True North

As I started reading this article by Quin Hilyer, I realized that he's on the same page as most of the activists I've talked with. Here's the first thing that caught my attention:

What I found, as an outside observer, was a well-organized and active group of people of good will, good heart, and good energy. The experience led me to believe that the grass roots are in better shape than are the party offices and congressional caucuses in Washington. If I could give a speech to those congressional caucuses to report what I saw at the grass roots, I think my speech would be more upbeat, and I also think the listeners would be more in need of hearing any lessons I could pass on to them than were the listeners in Mobile, who already seem to be full of the wisdom that those on Capitol Hill seem to have lost.

That sounds alot like what I said in this post:

This morning, I read Fred Barnes' depressing column titled "The Colorado Model". I wasn't depressed because he wrote about the Democrats' plan to win Colorado on all levels. It was depressing to hear Barnes talking like there wasn't anything we could do to stop the anti-GOP trend.

I won't tolerate that type of defeatism. That's why I'd fire every Beltway-based GOP strategist. That's why I'm ignoring every defeatist, process-oriented Beltway GOP pundit from this day forward. If these pundits and strategists want to whine about things instead of figuring out solutions to the biggest problems of the day, especially high gas prices, then they're part of the problem. PERIOD.

It's time that our politicians and Beltway conservatives need a doublshot of confidence. I'm not under the illusion that we'll retake the House and Senate while keeping the White House. I'll even go so far as to admit that candidates that run CW campaigns will likely lose.

That isn't admitting that all is lost. It just means that we need to tout our common sense solutions. It means that we have to challenge the Democrats' misinformation.

Most importantly, keep the pressure on them.

These aren't mental giants we're dealing with. Pressure Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and it's almost guaranteed that they'll say something stupid. That's something that we can exploit. Politicians, pundits and strategists say that there's an anti-Republican mood in the country. That's an artificial mood. It's based on not fighting an intelligent fight against these dimwits.

If candidates don't press solutions to important issues, of course Democrats will win. When has that not been so? The question then becomes why don't we challenge Democrats? Their supposed strength is fiction. It's something that can be exposed quickly.

For instance, Democrats have started saying that they're open to expanding drilling in Alaska. They're also saying that "We can't drill our way out of this crisis." Our first logical question is simple:

If we can't drill our way out of this crisis, why open drilling in Alaska?

The next logical question is equally simple:

If you're willing to open up parts of Alaska to drilling, shouldn't we open up the OCS and ANWR, too? If not, why not?

In other words, shouldn't we stop with quarter- and half-measures? Shouldn't we do things right right from the start? I spoke with someone on Capitol Hill about the Democrats' new proposal. Here's what the person told me (I'm paraphrasing):

They're painting themselves into a corner by doing this. They've now abandoned their primary argument but they haven't embraced the GOP position.

I told this person that I agreed with that appraisal right before I volunteered to keep handing them more paint and paintbrushes so they can finish the job. Let's be serious about this. Democrats are east of the proverbial rock and west of the proverbial hard place on this.

Question for Beltway strategists and pundits: We're afraid of these buffoons why???

We shouldn't be cowering in a corner. We should be highlighting the intellectual incoherence of the Democrats' so-called solutions. We should highlight that and explain that their incoherence is either due to their unwillingness to cut ties to the environmental extremists or they're unable to figure out a real solution to that problem.

If we frame it that way, Democrats look awful either way. Isn't that how you win elections?

Comments welcome at LFR.