by Mark Silva
The rebooting of the Republican Party will be televised.
A couple of the party's more charismatic conservatives - Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney - met at a suburban Washington pizza parlor over the weekend to start a new GOP listening tour.
And some of the party's congressional camps are turning to the communications expertise of George W. Bush's White House - which in fact had assembled a pretty competent team of communicators at the end - for some advice on how to talk the talking points: Politico reports that Dana Perino, the former president's last press secretary, Ed Gillespie, the last White House counselor and a former Republican National Committee chairman, and Tony Fratto, a deputy press secretary who honed his skills at Treasury before the West Wing, will join a workshop of the House Republican press secretaries on Friday.
Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, and Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, represent the business-minded wing of a Republican Party that's been put out of business for a while by the Obama administration and a solid and growing Democratic majority in Congress. Bush had steered his best advisors to the Romney camp last year, and while Romney fell far short of winning the GOP's presidential nomination he has given every indication of taking Obama's inaugural advice for Americans: Pick yourself up and dust yourself off.
Presumably, all these experts will come up with some positive advise for "The Party of No,'' the brand that the Democrats have slapped on the GOP fairly adroitly, with some help from the GOP itself.
Perino, Gillespie and Fratto represent "the gold standard for Republican communications professionals,'' House Republican Conference Communications Director Matt Lloyd explains.
Others see fool's gold: "Reuniting the Bush operation is like making a sequel to a very bad movie. House Republicans are better off staying home, watching soaps and coming up with new ideas for their out-of-touch party," Doug Thornell, spokesman for Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), tells Politico.
"We are battle-tested,'' Perino says.
The modest listening tour of the Bush-Romney-backed new National Council for a New America, courting new ideas for a new direction for a new chance at gaining a new foothold - get the operative adjective here? - was all ears for Brian Summers, a Republican who told the leaders assembled on Saturday in Arlington, Va.: "We gotta give Americans something to say yes to,''
"Well, all I can say is, Amen,'' Romney said.
It's time for the party to show some "humility,'' ABC News reports of Bush's words.
"It's time for us to listen first, to learn a little bit, to upgrade our message a little bit and not to to not be nostalgic about the past," said the former Florida governor, younger brother of one former president and son of another.
Comments
Tell them to give Neut Getrich a call. He'll show them the way to Tom DeLay, whom we know to be the great Heeler !! They better give our great Republican President, President Lincoln a quick study, then they will not have to gather some new tricks, with which to fool the electorate, again, again, and, yet, again !! The Republican party doesn't need some new tricksters, it needs to get rid of the old and dust off the book, of the genuine principles of Republicanism, putting away, Corporatism !! Can they do it ? We shall see !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, America | May 4, 2009 11:02 AM
I watched that Replican broadcast from the pizza parlor.
Phony yuks from Mitt about "the pizza here isn't free, its not a Democrat store". Yuk yuk.
Not a single thing was said that they haven't said a thousand times before.
Cantor, the supposed "rising star", seemed particularly lost and wimpy.
Jebidiah was all about "listening" and not being "nostalgic" about past eras when they were in power.
Well, nostalgia is not the word I would have used. And it is not too hard to remember 3 years ago, when the bad guys still controlled all 3 branchs.
But, Jebidiah, I did like the part you said about "listening" in that the negative pregnant is you won't be talking too much.
Posted by: ornery | May 4, 2009 11:14 AM
It's unbelievable to me that Jeb Bush is even in the picture. That is a very stupid move for the republican party. Even if they love Jeb Bush, he should be in the background.
Posted by: Grandblvd03 | May 4, 2009 11:44 AM
The above article is about Republicans, and the person quoted most is (surprise!) a Democrat!
The DNC Swamp doing its usual......
Posted by: Bruce | May 4, 2009 11:49 AM
Perhaps the Republican's might wnat to listen to some of the wisdom of the first Republican President.
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"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labor and capital producing mutual benefits."
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"Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar."
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Or perhaps they should listen to the Republican President Theodore Roosevelt.
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"Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it. "
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"It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize. "
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"It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form ... they shall do so under absolutely truthful representations ... Great corporations exist only because they were created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions. "
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"No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered – not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."
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"The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. "
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"The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being."
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Posted by: David Davis | May 4, 2009 1:59 PM
As I predicted here - the Repub smear machine is tearing apart the bloved S. Palin,,, from Politico today,,,
In the latest instance of a high
profile GOP member taking a passing swipe at the party’s 2008 vice-presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Governor and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney jokingly dismissed Sarah Palin’s inclusion on Time’s list of influential people in an interview broadcast Sunday.
He asked, was "the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people?"
She's toast.
Posted by: gus | May 4, 2009 2:38 PM
Hey, " Gus ", if Governor Palin is Toast, what is Mitt, French Toast !!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, America | May 4, 2009 4:57 PM