2012 election

A Nice July Update

July has been an interesting month for many reasons. Since I do not live out my life on Twitter, Facebook, or even this blog, suffice it to say that I've been writing.

Writing code, short stories, and developing a few screenplays in an environment that is unfriendly to all of the above.

I live in a loud building.

And now for something interesting…

Pennsylvania may have been a blue state in the last few elections but that may change in this next election. Why? You ask. A new law that requires you to present a valid photo-ID when voting will quickly eliminate most of the non-eligible voters that have plagued PA elections in the past. That means no dead people will be voting, older folks who park their asses at home and haven't driven in years won't vote because they will be too lazy to obtain a new ID even though it's free if you tell PennDOT that you need it to vote, and younger lazy people and lazy people in general.

The cities are blue in PA but the rest of the state is not. It will be interesting to see how this election plays out but one thing you can be sure of is that mostly legitimate folks will be voting.

A seriously bad economy almost guarantees that a pet rock could win against Obama in November.

Political Battles and Winning the War

This one might actually go pretty quickly.

There is a war on right now. A war for the White House. The Republicans think they have a real shot of “de-throning” Obama. Due to the major amount of ammunition at their disposal and because Obama’s fake life makes this so easy, I would tend to agree. Anyone who thinks that Obama wasn’t groomed for the White House going back prior to his run for the Senate is simply not paying close enough attention nor are you able to step back and see a bigger picture.

With that being said, if you wish to “de-throne” Obama there are a couple of small things you need to keep in mind. Simple “do this thing” or “don’t do this thing” type stuff. Here we go…

Campaign participation not whatever-con participation is what is needed during a presidential election cycle. Conferences should be put on hold. They serve no purpose other than to make money for the people hosting them and none of that money goes towards the folks who really need it. The hundreds you spent over the weekend to participate in whatever-con would have been better spent on a presidential campaign. That is simple common sense.

Circle Jerks. Talking to the same people over and over again will not further your cause. They already subscribe to your podcasts, they already met you at whatever-con, and they have less influence than any run of the mill lobbyist. I have several political podcasts in my iTunes feed and I cringe whenever I see the exact same names pop up in a podcast over and over again. If we are recycling the same people in radio, podcasts, and television then I suppose the new ideas aren’t flowing very freely either. How could they? I can think of a couple of folks that I could have on shows tomorrow in which I would already know exactly what they are going to say. See what I mean? How does that help anything?

Everything has to be on the table. Obama’s faults are too numerous to mention here but don’t go taking anything out of play just yet. McCain made this mistake in 2008. He tried to take the “high road.” Well, this is war and while I appreciate taking the high ground in war, this is certainly no time to take the high road. Not if you have plans of winning. In 2008, the Democrats fought to win. In 2008, the Republicans let them win. I have to say that I don’t feel like the Republicans are ready for a fight this time around either. I’m sure we’ll hear phrases from the Romney camp like “I’m not going to stoop to that level” or “I won’t attack Obama’s relationship with Jeramiah Wright because “I’m better than that.” That is why Romney will probably lose.

These are just a few things off the top of my head. Stay tuned. I’m sure there will be more.

Smartphones and Sandboxes and Basketball…Oh My!

Many folks out there wonder why the Republican party in its current form is so far away from the party as it existed under Ronald Reagan. The answer isn’t a simple one. Where new media has helped Democrats, it has hurt or hindered Republicans. Ever since Howard Dean used the web to garnish campaign donations the Democratic party has utilized the world wide web to its advantage. How were they able to be so successful at it and the Republicans so bad? Smartphone operating systems, sandboxes, hot chicks, and basketball can explain everything. In this article I lump conservatives in with Republicans. Lets face it. Conservatives are probably not going to vote Democrat.

I don’t have a definitive answer. I do have some ideas as to why Republicans and I’ll lump in conservatives as well are floundering. There will be plenty of folks who will note the differences between the current Republican party and conservatives and hate being lumped in together but for the purposes of this article, you ARE the same. Since I’m a Geek, I’ll use some computer operating system speak to make my point. The difference between Republicans and Democrats right now is the difference between iOS and Android operating systems for smartphones. iOS is a closed solid system. Android is a fragmented operating system with many variations. Democrats are iOS right now and Republicans are Android.

Not a geek? How about this? The Republicans/Conservatives are playing in the sandbox while the Democrats/Liberals are using the entire playground. The liberals own the main stream media. The liberals own Hollywood. Getting their message out is a “no-brainer” for them. Conservatives on the other hand have a much harder time of it. Fox News is just one channel. Democrats have all of the others.

Conferences for the sake of conferences. CPAC Florida? CPAC Chicago? Really? We need people to spend money on candidates and elections not conferences full of people who have the very same things to say year after year. No need for you to get up behind a podium and speak to a crowd of people who already agree with you. Really. We already KNOW what your position is. Seriously. Speaking to a crowd of people who don’t know what your position is, however, now that is the real trick. How about financing a train trip to towns you’ve never been to and talk to people you don’t know about issues that mean something to you? What if CPAC was a travelling show? CPAC is a train trip or a bus trip or a caravan. Now THAT is an idea.

Conferences haven’t been around THAT long really but somehow we’ve adopted them as “standard operating procedure.” As a famous bar tender on a Star Trek episode once said, “if the enemy knows everything that you know, then its time to throw that book away.” Because there are so many conferences and “cons” out there, it is difficult for central messaging and unified communication. When it was just CPAC, everyone got their messages from a central place. Today, everything is fragmented. The general take away from CPAC Florida may be different than the take away message from CPAC Chicago.

Eye candy doesn’t work for conservatives the way that eye candy works for liberals. I would even suggest that having the prettiest women on Fox News isn’t the brightest idea. I just watched S.E. Cupp. Do I remember a damn thing she said? Not really.

No one thing is responsible for the Republican fragmentation. One thing is painfully clear to me. The Republican party has no clear leadership. No clear message. No clear goals other than to win the White House. They have no roadmap to do it with. Obama has so many negative issues flying around his administration right now that this election should be a “slam dunk win” for Republicans. It won’t be. Instead of being on offense, the Republicans will go on defense and unfortunately for them, its the offense that puts the points on the board.