Is becoming democrat the secret to GOP success on the left coast?

Nope.

With a primarily leftist electorate trained to hate, out-democrating the democrats isn't the way.

Busting them in the nose?  Maybe.  Let's look at what I believe has to be done.

In the last election, the dems ran their campaign like the democratian runs their CRC coverage: there was no lie they wouldn't tell, no exaggeration they wouldn't engage in, no twisting or other bastardization they wouldn't engage in to achieve their aim.

The GOP, on the other hand, is all about white-glove nicety.  The GOP reacts with outrage to the lies, allowing the dems to control the discussion, allowing the dems to knock GOP candidates off message and allowing themselves to avoid being held accountable for their actions in office.

Does ANYONE believe for a moment that a GOP president with the horrific record of that leftist moron in the White House would be re-elected?  Clearly, another Republican of some renown wasn't precisely right when he said something about fooling all the people... all the time.

Apparently, you can occasionally fool enough of them.

Locally, the Benton-Probst race comes to mind.

Probst and his guaranteed quarter of a million to run that the rag covered up for him and then ignored when it was delivered, along with his handlers, played Benton like a violin.

It looks like Don is going to win this race... but just barely.  And how much of that is his fault?

Based on the horrific governance of democrats over the duration of their tenure, this race shouldn't even have been close.

I advised Don from the beginning not to go toe to toe with this clown.  On personalities, he would lose.  The rag's portrayal of Probst vs. Benton would practically guarantee a loss.

My strategy was to educate the public on what Probst's election would mean: educate the public to the reality that Tim Probst was responsible for every tax and fee increase that has taken place in this state since he, Probst, was elected.  Show the voter that electing Benton, warts and all, increased the likelihood of continuing versions of fiscal sanity in the senate.

That's not what happened.  The dems proceeded to knock Benton a hundred miles off message and he fell for it.  They waved the red flag in front of the bull, and he charged.

The only message Benton needed was that electing a liberal tax and spender like Probst guaranteed higher and more taxes.  It guaranteed more idiocy like gay marriage and dope smoking.  That was all Benton's message needed to be.

Does Benton's near loss indicate that the GOP should now shift gears and become democrat-light?

Well, how'd that work out for the RINO crew we ran for the statewides?

If "moderation" was what needed to happen here, then the position of governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general would all be Republican.

Why vote for fake democrats when the real thing is available?

Here's what the GOP needs to do to win:

1.  Basic ground game competence.

The ground game used to be the GOP specialty.  Note: USED to be.

We hear rumor of as many as 100 paid union people on the ground working the Probst race while the GOP did squat.

We had no noticeable GOP ground game in this county.  I held our ballots out, for example, until the last minute.  We didn't hear from anyone doing GOTV.

2.  Find quality candidates who can win in 2014/16, identify them and prep them now.

This last second "beating the bush" thing to get warm bodies to throw into the arena... unqualified and unfunded... is a waste of time.

Anyone can decide to run.  But the GOP has been, once again, shown the mostly successful democrat model.  We ignore that model while we typically hope against hope they'll screw up and lose.

Stop attempting to run leftists masquerading as fake democrats with a GOP label.  Find quality, well-educated, courageous people who will put this country ahead of themselves.  Find people who are not, for example, Jaime Herrera.

Figure out that the requirement of supporting someone running in the GOP merely because of their label is a non-starter.  There has to be substance.  There has to be drive.  There has to be a GENUINE, INCORRUPTIBLE DESIRE to SERVE.  At a minimum, they have to have the guts to face their constituency.

Marc Boldt made a lot of hay off the concept of the "servant leader."

Until he decided to get rid of the "servant" part.  Then it all fell apart.

3.  Begin a serious, expensive, year-round effort to engage in minority outreach.

It became obvious shortly after my arrival in the Executive Director's chair that we were, and to a far too large extent, continue to be, a white bread, mostly male, bastion.  I strongly advocated then as now that the GOP begin to spend a lot of it's money on minority outreach.

The demographics speak for themselves, and the allegations of the GOP being primarily a mostly white. mostly male party will continue to resonate as long as there is no sustained, long term effort to change it.

The democrats own that issue.  And while we can point to some successes in the area of fostering minority involvement, those successes are far too few and in between.

This issue was super-critical when I advocated for it back in 2000, and it is ultra-critical now.

The irony here is that I believe that most values in the minority demo are conservative: as a rule, minorities are not huge drivers on the so-called "progressive" social issues; they loathe gay marriage and dope legalization that many white leftists see as the issue de jour, for example.

But because this party essentially ignores the minority segment or throws it under a bus like they did Allen West in Florida, who was a victim of GOP redistricting efforts in that state, the GOP will continue to flail away and have less and less to show for it.

4.  Study and co-opt democrat methods.

The Benton-Probst race was a microcosm of democrat campaign-think at the local level which closely mirrored their efforts at the national level.

There was no lie, no attack, no exaggeration, no twisting they would not do.  With the help of the national media at covering up and ignoring the incompetence and malfeasance of the moron-in-chief, much like the democratian's efforts at the same here locally concerning their democrat candidates, the map to success became clear.

That effort at class and political warfare, in essence, became TOO successful, leading to democrat hatred of anyone using the "R" label... and the subsequent abandonment of democrat Marc Boldt, who was the penultimate example of "RINO," for all the good THAT did him, and who thousands of democrats refused to vote for... even though that refusal would be the same as a refusal to vote for Steve Stuart... given their close political alliance.

The difference?  The label.    

As of this writing, there are 38,000 undervotes and write ins in the Madore-Boldt race.  In the other commissioner race, Mielke - Tanner, there are 17,000.  It's like that 20,000 of those undervotes belonged to democrats.

And in a race decided by around 14,000 or so votes.... what kind of difference could those likely democrat votes have made?

Had Boldt actually ran as a democrat, which this writer had urged him to do back in early April, he would have had a much better chance, and he would have likely gained the support of a major portion of those who refused to vote for him because of his bizarre, dogged insistence on claiming GOP membership in a group that did not, rightfully, want him.

The civility of politics that infuriates so many around here, or the lack thereof, has become the standard democrat shlock.  They beat the hell out of their opposition, and whine like sissies when the favor is returned.

We are in a fist fight, not a debate.  And it's a fight for our political lives.  Clearly democrats have long-since recognized that and have abandoned all pretense of truth, issues and honor.  That's obvious because, given the train wreck they've turned the left coast into and, for that matter, the entirety of this nation, they cannot run on their record so they become masters of deflection and controlling the debate.

The outcomes defy belief, given how horrifically bad their governance has been and will continue to be.

Like every other species, we must adopt or die out.  But in a war, when one side insists on following the rules the other side will typically kick their butts.

But the idea that we must ALL become democrat light and assume ownership like democrats over democrat issues is absurd.  Because, at the end of the day, if all we are to become is a different version of the fringe-left whackers running the show... then why bother?  What's the point?

I've repeatedly stated that it takes anger to depose an incumbent.  That anger in the massive opposition to the CRC bridge replacement/loot rail/toll scam is palpable.  And in this round at the local level, it was felt at the polls and the result was that the tax scam was slaughtered and leading local CRC scammer Marc Boldt was crushed by the voters.

The anger against that moron in the DC was just as palpable, but badly harnessed and incompetently led.

Caving in on "progressive/democrat" issues will only serve to fracture the GOP even more.  Even the discussion splinters us, and Boehner's abandonment of the fight against Obamacare, for example, tends to show the weakness of the GOP establishment that brought us such stellar leftists as McKenna, Dunn and Finkbeiner, who could not throw conservative principles under the bus fast enough... and who are all now called "losers"  

The steps I advocate are a long-term approach.  But the course the GOP is on... doing the same thing, over and over again, truly is a definition of insanity... much like the efforts of so many to shove principle aside in an abortive effort to win.

Sometimes, winning just isn't that important.  And if "winning" means you wind up with the same guy that has a different label... then what's the point?