Peggy Noonan on the Republican Media Infrastructure

[Toro]

What is different now, and it really is different, is that assisting and complicating the Republican process is something that didn't exist in 1977 and was only a nascent force in 2000, and that is the conservative media infrastructure. The Republican Party has never re-formed itself while such a thing existed. The infrastructure changes things just by being. ...

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele learned this three months ago, when he said Rush Limbaugh was angry. Mr. Steele felt forced to grovel in apology because Rush is more powerful than he is. When Michael Steele gets up in the morning, 20 million people don't wait to hear his opinion. Rush made him look weak. That's not an especially good look when you're trying to rebuild a party.

Conservatives talking only to conservatives is like liberals talking only to liberals. A certain unreality can be enforced. It can encourage a false sense of momentum and dominance when you have an audience of millions saying, "You got that right, buddy."

More voters have declared themselves independents since Mr. Obama came into the presidency. He is popular and admired, but America remains in play. The White House knows this; it's why it is so keen and deadly in its political outreach and media operations. They're never not on the case. They know they can't afford to be.

And they're always presenting themselves as smiling centrists. ...

The Democratic message on the Republicans has gone from "the party of no" to "the party of angry white men." If they get away with it, it will be in part because angry talkers in the conservative media infrastructure too often leave themselves open to the charge. ...

The Case for Getting off Base - WSJ.com

 

[garyd]

Sounds more like a case for a response in kind to the lying left. We lost the last election for two reasons. 1st we moved not to the center but to the left and second became champions not of smaller governemnt but massive government intervention in just about everything. Given a choice between politicians willing to give away almost everything and those willing to give away everything the Republican party base will pretty much opt to sit it out and the Dems the party of giving everything will win. And then when you opt to irritate the Religious folk as McCain did the fact that he lost as narrowly as he did in the popular vote is a testament not that we need to spend more time irritating the base that we can't win without but to the real weakness of the coalition that brought Obama to power.