OPINION:
A cautionary tale: Just 24 hours after the Republican National Committee’s launched its ebullient 2014 comeback tour, the Democratic National Committee was all over it. Like a big dog. Republican claims of a productive, reinvented party were pulled to pieces by their insta-critics.
“The Grand Old Party Is the Same Old Party,” the Democrats’ designated rapid response team declared in a new report. An aggressive website touting the newly designated “SOP” is also up and running.
“After losing the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee completed a four-month period of self-reflection after losing its second-straight presidential election. The result of that process became popularly known as the GOP ’Autopsy Report’ - of all of the Republican Party’s ailments, and prescriptions for how to cure them,” the Democrats said.
“Party operatives wrote about the need to reach out to communities of color, be more inclusive of gay Americans, and attract more women to the party. But a year later, all the Republican Party has gotten is another year older. No amount of outreach, staff hires, or changes to their primary calendar will change the fact that the GOP’s policy and rhetoric are just as out of step with the majority of American voters as ever.”
Do they have a point? Well, here and there. But Democrats claimed Republicans were out of touch in 2012, and now must think up another marketable barb as the nation ponders questions about Obamacare and the economy.
And another thing. Democrats often underestimate the hidden voter potential of flyover country, the heartland and their own populations of disenchanted folk. Note to GOP: Take the high road on all the bravado and small talk, pick battles carefully, and as the sages once said, keep your powder dry.
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