How Republicans Win 2012 – Options

For my 100th blog post,  I decided to let you in on how the Republicans can create a strategy that will improve our system and economy, resonate with voters, and defend against Democrats.  It all comes down to one thing, giving citizens options.

I love having options, it is essentially a form of freedom.  I believe Republicans need to develop programs where people can choose between the current system and a new system.  Giving citizens the option between old and new eliminates the fear of the new.  Further, Democrat’s entire election campaign is around generating a fear of the Republicans.  For example, they have commercials of a Paul Ryan looking figure pushing granny off the cliff.  Just this past weekend, David Axelrod labeled Republicans a “reign of terror.”

I want to give a you few examples of options:

• Social Security –> the Chilean model essentially privatizes gains and socializes loses.  Basically, people would be given the option to stay with the current system or invest a portion of their social security dollars (instead of paying the full tax) to a private investment.  If the private investment does not meet the payout they would have received with the government social security check, they are paid the difference by the government.  It benefits the citizen because people typically get paid more privately than with social security, less money is paid out to citizens because their investments worked, preventing the system from going bankrupt, and there are still people paying in for those who want to stay on today’s version of social security.
• Medicare –> Did you know it is cheaper for us to pay citizens about $15,000/yr. for them to get their own private insurance than it is for them to be on medicare?  If we give people the option to do the private version, we would save money, even if only 10% did it.  Further, insurance is all about risk for the insurance companies.  If they have a larger pool of people paying in, it reduces the risk for them, increasing their ability to make insurance more affordable..
• Tax Code –> What if we had the ability to choose between the current tax code and paying a straight 20% of earned income without any deductions? If I had the option of paying a straight 20% instead of going through the confusion of our current model, I’d probably choose the easy path.

Obviously, the examples I gave are extremely complicated.  However, I wanted to illustrate some ways that we could create platforms that provide options.

I believe Republicans are trying to convince the American people that we need massive changes.  However, people do not like change, especially big change.  The public opinion of an entire nation cannot turn like a speed boat, it is more like a massive air craft carrier that takes miles to slowly turn around.  By offering options, it allows people time to get comfortable with big ideas.  The great thing about the private options presented is they will naturally become popular because they will typically put more money in people’s pockets.

Romney and Republicans need to market options more than the big ideas.  They need to tell Democrats, “If you like the current system, keep it.  Meanwhile, us 50% of Americans (the Republicans) will take the private options, make more money, and help cut the national budget.  You’re welcome Democrats…you’re welcome!”

The Election Begins: Obama vs. Romney

After months of being dormant on the blogosphere, I am back.  Bored and confused by the primaries, the Republicans finally have a candidate to go against President Obama.  Although there are a plethora of topics I’d love to dive into, I thought I’d start with framing up the 2012 Presidential Election.  So far, I’ve heard this election is about the women vote, the independent vote, the hispanic vote, the swing states vote, the religious conservative vote, and just about every other option.  So which group is it?  The truth is that it cannot be about one group of people, it is about what candidate do you trust to improve our country.

A few comments on the aforementioned groups:

• Women vote – I believe both candidates underestimate the diversity of thought among women.  To put all women in a group and say they have a collective set of key issues is vastly misplaced and demeaning in my view.  Like men, women have a variety of views and issues.
• Independent vote – most believe independents are people right in the middle.  The truth is, most have strong views on the left and strong views on the right that leave them conflicted – for example, they may be socially liberal but pro-life.  The candidates who spend time arguing their points versus bad mouthing their opponent will convince independents to vote for the strong view on that candidate’s side.
• Hispanic vote – a large majority of Hispanics are Catholic and have a lot of conservative principles.  However, Republican have not typically come alongside Hispanic voters.  Bush carried 45% of Hispanic votes vs. McCain only getting 31%.  Romney is in the drivers seat on this one.
• Swing State votes – these 12 states will ultimately decide the election, but their key issues are quite diverse.  Because of their diversity, there ends up being little difference between a general election campaign and a 12 state campaign.  The only real difference is that they will have more visits in these states.  With today’s 24-7 media coverage, it doesn’t really matter where presidential candidates stop because even if they were in your home town, you probably wouldn’t see the events live anyway.  The only interaction you’d have is waiting in traffic longer.  On a side note, I do think this could affect Romney’s VP choice.
• Religious conservative vote – Even though Romney has flip flopped on some religious conservative stances, he has aligned with their views and will still be much closer to their views than President Obama.  Like other sects of the population, although they have viewpoints they are passionate about, they will look to the candidate that they feels gives the United States the best chance at success.

In 2004, Democrats hated Bush with a passion.  I believe Republicans disapprove of Obama’s leadership in a similar fashion in 2012.  Many Republicans are counting on that passion to win the election.  However, like in 2004, you cannot win an election based on hatred of the other candidate.  People do not vote against a candidate in the booth, they vote for a candidate in the booth.  If they are not mildly excited about the direction that candidate is going to attempt to steer the country towards, they will not show up to vote for their candidate–this is especially true with independents.

If you ask people today what John Kerry’s top issues were, they’ll rarely be able to tell you because his campaign focused on Bush bashing rather than casting a vision.  You can see the power of casting a vision by looking at the 2008 Obama campaign, which casted a vision of Republicans and Democrats holding hands, Washington working together to cut deficit spending, and more.

President Obama’s strategy this time around appears to be one of divide and conquer.  He is trying to divide the country and get enough sects of the population to support him in order to get a majority.  He does this by alienating groups and demonizing Romney.  For example, he’s willing to lose the “rich” group if he gets the middle and poor class by calling Romney a rich person not in touch with the American people.

For Romney to win, he needs to focus on casting a clear vision of where he wants to bring America.  It will take a lot of discipline to stay on message and use every opportunity he has to share his vision, especially with the onslaught of distractions and attacks from the Obama campaign.  I personally believe Obama has been worse than Jimmy Carter because Carter’s failures didn’t cost $5 trillion in four years.  Although Ronald Reagan pointed out factual information that showed Carter’s shortcomings, the main reason Reagan beat Carter was because of the positive vision he cast for the United States that rallied people on both sides of the aisle.

It is going to be a very close election…should be fun!