Winning the argument...

 

 

"The only way we are going to win elections is to first win in the market place of ideas. Not to beat the other side into submission, rather convince them through logic that our side is right..."

When many of us go to church, we hear a similar message. We go to church not only to worship, not only to draw strength from fellow believers (iron sharpening iron), but to also become equipped. Equipped for what? Simply put, to keep from becoming insular (a country club), we become equipped to spread the Word, to bring people to faith - that all happens outside the doors of the church.

The same is true with our political organizations. For a while, I just quit going to any of them. Why? As much as I liked hanging out with "like minded people", it accomplished NOTHING in spreading our message. It truly was like "preaching to the choir".

Yesterday I had breakfast with a friend and we discussed this matter (as well as many others). It was a similar discussion I have been having with many others over the past few years. How do we win the argument? How to we govern using rock solid conservative principles without appearing to be just "the party of no"?

Here are some thoughts. I will use ObamaCare as an example. Ever since the bill was signed into law in 2009, the battle cry from our side has been "repeal and replace!" An excellent sound bite. But in almost six years the "replace" part of the cry has never been defined. We have not shown the American people the better mouse trap. In absence of that, even though many are not nuts about ObamaCare, they will stick with what they have.

In other words, we really need to become known as the "party of know" and not the "party of no". We need to be a fountainhead of ideas, with new and innovative ideas spewing out like water over a falls. Then we must be able to message them. Simple, logical, short messaging. When questioned or challenged, we must (through logic and knowledge of the subject) be able to WIN THE ARGUMENT. We must be able to convince the other side that we are right. And we must be able to do with without leaving them wounded and bloodied on the battlefield.

This all starts in the grass roots organizations. The caucuses.The BPOUs. Tea Party meetings. Tea Party Patriot meetings.  Advocacy groups. Our government was created to be a "bubble up" organization - not a top down one. People we elect to represent us come from our grass roots organizations. They are us. The ideas they bring to Washington or St. Paul are shared ideas. Ideas we all hatched together in our grass roots organizations. To win the argument, we, along with our representatives, should all be on the same song sheet.

We have work to do before 2016. We need to be smarter. Better educated, Better trained. Better connected. To win the argument on all levels, we need to be ready to have our "A" game sharpened up. The other side does. So must we.