Republican Party’s base.\u00a0 This is a weird reality of modern political life in America.\u00a0 The GOP is increasingly a movement defined by white, rural folks who want and believe things that are often out of step with the broader cross-section of the US.\u00a0 But the top elected officials, and name brand politicians — and I’m not just talking Marco Rubio and Condie Rice — come from diverse, complex, cosmopolitan backgrounds.\u00a0 I think that chemistry bodes well for the future of the conservative movement.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 The polls look better and better for Mitt Romney.\u00a0 As the week progressed, we saw numbers from more battleground states suggesting a tie.\u00a0 And in a presidential race, when the incumbent is in a tie, he’s generally in trouble.\u00a0 Romney emerges from the convention with a ton of cash, with a unified base, and with a much broader path to victory than he had just a week ago.\u00a0 Whatever other quibbles emerge (see below), the convention helped position Romney for an upset victory, something I would have said was very, very unlikely mid-summer.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 I think Mitt Romney’s speech honed in on a real weakness in Obama’s re-election message.\u00a0 Four years ago, when the economy was imploding, Obama pushed some big ideas that weren’t directly linked to the idea of getting people back to work.\u00a0 Too many of the things Obama fought for haven’t even kicked in yet.\u00a0 In an election where it’s all about jobs-jobs-jobs, Romney focused instead on nuts-and-bolts stuff.\u00a0 Whether or not you think his ideas are the right ones, his focus is politically astute.\u00a0 It feels grounded and, to borrow a phrase that Romney would probably embrace, business-like.<\/p>\n

Now four negatives.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Far, far too much of the Republican message is based on big, whopperish, and meaningful lies.\u00a0 I’m not talking about the little, fudgy stuff that all politicians indulge in.\u00a0 I’m talking about broad strokes, fundamental things that leave you wondering if these guys even bothered to connect the dots themselves.\u00a0 When Paul Ryan is suddenly campaigning as a defender of Medicare entitlements, as someone who thinks the government should have saved even more automobile factories, and as someone who supported the bipartisan debt reduction plan (which he helped scuttle), it doesn’t just border on the Orwellian.\u00a0 It is Orwellian.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Far, far too many of the GOP’s attacks on Barack Obama are based on (sorry for the echo) big, whopperish, and meaningful lies.\u00a0 If Obama’s record is so bad, make the case using facts and real stories.\u00a0 Don’t cynically edit video tape to suggest that the president said something that he just didn’t say.\u00a0 Don’t invent lies about the work requirements in Federal welfare programs.\u00a0 Don’t pretend that the stimulus was gobbled up by fraud.\u00a0 If the guy in the White House is really a threat to the Republic, surely you can tell that story right up the middle, with a minimum fudging.\u00a0 The fact that Team Romney hasn’t gone that route, the fact that they’ve been caught again and again telling fibs, will give a lot of voters pause, especially moderate women who could decide the election.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Republicans still don’t quite know how to talk about the fact that we live in a big, complicated society where government is integral to just about everything we do — yes, including starting and running businesses.\u00a0 I cover business a lot.\u00a0 And I can tell you on a simple, factual basis that there is almost no significant economic activity in America today, from Wall Street to farms to the new biotech companies that just moved to Saranac Lake, that doesn’t involve government at some level.\u00a0 (In the case of Midwestern agribusiness, government is hardwired into industry.)\u00a0 If the GOP wants to change all that, they need to explain how the change will work.\u00a0 How do we compete with the Chinese (and the Germans and the Canadians) whose companies are boosted regularly by government investment and infrastructure?\u00a0 The “I built that” message works politically and emotionally (see #1 above) but it hasn’t been accurate in America at least since government subsidies built the Trans-continental Railroad and the big dam projects in the West.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Republicans are still trying to win by making nervous, angry white people more nervous and more angry.\u00a0 A lot of the GOP’s leaders know that the “real America” no longer looks like the America that their white, rural Christian base prefers, and never will again (See #2 above).\u00a0 And they know that the vast majority of new Americans, and people of color, are incredibly industrious, driven and responsible.\u00a0 They are exactly the kind of people who will build the next America.\u00a0 But in this election cycle, the GOP has doubled down on the message that “entitlement people” and people without proper birth certificates (closeted Muslims, most likely) are in cahoots with shiftless government bureaucrats. \u00a0 The goal (apparently) is to steal from decent, entrepreneurial white Americans in the heartland so that lazy bums in places like Chicago and LA can lie around on couches watching TV.\u00a0 This message — and the effort to stifle voting in black and Hispanic neighborhoods — may win Republicans an election in 2012, but it’s bad for the country and bad for the future of the party.<\/p>\n

So there are my thoughts.\u00a0 Still a lot to chew on.\u00a0 Social issues?\u00a0 Clint Eastwood?\u00a0 Comments welcome below.<\/p>\n

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