We conservatives, particular the fiscally concerned, assumed the current economic status of our union would ensure a Romney win. Many of us couldn’t even comprehend the race would be close. Unemployment has been at around 8% or more for four years. Our national debt has doubled to more than $16 billion. 47 million Americans are on food stamps. Our economy is growing slower than it has since WWII. The President and Congress haven’t approved a budget in four years. The nation needed a proven leader who could fix the dire economic conditions, create new jobs, spur growth, reduce debt and improve efficiency in our federal government. We nominated one of the country’s most successful “turnaround” guys. Those of us over the age of 40 were convinced that this election was “about the economy, stupid.” On November 6th at around 10:00 pm, a lot of us, including many political experts and consultants, began to face the “new reality” of national elections in the United States.
There are more secular voters in America today who put “progressive” social issues above economic or religious values. Those issues include immigration, gay rights, global warming, free health care, college tuition assistance, abortion and the like. These voters clearly saw Romney as someone to fear because he would not give them the things they wanted. Like a child who doesn’t want Daddy to come home so the rules don’t have to be enforced, the Obama voters were motivated to keep Romney out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In my view, progressive voters are a lot like children – not wanting to, or perhaps not knowing how to, make hard decisions today about discipline for the benefit of tomorrow.
But we conservatives lost this election for other reasons, too. Barrack Obama showed us that relentless campaigning, astute social media marketing, pop culture public relations and sophisticated community organizing are all critical parts of winning elections today. The Obama campaign was simply superior in this regard. The administration has proven to be very poor at effective governing but it is truly impressive at executing political campaigns.
Obama and the liberals/progressives have successfully taken us to that tipping point whereby enough voters are hooked on the road to serfdom – exchanging their votes for goodies today that only weaken our tomorrow. The only way to beat this system is to nominate a candidate who can harness pop culture, be relevant to the youth, engage sports and media personalities, leverage social/digital media technology and who can be attractive to the young, old, urban and rural. Make no mistake; I am not suggesting a move away from conservatism in the least. What I am saying is that Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama have proven that the messenger is a critical part of the message. We have the right message. What we don’t have today is the messenger or the marketing. I don’t know who the next “voice” of the conservative movement is going to be. What I do know is that we better find an inspirational one. And, we better surround him/her with the modern marketing and communications tools necessary to win a national election in America in 2016. If we don’t, the conservative movement may end up just like vinyl musical albums – nice to listen to for nostalgia but not a lot of other citizens with the turntables required to hear the music.
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