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The Irony Of It All
Brad Hollerbach

ROBO-CALLS
Why The GOP Should Focus More On
A Message Rather Than The Mechanics

Posted Tuesday, February 24, 2009, at 9:39 PM

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  • Mr. Hollerbach,

    You stated:

    "Before I go any further, I should tell you that I am not a Republican or a Democrat or belong to any of the fringe parties. I am an independent"

    Then you go on to state that:

    "The article in the Journal discussed how some of the GOP leadership have several hundred followers on Twitter and one guy had 4000 "friends" on Facebook. The politicians seemed very proud of their accomplishment.

    I feel that the GOP leadership needs talked to directly, so all you non-leadership people go read something else while we talk shop. Try picking up a newspaper. They're a wealth of information.

    Ok, now that all the plebes are gone, let me explain something that your "Yes-men" and your "Yes-women" and your technical advisors may not be telling you.

    The vast majority of the people who are following your Tweets on Twitter or are posing as your Facebook "friends" are suck-ups.

    Brown-nosers. Yes-people who wish to stroke your ego. Vendors. People who have something to gain from being your "friend."

    But when it comes to Obama's 5,639,315, Facebook "Friends" its because:

    "let's be honest, the guy has bucket-loads of charisma that appeals to a broad spectrum of the population. For better or worse, I haven't seen any current candidates in the GOP who approaches his level.

    And please don't bring up Sarah. During the last election she inspired the "base", the straight-ticket Republican voters you already had. If you don't think the average voter wasn't seriously -- and still isn't seriously -- concerned with her qualifications for leading this country or being one heart-beat away from the presidency, I think you might be wrong"

    You an independent? Yeah right! You count Obama's "charisma" as a qualification for the presidency, even though the man didn't even serve one full term in the Senate?

    There's no doubt that McCain would have done better in the election if he had chosen someone like Joe Lieberman, after all, as you say they already had the straight ticket votes, Lieberman would have pulled some of the Dems away from Obama but you can't blame Sara Palin for the GOP's downfall, that credit goes solely to George W. Bush.

    -- Posted by Freedoms_Fraud on Thu, Feb 26, 2009, at 3:54 AM
  • Magnanimus C,

    When I said that Obama has ”bucket loads of charisma” I was stating that from the overall viewpoint of the majority of the voters. Ideas should matter more than charisma, but that’s unfortunately not the way it works a lot of the times in politics.

    I’ve been monitoring Obama’s Facebook supporters count for the last few weeks and since the end of January he has actually added over 300,000 “friends” and no, I’m not one of them. But I would say that is an indication that his charisma is certainly not diminishing.

    You are right in saying that Bush lost the election for the GOP. Obama ran against Bush, more than he did McCain and Palin. And if the economy hadn’t so dramatically nose-dived we might have had a different outcome this past November.

    However, as far as rising-stars in the GOP, I did not and do not see the leadership appeal in Sarah Palin that inspired a lot of the Republican base. Her placement on the ticket looked contrived – although that really is what most politics are about, isn’t it?

    She’s having problems governing a state of 700,000 without running into ethical problems. Do I think she has the intellect to guide a country of 300 million in the 21st century? No, I do not. No matter how many “handlers” and “spin-doctors” the GOP throws at her.

    Do I think Obama is perfect? Certainly not. He’s had and has his share of controversy and I will believe the economic stimulus plans are working when I can actually buy more with my 401k than a value meal at McDonald’s. And I have real serious doubts that Obama can actually reduce the deficit by as much as he claims by 2013. In my opinion, there are too many incestuous special interests in Congress for significant cuts to occur.

    The point of this blog is that the GOP needs to work on their message first, before going hog-wild with whatever communication technology they are being told is the “latest and greatest.”

    The GOP currently loves the robo-call communication technology. That’s an obvious fact. They’ve used it for years. But it is intrusive communication technology that is better retired. Frankly, I think it’s useless. It only reaches us poor souls who still pay for a landline and not the millions who only have cell phones and can’t legally be robo-called.

    Thanks for reading.

    -- Posted by Brad_Hollerbach on Thu, Feb 26, 2009, at 10:43 AM
  • Actually, Brad, a very good column with some 'food for thought.'

    -- Posted by gurusmom on Thu, Feb 26, 2009, at 2:00 PM
  • Why would they get rid of robo-calls? The Republican Party -- with its black-and-white, linear thinking -- is the party of robots. This would be a turning away from their own nature.

    -- Posted by EJ Rotert on Thu, Feb 26, 2009, at 3:20 PM