The Romney campaign has started a Twitter rapid response user account @RomneyResponse and associated Tumblr site.
Given how Twitter can move an issue in minutes, Team Romney is smart to get more active.
John Nolte at Breitbart.com has some good advice, much of which centers upon hunting the pro-Obama mainstream media:
1. The over-arching goal of @RomneyResponse (RR) should be to mobilize the armies of New Media and Social Media. Through Facebook, Twitter and blogs, there are literally millions of Republicans eager and ready to go to battle with the corrupt media. RR needs to (quickly) earn its place as a leader in this army by offering material, guidance, ideas, truth, and a fearless fighting spirit (a sense of humor wouldn’t hurt, either).
2. Whoever staffs RR needs to understand how media works, get up around four a.m. to read and watch those in the corrupt media who set the day’s narratives, and identify what those narratives will be. And…
The first RR Tweets of the day should always be RR’s prediction of that day’s coming narratives.
Doing this will literally alert millions and offer direction as to where that day’s battle with the media will take place….
3. The second Tweets of the day should be RR’s predictions of the news damaging to Obama the corrupt media will cover up….
And again, the sooner your army is aware of this, the sooner you can mobilize them to push the truth out through a new/social media counter-narrative.
4. Name names. In a good-natured, professional, but aggressive way, RR should directly and publicly challenge media outlets and “journalists” who get their facts wrong and cover up bad news for Obama. Let them know you know and let them know you are letting the world know by challenging them openly….
5. Reward your army with links and retweets. Once you flood the zone with your predicted narratives, cover ups, and challenges for the day, throw some love to those online who help you get the truth out. This can start a snowball effect that spreads the truth far and wide.
The overall thrust of Nolte’s advice is on target. As he notes, the mainstream media is beyond repair:
And if the media screaming taunts and heckling Romney on sacred ground in Poland doesn’t convince you of that, nothing will.
Become the hunter, stop being the hunted. The hunted only can lose.
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This strategy 1,000%
John Nolte of Breitbart offers some excellent tactical advice on how to use social media to counter the misinformation promulgated by the mainstream enemedia.
For instance, one can imagine how useful that advice would have been … and the counterweight it would have presented … to the media’s false meme that Romney’s recent trip abroad was gaffe filled and a dismal failure when, in truth, it was anything but.
Bravo Mr. Nolte! Hope the Romney people take this excellent advice. The media is the enemy.
I also hope the Romney people took notice of the millions who supported Chickfila on August 1. That’s just one part of their Army of David’s who are ready and willing to be the hunters.
Should note that Army of David’s refer to Glenn Reynold’s book: An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths. It’s a phrase that Reynold’s (Instapundit) uses often.
I’m afraid I can’t share your optimism. And John Nolte lives in a separate universe from Mitt Romney. Romney will likely win, but it will only be because Obama will lose. As a side note, Romney’s non-response at a press conference yesterday over the issues around the Chick fil event, i.e., that they were “not part of his campaign,” was one of the most astounding shows of cowardice and lost oppportunity I’ve ever seen in American politics.
Any candidate is a fool and will lose an election if they allow themselves personally to be drug into every dog fight distraction. These fights are the job of the army that Nolte refers to.
Yes, I’ve heard this response many times. It doesn’t work for me. Of all the things Romney could have said (“I’m not running for moral czar of America”; “the American people do not need or want a candidate’s opinion on every social issue” — all inadequate in my opinion but reflective of a political resistance to being “drug into a dog fight distraction”), he chose to say “these issues are not part of my campaign.” Really? The emergence of naked fascism by four mayors of the largest cities in America to use the power of government to prosecute a State religion and persecute a Christian businessman is not part of his campaign? What other parts of the American fabric of life are not part of his campaign? Furthermore, from the point of view of sheer political opportunity — an outpouring of citizenry recognized and supported the core issue of free speech, maybe the essence of the American precedent and experience, at stake here, and Romney couldn’t find a way to echo and solidify this extraordinary popular expression?
I really don’t believe I’ve ever heard more deflating words from a Republican. “Those issues are not part of my campaign.” But it is also truth in advertising. This is what you will be getting with Mitt Romney. The gyros are set on fear and calculation with this man. Even George Bush had more conservative sand and spontaneity this guy.
He’s imitating what he thinks a conservative would say.
I missed the part where it is necessary for the President of the United States, or any candidate seeking that office, to interject into a flap over a fast food restaurant.
That’s the point. Is it just “a flap over a fast food restaurant”?
Right. In the words of a wise and famous philosopher, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
That “philosopher” was not wise at all, just tactically shrewd for his time. The “economy” is merely a symptom of the problem, an appendage of our public lives in which the disease — a pathological ideology at work corrupting and disabling freedom — is most obvious and painful. But at this point in our decline, to say it is “the economy, stupid” represents even a kind of obstacle to our hopes of restoration. I no longer expect Romney to understand the nature of the Left (I should, but I gave up), but I do expect him to recognioze and be able to apprehend the ugly rise of fascism and its clear and present dangers to free speech.
These events woke me up to the importance of the downstream ballot. It’s obvious Romney won’t be in the foxhole with us in any important fight. He will be a manager and tinkerer of slower decline. Maybe he’ll trim back some regulations, maybe he’ll scrap Obamacare, but in reality what he really wants to do is make deals with the Left and prove what a modern and progressive Republican he is. The fight will be in our hands.
The fight will be in our hands.
But, Raven, it always has been.
The “wise” part was meant to be sarcastic. Although Carville was a smart tactician, he is not a wise philosopher.
It is true that the economy is symptomatic of deeper problems, but for a political campaign, it is a key issue because everyone understands it. A nuanced discussion of the underlying economic issues would put the average voter to sleep.
No. It’s the Constitution, stupid. That’s what Obama has been shredding and the economy is secondary to that. That’s what the homosexual anti-Christian bigots have been stealthily ripping apart. If you have a great economy and the moral and legal foundation of your country is eviscerated, you have nothing to defend your liberties. Forget the Democrat blowhards. It is not the economy. I is the Constitution and that’s what the CFA fight is about. It is as Robert Bolt had Sir Thomas More say in A Man For All Season: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned around on you–where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast–man’s laws, not God’s–and if you cut them down…d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”
So now standing up for constitutional rights is a dog fight in which politicians need not engage? That’s why I still stand with Palin and haven’t even begun to think about voting for Romney, cannot write a word in support of him, and told his campaign don’t sent me any kind of literature because Romney disdains Conservatives like me and the Constitution we hold to.
So, you’ll be voting for Obama? Staying home on election day? Neither of those steps will help anything.
Romney is not my ideal candidate either, but I can’t remember any time in my long life that an ideal candidate was on the ballot. I thought Reagan was too liberal.
Though I am disdainful of Romney, I cherish my rights as a citizen and always exercise my right and responsibility to vote. Since I became a citizen, I’ve never voted for a Democrat and never will, and despise Obama more than Romney. Nevertheless, I must have that conversation with myself about why I should pull the ever for Romney when I see him as not so different from Obama, in some respects.
What would you have Romney do?
Go before the camera’s and issue the following statement:
“On my first day in office, I will sign an Executive Order stating that owners of businesses, big and small, have a right to believe in the Bible”?
Or-
“On my first day in office, I will sign an Executive Order stating that “liberal mayors should no longer say stupid things that appeal to their liberal base”?
I just don’t get how this whole this rises to the level of Presidential intervention. I think the citizenry handled it pretty well on it’s own.
It’s called the Bully Pulpit.
Denouncing the fascist actions (not just words) of these big city mayors is the right thing to do. Even the ACLU says what they did is wrong.
Nobody has to defend Dan Cathy’s words. Nobody has to defend Big Chicken. It’s just a matter of defending the First Amendment and opposing social fascism.
Why do folks disagree with this when it is so obviously true? Romney is not going to take Nolte’s advice because he only has th balls to stick it to Conservatives and others in the GOPe. He could’ve addressed the Chick Fil A issue from a free speech perspective, but he would have to be acquainted with the Constitution and be willing to defend it to do that. Romney’s response showed he ducked when he should have stood tall for the liberties enshrined and protected by the Constitution. As George Will said, conservatism is a second language for Romney. His first language is big government liberalism, which is very close to Obama’s Communism.
I guess my slant on this differs from others here.
Mittens has a fine needle to thread here. The LDS people were on the pointy end of the spear in Kulhifornia’s Prop 8 firestorm, and many of them ate the consequences of their strong position against gay “marriage”.
The nastier elements of the gay militates remember all this.
The Chick-fil-A thing is being carried very nicely by the rank and file. It has even garned support from the likes of Nanny Bloomers.
Romney does not need to stir that pot, throw his oar in the water, or whatever cliche you favor.
As I survey the scene at the moment, things are going quite well.
Remember: Obama made it worse. Whatever it is, he made it worse.
Mittens is doing better than I would have predicted a short time ago.
His foreign jag was powerfully successful by any objective standard, despite media stylings to the contrary, and it WILL produce good stuff for our sound-bite culture in the future.
But the Prof’s counsel is sound…you don’t win by playing defense alone. Rush says this regularly.
On the other hand, the Obami and Deemocrats are so busily shooting themselves, it seems a shame to distract them.
It is the Mushroom Media and their Moonbattery shock troops that have to be countered. Hence, Nolte’s advice that you rise in the pre-dawn darkness, “…when the forces of evil are at most potent”.
Heh!
Just don’t turn it into ATTACK WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATCH!!!!
Journalism Insurrection?
That’s Breitbart.
I have often said that James Carville and his cohorts ran the best political war/response room ever. I hated them at the time, mostly because they were so effective.
Anyhow, what Nolte is suggesting seems to be an updated version of the Carville war room. If done correctly, it could be very effective.
The Carville war room legacy still drives American politics even to this day.
That’s (at least in part) the reason Boehner and the republicans in the House always cave to the dems, and not “the tea party” when backed into a corner.
Debt ceiling, spending cuts et al; just the threat of a “government shutdown” has them quaking in their shoes.
Carville lives in their heads rent free…nearly two decades later.
“The republicans caused this government shutdown, and lost the election because of it”…
Sayeth Carville once….etched in stone forever.
That’s why we have to rid ourselves of the spineless cowards in the GOPe who fear the Democrats more than they fear we, the People.
Don’t you think Nolte’s ideas might help combat this situation?
“Anyhow, what Nolte is suggesting seems to be an updated version of the Carville war room.”
Except without the lies.
He didn’t seem to address this, but I don’t like lies either, no matter what. Spin maybe, but no lies. Dems seem to be masters of telling only half of the truth, which I think is the same as a lie.
Boehner & McConnel really need to go
Repeal Boner and McConnell and replace with West and Rubio.
I agree with those who are dismayed at Romney’s response of “not part of his campaign.” I also agree with the observation that he ought not involve himself in “every dog fight distraction.”
What he might have said is something along the lines of there being disagreement in our country and people were “voting” at Chickfila just as they will be in November. Isn’t this what has made out country great!
Good leaders can acknowledge what’s occurring without necessarily becoming involved in the fray, except when it might be of necessity.
More and more I’m looking at this presidential campaign in terms of the “mountain and the mole hill.” For example, Romney did whatever he did at Bain = mole hill. Obama’s experience in terms of finances and the economy = mountain of failure. Romney’s “not part of his campaign” = mole hill. Obama’s continued involvement in any and every event with which he can involve himself to look good = mountain of narcissism. Romney’s singing = mole hill of being off key; at least he is singing “America the Beautiful.” Obama’s same old tune = mountainous lack of pride and respect for what has made this country a great (yes, not perfect) nation.
Against Romney being President of the United States of America = mole hills. Against a re-election of Obama = a mountain range of negatives and failures.
We don’t need Mitt butting into this any more than we needed Obummer butting into the Henry Louis Gates incident or playing the violin over Trayvon Martin. I would hope that Mitt has more sense, and better things to do, than to opine on every headline-grabbing brouhaha. Larger principles were arguably involved in the Gates and Martin events, too, so I think that comparing the three is apt.
Any professional politician ought to know how to field a question about an event like Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, score the proper point, and then turn his answer back to his primary message:
Reporter: “Governor Romney, what’s your position on the Chick-fil-A Day events?”
Romney: “I think it’s important to recognize that most of these wonderful people who chose to come out in support of Chick-fil-A did so out of their respect and great concern for our First Amendment rights, and believe as I do that no elected official – from either side of the aisle – ought to impose some ideological litmus test that citizens or businesses must pass in order to enjoy their God-given rights, as outlined in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. And isn’t it just this practice of placing political ideology above individual rights that has contributed so much to the economic decline our country has suffered under the hapless leadership of……”
… and he could go on from there with his primary message of Obama’s horrific economic record. Who would object to the standard, pro-Constitution boilerplate in the first half of this example answer?
It worries the crap out of me that apparently the Romney team objects to it.
Yes, Mitt doesn’t need to enter into every controversy. Perhaps, in itself, “not part of his campaign” is not what’s generated concern, but what it seems to reflect, a certain passiveness on his part.
Obviously, I can only speak for myself. I think Romney can ill-afford what amounts to a “no comment” statement. He either defines himself, or Obama and team, Clinton, Reid, etc will define him for the American public.
Perhaps, from the convention forward, they have planned a blanket or saturation campaign. Whatever it might be, it’s difficult for supporters to generate enthusiasm based upon unknowns.
Perhaps a clumsy analogy, but when I was a boxer in my youth my first trainer told me, upon seeing me flinch while sparring with our best fighter, that if you don’t want to get hit, don’t get in the ring. Another boxing analogy states that you can’t rely on outpointing the champion (incumbent), that you’d better knock him out if you can.
At some point, Romney has to engage with a little vigor. This was an issue where he could have easily scored a few points at little risk to himself. This is not a local affair – incumbent libs across the country have begun to set up a system where your rights depend on their judgments of your ideology. Fail in their judgment and you don’t get your rights. Pure, unadulterated despotism, up front and in your face, not in some hidden back room.
That’s too small, too local of an issue for a presidential candidate? I don’t think so.
Is it not interesting that —
– when a Daily Caller ‘reporter’ heckled Obama during a Rose Garden speech, every news outlet identified the reporter by name and by affiliation.
– when a reporter tries to heckle Romney in Poland (about ‘gaffes’), the reporter’s name and affiliation are missing from the reports.
Did I miss something?
[…] Legal Insurrection […]
Romney’s done exactly the right thing here. One issue and one issue only is his key to this election. However much it may feel good and right to sally forth into the latest episode of moral politics, this will be framed as identity politics by the Left. They own that. Not only would it divert energy away from Romney’s political strength, it diverts it to an area of Lefty strength. This is a CAMPAIGN. We need to keep our powder dry.
I think if you respond with humor, not too seriously, to the outside the normal bounds of debate stuff, its a winner.
For example, maybe the perfect response to Harry Reid’s nonsense is not to just laugh it off, but have some surrogate to Romney offer to bet Harry Reid $100,000 to put his money where his mouth is (you can’t have Romney do it).
When Reid doesn’t take the bait, #ChickenReid becomes a hashtag for a week.
That is what Breitbart would do, methinks … he was always putting up the money 😉
[…] the meantime, let’s show @RomneyResponse how independent conservatives can out-Alinksy our deluded opponents. MUT’s featured Hashtag […]
[…] In Charge Posted on August 5, 2012 1:30 pm by Bill Quick » Will @RomneyResponse become the hunter? – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion John Nolte at Breitbart.com has some good advice, much of which centers upon hunting the pro-Obama […]