The Discerning Texan

All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Getting around the Elephants in the room

Don Surber reports on Newt Gingrich and his solution to the problem of communicating to the electorate via a hostile media:

Newt Gingrich has a plan for Republicans to keep the White House after next year: Do like Nikolas Sarkozy and bypass the media.

Shades of Ronald Reagan.

Speaking at the National Press Club this week, Newt said Sarkozy set up 16 YouTube-like sites on the Internet and bypassed the French media.

“What (Sarkozy) said is, ‘If I can communicate with you, then the news media can watch our conversation,’ which is very different than having a conversation with the news media which (average people) watch.

“The second thing is he made a very important speech where he said we must have a clean break (from Chirac). And I would say to (Republican) candidates, there is a lot of parallel there.”

Republicans can compete on the Internet with Democrats on whose reliance on foul-mouthed, angry sites such as Daily Kos taints them as the party of hate, pessimism and negativity. Republicans need to avoid anger and cursing, and instead offer Americans hope and a reason for optimism.

People need to remember, hits are not votes. The people who vote are older and wiser and will not be swayed by snarky socialists.

I hope the folks up at the RNC--and in the Thompson, Giuliani, and Romney campaigns--are listening... this election may go to the side which best utilizes the Web. So far I have not seen a lot of evidence that the Republicans are doing that.

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, Newt Gingrich, Republican