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Killing candidacies in the cradle

Killing candidacies in the cradle

The Democrats are really good at it.

They target Republicans early on for the strategy of crazy which was successful against the Tea party movement, a consistent blogosphere and media attempt to create a deadly public perception of a rising Republican star.

We’ve seen this already in The “crazy-ing” of Marco Rubio, an effort which continues via Lawrence “The Fighter” O’Donnell and others.

I see they’re doing it already to Rand Paul, as reported by Ann Althouse (h/t Instapundit):

“GOP Senator Pushes Gun-Running Conspiracy Theory During Benghazi Hearing.”

That’s the way they put it over at Think Progress. I’ve watched the video. Rand Paul asks a question. It seems histrionic to equate asking a question with pushing a conspiracy theory, and the truth is Hillary Clinton’s answer has the ring of… lying.

The effort on the left to stereotype Rand Paul as a nutcase is so strenuous that it stimulates my root-for-the-underdog instinct. And makes me suspicious. I feel a Rand-Paul-must-be-destroyed conspiracy theory blossoming within.

The goal of Think Progress is that in a year or so Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindal, among others, will have high negatives and be labeled in the public mind as “extremist” crazy people.

We need to counter this effort to kill our candidacies in the cradle, and to focus on doing the same.

Update — I had not seen this prior to posting, who could have predicted Think Progress would write something like this:  Five Reasons Bobby Jindal Is Responsible For Transforming The GOP Into ‘The Stupid Party’

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Comments

matt lewis at daily caller also doing it.

We need to counter this effort to kill our candidacies in the cradle…

Okay, I’ll bite.

How?

    A first step might be to examine the smears as a data set. Common themes would emerge: racist, anti-woman, religious nut, pro-rich, stupid, etc.

    If that first step looks promising, develop generic refutations. The idea is not to hand out talking points on post cards. The idea is to understand the battle space so each response does not have to be developed from scratch, either by the attacked candidate or at the GOP level.

      gs in reply to gs. | January 25, 2013 at 10:25 pm

      After viewing the Caddell speech I linked in the Tip Line, I think we also should start calling out the Left’s divide-and-conquer demagoguery. Not that the party of Mr. 47% is impeccable in that regard.

    Ragspierre in reply to stevewhitemd. | January 25, 2013 at 5:47 pm

    By CRUSHING the BS. With what? FACTS. With appearances showing these people are rational, caring, intelligent people who have FINE ideas that COUNTER the CRAZY of the Collective.

    This is NOT hard…

    2nd Ammendment Mother in reply to stevewhitemd. | January 25, 2013 at 6:12 pm

    As bad as it sounds – and I work with these people and think it sounds bad – but

    1. We need a Conservative organization that is focused on effective PR and Media analysis as GS mentioned above. Their job isn’t to give candidates talking points, but to educate them on what their opponents talking points are, how to counter them through facts, data, etc and how to avoid trapping themselves in a quagmire.

    2. Collecting and organizing profiles on media operations so that candidates know what their biases, pet issues are and what to expect in an interview with them.

    3. Media Training for our candidates, spokespeople and elected folks. It doesn’t matter whether you’re running for Dog Catcher or President, you need to be thoroughly educated on the media machine and how to make it work for your campaign.

    4. Media Training that teachers our candidates how to identify their own strengths and weaknesses and challenges them to consider their thoughts on unexpected topics. Then help them develop their own opinions so they aren’t “crazy”.

    I’ve got more on this, but it’s time to pick up the mail and start dinner.

      2nd Ammendment Mother in reply to 2nd Ammendment Mother. | January 25, 2013 at 6:21 pm

      Forgot to include a heavy duty opposition research arm…. Nothing is wee-weeing me off more than all the fake, false and misleading garbage regarding the 2nd Amendment and Firearms that Biden and his cronies have been getting away with. It has nearly given me an aneurism screaming at the tv. And there is near absolute radio silence calling them on the carpet for their uneducated and “crazy” ideas.

      This is good (seriously). I nominate you to run the RNC’s efforts on this point.

“a consistent blogosphere and media attempt to create a deadly public perception”

This is the key, for as long as the Obamedia is the messenger, it controls the message AND I would hazard a guess that the Free Phoners and their ilk, have the alphabets as their prime source of info.

And yes FOX is an alphabet..but if one does watch/listen, expect to see name, address and phone number, on a map soon..

2nd Ammendment Mother | January 25, 2013 at 4:45 pm

Oh the number of times I’ve tried to pound this concept home. They take our soldiers off the field early and silence not only outstanding voices, but outstanding ideas. We have allowed the Dems to pick our candidate in both 2008 and 2012.

And we’re getting worked over with this tactic by the party with such wonderful tributes to crazy as Charlie Rangel, Anthony Weiner, Alan Grayson and on and on.

They are getting a bit nervous about our guys aren’t they?

It is not a conspiracy when there are reports in Europe and Middle Eastern media. Catherine Herridge at Fox was looking into this as well back in October. She had a lot of detail in the October 25, 2012 report on Was Syrian weapons shipment factor in ambassador’s Benghazi visit?

This link has numerous foreign press links within for anyone to follow:
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-syria-heavy-weapons-jihadists-2012-10

I got the impression that he brought that question up for a reason and this is not the end of it.

I live in Louisiana and would beg all of you not to think much of Jindal. He is a RINO. He does not understand the concept of limited, small government. It is his desire to transform the conservative movement into the Democrat party. He has done very little for our state. His major bills are all hot air and do not have the meaning that you would assume.

    Henry Hawkins in reply to david7134. | January 25, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    Thank you. Our supply of concern troll boilerplate was running low.

      I really don’t know that much about Jindal; however, a Conservative blogger that I read does. He, too, was very critical of Jindal.

        annoyedbeyond in reply to Rosalie. | January 25, 2013 at 9:10 pm

        FWIW I’ve despised Jindal for several years. Limbaugh has actually said he’ll be POTUS someday–it’s one of the few times I argue with the radio.

        I’ve heard similar from an unreliable conservative source. Supposedly Jindal is a jerk to interact with. Supposedly not only does he think he’s the smartest guy in the room (an understandable conceit for a Rhodes Scholar), but he thinks he knows more than anybody in the room about anything.

        I emphasize that the source is unreliable. Had I not seen the other straws in the wind about Jindal, I wouldn’t have posted. Take with a generous helping of salt.

          Henry Hawkins in reply to gs. | January 25, 2013 at 11:47 pm

          My counter to that is that *somebody* has to be the smartest person in any room, so that charge speaks to personality issues and differences rather than intellectual acuity. As for me, I’m looking for a good president, not a date for Saturday night.

          Jindal has pretty good scores on the usual conservative ratings, but one thing in particular that gives me great pause is that he signed into Louisiana law that allows creationism to be taught in LA school science programs (‘intelligent design’ is a sciency-sounding euphemism chosen specifically to hide the fact that it’s religious creationism in a faux lab coat).

          My crack to “David” is because it’s his first and only post and reads like it was cut and pasted from a Moveon.org or Organizinf For America trainee manual.

          gs in reply to gs. | January 26, 2013 at 1:08 am

          My concern is not whether Jindal is the smartest guy in the room (and afaic I allowed that he very likely is), but that “he thinks he knows more than anybody in the room about anything.” We have a President with exactly that mindset and we don’t need another one.

          I’m aware of the creationism thing and share your attitude.

[…] luster near him to help his poll numbers and maybe borrow one of Hillary’s ovaries for the coming fights with congress and the […]

Given Sheila Jackson Lee, San Fran Nan, Jiltin Joe Biden ; dem dems, dey do & know krazy !!

We need to counter this effort to kill our candidacies in the cradle, and to focus on doing the same.

No can do until we wrest back at least half of the MSM into a center-right orientation. That’s the source of the problem.

The way to stop this is from advocacy our elected GOP leadership, the use of the House Speaker bully pulpit, and the leadership of the party itself.

Considering enough GOP people are tolerating an abject failure being reelected to to hog the Speaker position, and another failed executive being reelected to the GOP Chair position, what does anybody here think anyone will do to counter the onslaught of ruthless leftists now in power if the same people complaining about these ruthless leftists do NOTHING to fix their own party leadership?

You’ve got to have clarity on this. Boehner is a failure — complete — and, he destroyed ANY credibility he had by backstabbing the conservatives who had the misfortune to have Boehner merely ‘in line’ to the Speaker position. He will never rise beyond that. He simply lacks the talent, the courage and the fortitude. Nor is Rinse Preebus (or whatever his name) the man we need right now.

People have to have clarity on this. Had Boehner considered his nation before his pathetic vanity, he’d have refused the Speaker position the second time around. We need to pressure this guy aside (and Preebus) — the HELL with the ‘election’ by the GOP hacks we were stupid enough to support.

If this does not get done, resign yourself to not only be steamrolled by virulent leftists in our government, but get ready for another round of Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2014.

It is entirely probable that the US is running guns. ThinkProgress is only defending it because it is happening NOW, under a Democrat administration. The question needs to be…why is running guns to Al Queda through Benghazi okay with Democrats. And not asked of the politicians but asked of your family members, co-workers, neighbors, etc.

The downside, of course, is that people will quit speaking to you, especially regarding politics. I ask, as often as I can, to the Proud to be Democrat types I know why this sort of thing is apparently okay with them. They HATE it.

When they fist pump a “you go girl” about Hillary I comment that “you know, we probably ARE running guns secretly and she IS trying to cover it up. It is very Iran-Contra-ish, isn’t it?”. Some deny it (especially the younger ones), which isn’t as much fun. But most have deep seated long held suspicions that the U.S. government has a very dark side to it and they stutter and stammer realizing that they’re defending someone neck-deep in it. That is fun.

Phillep Harding | January 25, 2013 at 6:45 pm

We need to track down the new journ O list.

the answer goes hand-in-hand with Anne Sorock’s post earlier today. The media and the DNC are one and the same and as long as The Media drives the narrative, they will label our stars crazy.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2013/01/its-time-to-take-on-the-media/

If joe Biden has escaped the rightly deserved crazy label, it’s only because cbsabcnbc gives him repeated free passes.

And also just by coincidence today, you have this titled,

“The Shame that is Bobby Jindal,”

by the

Slime that is Joan Walsh in the cesspool that is Salon.

I can’t bring myself to read what she writes, so somebody tell me if it’s as bad as I imagine it to be.

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/25/the_shame_that_is_bobby_jindal/

I’m not going to read it, mainly because it CAN’T be from Joan Walsh. I mean, she was so vehement about not being involved with Salon anymore the other day…

Boehner is a good man, but a C+ journeyman House mechanic, devoid of charisma or media skills.

I don’t understand why this is but Think Progress consistently manages to get a prodigious number of articles slamming conservatives on Memeorandum. Has anyone analyzed their model? More than simple bias would explain. Conservatives need to develop and fund a megaphone plan, ’cause we are getting beat right now.