Planned Parenthood & Twitter - A Cautionary Tale

There is a saying I learned when I was building sets that has come in handy for many other things other than carpentry - "Measure twice and cut once". It is especially true when posting on public political forums, Facebook, and Twitter. It is just better to understand what you are reading and writing, and think before posting a comment. Here is my cautionary tale...

After Rand Paul announced he was throwing his hat in the ring on Tuesday, a group of avatars were posted on his campaign page that can be downloaded to be used to show support across social media. The little avatars exclaimed "Musician for Rand", "African-American for Rand", "Nevadan for Rand" etc. In their haste to counter, Planned Parenthood posted all of these little avatars as a meme on Twitter with the following comment - "Hmmm, what's missing? "Women for Rand" Guess even Rand Paul knows that women won't support Rand Paul"

Sen. Rand Paul's "Show Your Support" page doesn't have anything for women.

Immediately, the responses started pouring in. Not at all what they were expecting though. All were along the same lines of "What? Women can't be...". Whoopsie, in their haste to pounce on the "War On Women" theme, no one noticed that none of these avatars were the least bit gender-specific - Doctors, Lawyers, African-Americans, Musicians, Veterans, Student, Runners and the various states etc. Now "Sportsman" and "Fisherman" could be debatably masculine, but seriously even woman play sports, hunt, and fish.

So to cover their mistake, they tried to back-track a little with this:

Women are many things—doctors, veterans, more—but w/ his record, seems even Paul knows "Woman for Rand" won't be one.

That "clarification" didn't help much because it was pointed quickly by the rabble over and over that there is no "Men for Rand" avatar either. To their credit, Planned Parenthood didn't delete the tweet, but no one from Planned Parenthood tried to defend it either most likely hoping that people would lose interest.

Now, there is more to this tale than just pointing out how brainless Planned Parenthood has been which is fun (I admit it). But we all know we post comments without thinking sometimes. I admit I do. But the real moral of this story is..."Think twice, post once". The internet is forever.

Comments?

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Gallup, Rubio and the Talk Radio Base

Bev will probably kill me for talking about 2016, so don’t tell her I said this. ;-) I said last week that despite the howling on talk radio that Rubio was finished, Rubio will be the man to beat in 2016. Now there’s some proof to back that up in the form of a Gallup poll. This poll also tells us something interesting about the party’s base.

Gallup quizzed the public about five Republican contenders. What they found suggests that the Republican base is very much in tune with its leaders and not with talk radio. Consider these numbers on how Republicans responded:

Notice that despite the near universal hatred poured out at Rubio from talk radio and conservative blogs, Rubio has a 58% approval and only an 11% disapproval.... and that’s among Republicans, not the public at large. That’s significant. That means that despite months of an intense anti-Rubio campaign by the supposed leaders of the base, the Republican base approves of Rubio in overwhelming numbers – by a 6 to 1 margin. Even more significantly, only one in ten disapproves of Rubio. That’s an amazing repudiation of the talk radio message, and that suggests several things.

First, that suggests broad acceptance (if not endorsement) of immigration reform by the Republican base, otherwise Rubio’s disapprovals would be higher. This is consistent with the large and growing number of conservatives who support the initiative and the polls which show surprisingly high support for the measure. This further suggests that Rubio won’t be hurt by pursuing immigration reform, or else his disapprovals already would be higher.

Secondly, it suggests that the talk radio base is not the supermajority within the Republican base they like to think they are... not even close. Consider this: Rubio has been blasted for months with near 100% vehement opposition from the talk radio base. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that some high proportion of the talk radio base disapproves of Rubio. Yet, he only polls 11% disapproval. That means that only 11% of the Republican base is following the talk radio line. Similarly, look at Christie. Christie is viewed favorably (52% - 25%) by the Republican base despite being attacked daily for several years now as a RINO traitor by talk radio. Thus, only 25% of the Republican base toes the talk radio line on Christie.

Think about what this says about the size of the base. Talk radio has blasted Christie so long, so harshly and so universally that it is likely that everyone in the talk radio base disapproves of him as well as a good number of conservatives who don’t align with the talk radio base. That means not only that it’s logical to see his 25% disapproval as the upper cap on the potential size of the talk radio base, but it also means that 25% likely overstates the size of the talk radio base. Looking at these numbers suggests to me that the talk radio base is somewhere between 11% and 25% and I would place them at around 16% (Rubio disapproval times 1.5 or Christie disapproval times 2/3). Again, that is not consistent with the picture painted by talk radio of a silent conservative majority oppressed by a small RINO leadership. Why does this matter? Well, I think it explains why the Republican leadership seems to be willing to decouple themselves from the talk radio base. I see hints of this everywhere, everything from a change in the agenda to a change in the rhetoric to the pushing aside of bomb throwers like Michelle Bachmann. And I don’t think the Republicans would be doing this if these numbers were reversed.

Other thoughts on this data:

● This data suggests that Paul Ryan (69% - 12%) would be the leader if he chooses to run, but I actually doubt he will. I like Ryan a lot, but he just never looked comfortable in 2012. I think he will happily stay in the House and run the budgets.

● This data suggests that Christie is stronger than I would have guessed last year, though I wonder how far his appeal really runs? I suspect a lot of his support is at the level of “Oh, I like him in New Jersey, but not nationally.” In either event though, he must be considered a serious contender. Ultimately, I interpret his approval rating as a sign that the base is being much more practical than they been have in the past. This seems to be a statement that they will accept people who aren’t ideologues if they can win in places Republicans don’t win and they can bring some conservatism to the table in those areas.

● Rand Paul’s support (56% - 13%) is interesting too. Paul embraces issues that sit uneasily with the Republican base. His foreign policy and defense policy make the neocons angry, the religious right is suspicious of his claims to social conservatism, and his attempts to appeal to minorities and youths through civil liberties issues are upsetting to many conservatives. Yet, six in ten approve and only one in ten disapprove. That suggests that the Republican base is much more open to new ideas than you hear.

● Finally, the data suggest that Ted Cruz may have a problem. He has hooked his star to the talk radio base and they have rewarded him with an intense amount of coverage and praise. He is the anti-Rubio. Yet, all of this has resulted in only 40% approval and 52% indifference. Those aren’t great numbers when the guy you’ve cited as your mortal enemy is 20% higher than you. Even worse, if the “not Rubio” agenda hasn’t worked so far, there is little reason to think it will work any better in the coming two years, and Cruz doesn’t really offer more than that. If he wants to win, he’ll need an agenda, not just opposition to the new Republican agenda.

I guess we’ll see.

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Republicans Can Win The Senate? Uh, No

Fair warning: I’m going to crap on an article that’s all unicorns and happy dust about the Republicans winning the Senate in 2014. So if you want to believe that all is well, then ignore this article. But if you’re interested in getting a real sense of what is going wrong for our side right now, then read on. The article in question comes from Breitbart, but I’m seeing similar analysis all over the place. And this article highlights how blind the conservative pundit establishment really is at the moment.

The article starts by suggesting that the Republicans have an advantage in terms of taking the Senate in 2014 because 20 of the 32 Senators up for re-election are Democrats. Sounds great, right? Moreover, we only need to win 6 seats and 12 of those 20 Democrats are in “a state that is red or swing.” Gee, that sounds really great! What are those red/swing state? Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia.

Uh. . . no.

Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota and West Virgina are reliable blue states. So scratch them off the list. Moreover, states like Virginia and North Carolina are trending blue. And don't forget, we lost red states North Dakota and Montana in the last Senate election cycle, and we lost Alaska before that. In fact, reaching back, we lost both Montana seats, both Virginia seats, both West Virginia seats, both Colorado seats, and both Minnesota seats in the past few years. Not to mention the Democrats in Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana and South Dakota are long-time incumbents, and the Democrats are very good at picking people who play well in those states. So what we're really looking at is maybe two vulnerable seats. Hence, forget winning.

But wait! This article also assures us the issues are on our side. Which issues? Well, Obama’s gun control push will force Democrats either to “back the President’s gun control agenda or risk handing their GOP opponents an effective talking point.” Really? What if the Democrats just do what they always do. . . they go home and talk about the need to save us from guns while simultaneously swearing they will protect the Second Amendment. Then they watch the House kill Obama’s proposal and the issue dies without them ever taking a stand. Huh, didn't see that one coming.

Wait, there's more!

“If the Republicans play their cards right,” the debt-ceiling debate is another “edge” the Republicans hold. Ha ha ha ha! Ok, first, the Republicans never play their cards right. Secondly, there is no right play here.

(1) You can’t play chicken with someone who wants you to hit their car, which is what the Democrats are. They want the Republicans to appear to wreck the government and the economy. . . it gives them cover.

(2) Do you really think anyone cares if the debt ceiling is $14 or $15 trillion? No. This is not an issue that you die for. And die it will be because the Republicans will be tarred with claims that (i) Social security will stop making payments, (ii) Medicare will stop paying doctors, (iii) soldiers won’t get paid, (iv) unemployment benefits will stop coming. . . all because the Republicans are trying to score political points to extract some worthless, meaningless promise of cuts that will never happen.

But more fundamentally, do you notice anything missing here? Yeah, the actual goal. This is Underwear Gnome Theory again: STEP ONE, hold country hostage... STEP TWO, _____... STEP THREE, profit. Seriously, this person is telling you the fiscal cliff holdup will win the day for us and they don't even realize there's no actual demand, there's just the holdup and the assumption of victory.

And they aren't done. Apparently, the evil Democrats in the Senate have “refused to pass a budget for the last four years. (Why aren’t we hearing more about this !?1?!)”. Good grief. We aren’t hearing more about this because it's technocratic bullship. Taxes get collected. Agencies get their share. Money gets spent. Programs continue. There is no substance to this argument, it's all procedure.

So look at what you're being sold here. You're being told there is the promise of a takeover of the Senate because 12 of 20 Democratic seats are vulnerable. The reality is we're talking about two. You're being told the Democrats will be forced to admit they want to round up guns, which won't happen. You're being told the public will magically fall in love with us if we disrupt the government for some goal to be named later. And you're being told the public will suddenly love us if we make the Democrats fill out Form A instead of Form B. This is delusional. Please do not believe this crap.

But even putting this aside, do you see the real problem? Ask yourself, what is our agenda? What are we offering the public? The answer which this pundit thinks is so wonderful is: (1) Stop Obama from doing something about guns. (2) Stop Obama from spending more money. Translation: vote for us so nothing changes!

If the Republicans ever want to win again, they need some actual ideas. They need to tell people how they will make the job market grow. How they will fix the housing market. How they will fix the student loan problem. How they will make the country safer. How they will make kids smarter and less ugly. “Vote for me and I’ll make sure nothing changes,” simply doesn’t work, and we need to stop accepting it.

Here are three names that are at least making moves in the right direction. Bobby Jindal is trying to eliminate the income tax in Louisiana. The same thing needs to be brought to the national level. Marco Rubio is talking about immigration reform. Again, we need to stop the bleeding on this issue and admit the inevitable. Rand Paul is talking about a foreign policy that involves a strong military, but dropping the idea that we should bomb everyone on the planet.

These ideas are a good start. They barely scratch the surface of what we need, but they at least are something more than “Vote for me and I’ll make sure nothing changes.” The truth is, we need an agenda that will create jobs, that will make people more secure financially and protect them from ill-health and old age, an agenda that helps people get out from under their debts, send their kids to college, and provides genuine protection from bad guys. And we need an agenda that promises personal freedom. I'm hoping to start unveiling such an agenda in a couple weeks, but in the meantime, start thinking about conservative solutions to problems people actually care about. Until we do that, more and more states will turn blue.

In the meantime, don't believe this garbage that everything is going great.

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