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Winning elections is serious business. Liberals understand that

Perfect Candidate excuse will cost GOP Elections in 2014


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By —— Bio and Archives November 27, 2013

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Of all the ways Republicans in the U.S.A. could still fumble their promising 2014 Congressional elections, one is the error of “the Ballistics Theory of Political Candidates” or the “Perfect Candidate Excuse.”
Missing opportunities to master the techniques and science of winning elections, Republicans are instead searching for the perfect candidate. But that is only an excuse for avoiding the hard, real work of running effective election campaigns and studying how to become effective in running campaigns. In the United States, liberals are busy sharpening their skills at selling inferior candidates with unpopular platforms and failed policies to gullible voters. Republicans are ignoring how to win while they beat each other over the heads with their campaign yard signs. Billionaire currency-trader George Soros is investing an additional $2.5 million in a plan to help Democrats win the 2014 elections despite a Republican political tide, reports the Tea Party Tribune. Soros is funding an expanded, updated data-mining effort of voters. This will help manipulate low information voters through Democrats’ massive, sophisticated Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts. It is an update to the systems Obama used to clean the GOP’s clock in 2008 and 2012.
Rich liberals will invest many millions more soon in Democrat campaign structures and techniques. The wizardry available and the long-term investment required has been a topic preached by a friend of mine since the 1980’s. It was originally invented by conservatives, but ignored by Republicans. Liberals have been building up these techniques and databases since MoveOn.org in the Clinton Administration. Republicans have been asleep. And here is the reason: On all sides, the GOP is dominated by the assumption that the outcome of an election is determined by the candidate. Nominate X and we automatically win. Nominate Y and we automatically lose. Mitt Romney was guaranteed to beat Obama. John McCain was going to win. It’s all about the candidate. Therefore, Republicans don’t truly believe there is much to study or master about campaign techniques and tactics. Liberals are becoming masters at techniques that Republicans don’t think are important. The theory is that a campaign will follow a ballistic trajectory from the start to the finish, flying like a cannonball until it hits the ground. “Ballistic” means that once an artillery shell leaves a gun everything about its path is 100% pre-determined. It does not change direction or not have any engine. Instead, the correct metaphor is a foot race, where every time the runner’s foot hits the ground, every step matters. Every thrust of the foot and leg, whether the runner twists the thrust this way or that, how the runner paces herself, breathes methodically, how the runner pushes through when she wants to quit and everything in her body screams enough – all of these things determine the outcome of the race. And if the runner stumbles, whether and how she gets back up again makes a difference. A candidate “runs” for office. A candidate is not tossed with a catapult in the direction of election day. Democrats are developing GOTV systems fit for the 22nd Century. Republicans and the tea party are using systems fit for the 1700’s. Obama won in 2008 partly because rich liberals made long-term investments over a decade through non-profit organizations. Their money with a long-term time horizon developed liberal donor lists, activist lists, and databases. The Obama campaign could then rent those lists as a huge, ready-made advantage. The technical core of Obama’s campaign was already built years earlier by rich donors. Morton Blackwell has been training conservatives on how to win elections since 1979. His Leadership Institute is the leading training organization. Yet most Republicans have never heard of it. We have a long way to go if most Republicans don’t even know where to go to get trained. (Alternatives include American Majority, designed by a former Leadership Institute Vice President, and CampaignHQ.) Now, some tea party leaders in Virginia are developing a plan to “require” (insist) that every candidate and campaign leaders must complete training on campaign techniques – and very early. They cannot force candidates to get trained. But they can clearly signal what conservatives expect before a candidate will be eligible to be considered for an endorsement or other support. I have two words for those who rave about the quality of a candidate: “Al Franken.” ‘Splain to us how a Saturday Night Live comedian best known for playing bumbling “Stuart Smalley” is a sitting U.S. Senator. The search for a perfect candidate is a guarantee of failure because God is not running for office and robots are not eligible. Human beings are the best we’ve got. There are no perfect candidates. There never have been, never will be. Sadly, I keep having to emphasize that of course better candidates are better and worse candidates are worse. Those with Ballistics Theory fever insist that every attempt to cure them is really a plot to slip through lower-quality candidates. Winning elections is serious business. Liberals understand that. The “we need a better candidate” cry is really a way to avoid hard work and long-term planning. If we had the perfect candidate we could just sit back and watch him or her clobber our opponents for us. A perfect candidate – like an idealized William Wallace seven feet tall -- would do it all for us. More than anyone, Republicans should believe (no really believe) that there is no free lunch.



Jonathon Moseley -- Bio and Archives | Comments

Jonathon Moseley is co-founder and Legal Counsel of Americans for the Trump Agenda, and Executive Director of the White House Defense Fund.  Moseley is serving as Legal Counsel for Americans for the Trump Agenda, and is also a Virginia business and criminal defense attorney. Moseley and a co-host with the “Conservative Commandos” radio show,  and an active member of the Northern Virginia Tea Party.  He studied Physics at Hampshire College, Finance at the University of Florida and law at George Mason University in Virginia. Moseley promoted Reagan’s policies at High Frontier and the Center for Peace in Freedom. He worked at the U.S. Department of Education, including at the Center for Choice in Education.


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