Hinton: here's why Greg Jayne should have stuck to sports.

Regular readers know that I've been watching Greg fairly close since he took over for that despicable slimeball John "Pit Yorkie" Laird.

My overall assessment over the past few months?

He knows as much about politics as he does brain surgery.

His column today, for example.  He's dead wrong, of course: Here's but the latest example of that.

I am not guided in any way by the politics of political parties.  In my time within the GOP, I've climbed the very heights of party politics by my tenure of holding down the Executive Director's seat in the WAGOP and I've plumbed the very depths of state politics by watching self-serving amateurs and clueless "experts" try and turn it around by advocating precisely what Jayne advocated in his most recent column.

I could write for days on how wrong he is... and he is wrong, at every level.  But instead, time and reader interest being what it is, I'll just stick to the highlights.


First, my perspective is far beyond party politics: I no longer participate in or care about them.

Jayne, an obvious outsider and political neophyte, is driven by something else.  It's problematic when anyone from a fringe left, write as if the dems are paying them publication offers up "advice" on how the GOP "needs to change."

Taking it a step further, the election of 2012 here locally effectively disproved everything Jayne had to say.

Apparently, in Jayne's mind, the destruction of the democrats here in the last cycle didn't happen.  The conservative takeover of the county commission is a fantasy: that of the 15 legislators representing at least part of this county, 11 of them are GOP.  That's meaningless to Jayne if his column is to be believed.

For Jayne, political life is reduced to winning and losing.  That's utter nonsense.

It should be reduced to what's best for the country and the community.

If, for example, I had the ability to forecast danger in Jayne's future: if I could see that he would be shot in a robbery at, say, Sunshine Bagel... and I knew it was going to happen on Tuesday... should the fact that Jayne REALLY, REALLY, wants a bagel from Sunshine stop me from telling him that he's going to be shot in a robbery if he goes there?  No matter HOW badly he wants one?

If I were to use his reasoning?

The answer is yes.  He'd rather be shot.

Jayne brings up the minor slap of Jaime Herrera getting lightly tapped on each wrist for throwing us under the Obamacare bus.  For that and many other reasons, she should be as sanctioned as Boldt was (And how did THAT hurt the local GOP?)

He fails to mention that events have PROVEN that simple idiot representing us in Congress dead wrong: that Obamacare has proven itself to be an outright disaster in every dimension, and that she and the REST of the House GOP SHOULD have done what I advocated: hang tight and don't back down... the way the GOP ALWAYS backs down.

The waste of skin known as Jaime Herrera should have been kicked out of the party last fall when she slapped the local GOP by endorsing Boldt.  And she should have been kicked out of the party instead of just getting a "letter" from the local GOP over selling us out on the shut down.

So, of course, when you start with a fallacy, everything that follows is typically false.

The reason... the true reason... that Jayne is engaging in his ignorant babble is that his employer hates for a living.  His boss lives in a cocoon of hate.  And that hate is directed at the local GOP.

Jayne's excuse:  The GOP is so darned interesting... but the Obamacare circular firing squad has no appeal at all.... right?

Greg brings up the "fight" here locally... but then fails to cite a single instance where that "fight" resulted in damage to either the local GOP OR our community.  In fact, he fails to mention a single instance that would obliterate his hypothesis:  Tom Mielke's victory in his re-election to the county commission.

Outspent 8 to 1, that successful race was almost ENTIRELY driven by the same ideology that Jayne claims the GOP should not use for its candidates or politics.  And that example alone shows how absurdly wrong Jayne actually is.

He fails to mention kicking Marc Boldt out, or the laughingly false reactions of both the despicable rag he works for OR the lying local democrats (We don't do that sort of thing.... unless, of course, your name is Rodney Tom or Tim Sheldon.  Then we'll beat you with a chain.)

He then looks entirely at the outcome of the VA governor's race while completely ignoring the Millions the left overspent the GOP with as that self-same GOP abandoned Cuccinelli.  (Of course, hiring Jon Russell (Yes.... THAT Jon Russell) to go get donuts or whatever probably doomed him from that moment) to the tune of being outspent $15 million or so as if that didn't make any difference...

His bogus reliance on a pre-determined outcome from some food bank guy in New York proving, once again, that figures don't lie, but Liars figure... (Romney's 47% figure was, based on the totality of massive increases in ALL social programs (Not just food stamps) dead on the money... another fact that Jayne choose to overlook.)  was meaningless as a basis for an entire hypothesis.

On one hand, Jayne tells us this:

As I have pointed out a couple times, in 2012, more Americans voted for Democrats for president, for the Senate, and for the House of Representatives.

Then in the very next line, tells us:

Republicans retained their majority in the House, but Democrats in total received more votes in House races.

But... but... how can Republicans be so wrong if the GOP retained control of the House?

There certainly is no more ideologically driven body than that.  And yet, the House remains firmly in GOP control?  And what does that mean?  I mean, there's no way that democrats received more votes as an outcome of, say, redistricting or anything, right?

For a leftist, it means the exact opposite of what Jayne tells us.  It means that, in fact, ideology DOES sell.  And it tells us that the issue of ideology in state and national races is NOT the problem.

"Losing" has a variety of faces.  It can have the face Jayne is talking about... but, of course, it doesn't in this instance: most of what Jayne wrote here is demonstrably false, for example.  It can also have the face of technological incompetence... GOP get-out-the-vote efforts have become miserable since at least 08.

It can have the failure to appreciate the issue of minority outreach, which should be a full time, 364-day effort... but which, up to now, seems to be ignored at about every level of the GOP.

Was Jayne completely unaware, for example, of the disaster of the Romney GOTV program?  Would it have made any difference in his false theories if he were?

Yes, the GOP has left me.  But not because of the in fighting: it's just as harsh inside the dem party... it's just not as public.

It's left me because of the very people Jayne claims, effectively, we should support: those who consistently cave to and work for the left.

The question was asked earlier on in his column:

"Why should we be the ones to change?" my friend asked. "Why should we compromise if we're on the right side of the argument? Why shouldn't Democrats be the ones to change?"

He never answered it, beyond relying on a party labels.  And I am so beyond supporting a candidate merely because of that. 

A better question would be this: what good does it do to elect someone claiming to be an "R" but who governs like a "D?"

What good did it do the people of New Jersey to re-elect an R in D's clothing as their governor?

Are their taxes lower?  Are their programs more effective?  Is the NJ government more responsive?

No?  Then why does it matter WHO they elected when the OUTCOME IS THE SAME.

For example, here, in 2012 statewide, what was the outcome for the 3 main candidates most closely aligned with the "Jayneian" worldview?

They ALL lost.  ALL of them.  And they lost in large part because his vaunted "independents" didn't come through and their base stayed home... since voting for people who espoused democrat policies and theories (Here locally, McKenna supported the CRC Scam, the Cowlitz Casino scam, and the entirety of the gay agenda... you know, just like Outslee?  So tell me again why I should have voted for McKenna instead of Scooby-do?) really isn't all that different from voting for the democrat.

In a conversation very much like this one the other day, I responded to someone espousing the same kind of perspective.  This is what I said:

But before you trumpet the success of the "moderate" Republican statewide in THIS state, it might be helpful if you could provide some examples.

I provided examples of abysmal failure (McKenna, Dunn, Finkbiener)... which goes back to my initial observation: You can lose with principles intact... or you can lose without any.

We got clobbered without any.

Your way doesn't work anymore than the most hard core conservative. I submit the problem isn't one of political philosophy... its far more basic than that.

The iron grip the "establishment" has on the GOP has failed as much as it did when the Craswell wing ran the show.

I have been hammering on two things completely absent from this state's GOP since I was holding down the ED's seat in Tukwila: a full time, year round minority outreach program and a re-emphasis on infrastructure that will enable a state-of-the-art voter ID and GOTV program.

You can have the greatest platform known to man but if, as in the last election in Vancouver, we can't get our people motivated and get their ballots in, it won't make any damned difference.

Right now, the argument is focusing on the china patterns after we hit the iceberg. After the ship sinks, it won't matter what team the cruise liner company roots for.

Actively implement THOSE two items.  Then, if the GOP continues to lose.... we can have this conversation.  Until those things happen, there's not a damned thing anyone can do to turn it around in Washington State or any other state and the GOP will be doomed to failure... ideology notwithstanding... because if you cannot get minorities to see... if you cannot get your votes to the election office... then none of the rest of it will matter.

And that's the thing, Greg: I and many others are sick of voting for someone merely because of a party label.  And again, in failing to answer the questions that you posed... and failing to truly study the issues and determine the real reasons for GOP difficulty, which certainly are far more technologically based then ideologically based, all you've done here is built a GOP
piñata so your leftist buddies can use your column as yet another opportunity to beat the hell out of the GOP using your stick as the club.

But then.... you knew that was going to happen, right?

In that regard, you're no different than Lefty Lou Brancaccio, Greg: you just have a slicker shine on your paint job.