I love Conservative Columnist Peggy Noonan.
Her Op-eds are refreshing. She is not afraid to talk tough to the GOP leaders, much of whom spend too time making money and then attempting to sell their message on the base and the rest of the country, expecting them to believe it just because they put a lot of money behind it. That approach did not work in 2008, and it definitely did not sell in 2012. Republicans stayed home, so put out were they by their Republican Presidential candidate, a nice boy who wore starched shirts, did his homework, played by the rules, and lost by a bare margin. Imagine if he had really wanted the job.
In the summer of 2012, Noonan sounded the alarm to an anemic Romney campaign. She told them to break all the complacency and get out the fighting fists. Romney did splendidly on the first debate, but he went back to his "choir boy" self for the second and final rounds. His loss was the National Party's loss.
So, the storm of liberal progressivism is brewing on the waters. Obama won the election, and now he wants to reign over the high seas of red ink, broken entitlements, and nothing but debt and dysfunction for the next two years. Exhibiting her true conservative panache for Reaganite optimism, Noonan rustled her conservative colleagues with the following exhortation on January 11: "It's pirate time!"
Stop playing by the rules, stop trying to be liked, stop expecting the Democrats to respect your right to share your views. Start having fun. Be daring, be bold, show the initiative. Hold the President accountable for everything he does or does not do. Stop playing from the Nelson Rockefeller "Mad Men" playbook, and ditch the "Southern Strategy" of the Nixon era. A fifty-state offensive is needed, not a rationed defense which hopes and pleads that the Democrats will let you have your say. It's time to have a good time. While Noonan was directly advising Washington Republicans, the message works just as well with the California Republicans, and all other states where Democratic supermajorities are taking their states from bad to worse.
However, some statewide pundits claim that Republicans' changing would happen when "dogs start to quack". Apparently, those writers never saw a duck-billed platypus, and they may be surprised by what they see from the GOP in the next two years. Until recently, Republican leaders have been whining like a flimsy New York comedian: "But I don't wanna be a pirate!" This cry of despair Jerry Seinfeld uttered to Kosmo Kramer when the lanky, mooching neighbor suggested that Jerry put on his low-talking girlfriend's new "puffy shirt" and advertise it on national TV.
In a similar vein, Republicans need to put on a new shirt. They do not wear a dark shir of intolerance, as suggested by the intolerant Colin Powell, but rather a "stuffy shirt" based on starched ideas which do not play out anymore. The "stuffy shirt" of starched ideas is tailored with general statements without any connection to local, pertinent issues. The "stuffy shirt" has hampered Republicans from making their case to the public. Minorities do not feel welcome, but they should feel at home in the Republican Party. There, the will find commitment to family values and individual liberty. They will find respect and recognition, as opposed to ruinous welfare policies which break up families and keep people in poverty.
While Jerry Seinfeld refused to wear the "puffy shirt", it's time of the Republican Party to put on "the puffy pirate shirt" and charge with force and moxie the empty lies of the statist, status quo liberals and Democratic Party. The rugged, grass-roots approach is needed now, a winner-take-all bravado full of humor and reckless fun, one of punching back, of refusing to let the liberal lies of yesteryear go unchecked. It's time for the GOP to get a grip, take off the gloves, and fight back. There is nothing wrong with getting negative, as long as you are being truthful. There is nothing wrong with getting in peoples' faces, as long as we give them room to step back and reject the ruinous policies of their leaders.
The Democrats have played pirate for too long: not of the high seas, but of high taxes, higher regulations, and the height of arrogance. They take away opportunity and wealth from the voters, and force people into wage and welfare slavery. The Democratic Party bosses have been intimidating statewide businesses, warning them that there would be repercussions in Sacramento on their business and profits if they did not endorse Democratic candidates.
Hoist the skull-and-crossbones, GOP operatives. The young people in this state are looking for a fight. They resent the old liberals who are spending their kids' future on their present sense of entitlement. They are tired off the stodgy establishment,represented today by devoured flower-power professors who have spent their middling years boring students with empty statist liberalism.
Make the Democratic Party elites walk the plank. Aye-Aye, Maties!
Yo Ho! Yo Ho, GOP! -- It's Pirate Time!
