The Stupid Wooing the Wired

The March 2013 Republican “Growth and Opportunity Project” was an accurate self critical analysis of the what had gone wrong for the G.O.P. in the 2012 Presidential election. Scaring away the young, immigrant and female are big concerns for the party but let's not overlook the intelligent. A recent article in the New York Times describing Republican efforts to recruit tech savvy teams to help with future campaigns illuminates the problem, which is that many techies would describe themselves as conservative, but such a person would be a difficult recruit for a candidate championing creationism as science.

The Project noted a theme where the RNC must foster an environment of “intellectual curiosity and a culture of data and learning.” Since many of the party prescriptions are Authoritarian rants to stamp out that much needed intellectual curiosity the proposal is doomed to the recruitment of second tier practitioners working in a dumbed down environment with desultory result.

Without curiosity and learning Republican candidates lose the peer to peer conversions. Democrats won the majority of the electorate in the last election where both sides made personal contact with the same voter. They are repeating with the “Bannock Street Project” just reported on recently which is expected to do more of the same in 2014. Republican's, on the other hand, without the recognition that voters are too polite, women especially, to disagree in a face to face discussion are doomed to promulgate misbegotten Fox News tag lines preaching to the radicalized.

Finally it is the silos engendered by “Right Wing” fundraising that separates the intelligence of the G.O.P. collective. There has been a lot of hand wringing on the left with the unfair advantage given to the wealthy in promoting their agenda in the Citizens United Supreme Court decision of 2008. But the silo effect of the decision made the media buys for those groups supporting but not directly communicating with the Romney team during the 2012 campaign particularly expensive and inept. Karl Rove got a hard dressing down from the likes of the Koch brothers accusing him of raising more money than he had brains to spend it with. Without a collaborative intellectual effort in this field the Republicans are going have a difficult time. The future is not good for them in this regard as more and more conservative interests bifurcate into their own little money raising tax dodging free speech silos.

Until Libertarians understand that a combination with Authoritarians is unworkable then both are doomed to an unsustainable arrangement. One can not accommodate the other. Either you are libertarian or authoritarian. Bright or stupid. You make the choice.