Where’s the Outrage?

I was watching the Monday Night Football game when the replacement referees blew the infamous ‘failed Mary’ play which cost the Green Bay Packers a win.  Normally I go to bed after the game, but that night I wanted to see how the post-game commentators would handle the call.  In retrospect I didn’t need to stay up, because the game would become a national outrage and media sensation for the following week.

Over the last three months there has been a news story that has received similar media coverage; consistently making the A-section above-the-fold and always the lead story on all the evening news broadcasts.  The story is the fiscal cliff – a series of financial taxes and regulations set to expire on January 1, 2013.  Unlike the Monday Night Football game though, the fiscal cliff has failed to really capture the public’s imagination, leading me to ask: where’s the outrage?

I know that after the longest Republican Primary in history (or so it seemed) and the election, the last thing Americans want to focus on this holiday season is another political drama.  But pause for a moment, and ponder what happens if Congress fails to act.  If all the tax cuts expire and sequestration procedures go into full effect, they will essentially slow American economic growth to roughly .5%, essentially throwing the country back into a recession.

Now I am not naïve, and will acknowledge that football is a much easier game to understand than Congressional politics and the debt.  However, it’s shocking how apathetic Americans are about this subject.  Americans frequently like to think of their nation as a world superpower, the victor of the Cold War and so on, but our political inability and public apathy on this subject could doom the country to second-class status.

Ironically enough the Monday Football Game ultimately has had little to any effect on the Green Bay Packers this season.  They will make the playoffs.  However, the public’s lack of motivation on Congress to pursue solid public policy answers will cause the United States to suffer in its overall performance.  All of this leads me to ask the question: where’s the outrage?

For complete coverage and analysis of the fiscal cliff please visit: http://www.politico.com/p/pages/fiscal-cliff

Paging Don Draper…The GOP’s Image Problem

Despite the election being over, the Republican Party’s image problem is only just beginning and it could doom them to the fate of the Whig Party.  Changes are coming to the Republican Party and they would be smart to accept the advice of Mad Men’s Don Draper:

 “Let’s also say that change is neither good nor bad. It simply is. It can be greeted with terror or joy: a tantrum that says, ‘I want it the way it was,’ or a dance that says, ‘Look, it’s something new.”

In the last election cycle the Republican Party made itself out to be a relic of the past.  A party, whose social policies seemed more aligned to the era of Eisenhower rather than Obama, economic plan appeared hypocritical considering the Republican’s track record over the last decade and leaders who couldn’t give more than a ten-word answer to the complex questions facing the nation.  As a result, the Republican Party has an image problem that not only makes them appear out of touch, but also lacking a way forward.  Once again, enter Don Draper:

 “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

 That’s exactly what the GOP needs to do.

First, change the conversation by moving past the 2012 election and focus on being a solid opposition party.  The electoral failures of 2012 were a collective effort, so accept this notion and stop with the blame game.  Second, go back to the Party’s core pillars and start constructing public policy solutions around them.  Even though Obamacare maybe bad public policy, part of the GOP’s problem in 2012 was that it couldn’t articulate what came next, after they abolished it.

The million dollar question is the future role of evangelical Christians within the Party.  One of the conversations being had across the country is how social politics came to the dictate the Republican Primary, eventually causing them to lose the general election.   Much of the internal Republican Party culture war is the result of their coalition with the evangelical movement.   It’s also unclear who will lead the GOP after the civil war is over, and evangelical Christians may find themselves being annexed from the conservative movement.  Unfortunately for Party leaders, there is no simple answer on how to change the tone of THIS conversation.

Parties tend not to keep The White House after holding it for two consecutive terms, this means that a lot of pressure will be on the Republicans in 2016.  There will be some Republicans who believe that the only problem the Party had in 2012 was Mitt Romney and his moderate positions.  This belief will only lead them into political failure and to that I end by quoting Don Draper:

 “Maybe I’m not as comfortable being powerless as you are.”