Friday, December 13, 2013

Sen. Marco Rubio demonstrated...

...this week one of the main problems with the Republican Party.

In a piece in the Daily Beast, Michelle Cottle reports that the likely contender for the 2016 GOP nomination opposed the Ryan-Murray budget deal. But it's not so much that as it is about how he did it (my emphasis):

Not that Rubio’s victory was one merely of speed. He lapped the field on intensity as well, pursuing an impressively aggressive schedule of media denunciations: Huckabee, Hannity, Megyn Kelly—even a full-on column on Breitbart.com, warning of how the deal was further threatening the American Dream. No WAY anyone can mistake where Rubio stands on this issue. He is 100 percent opposed to derailing the American Dream by allowing sequestration to be tinkered with.

"Huckabee, Hannity, Megyn Kelly and Breitbart.com." What, no piece in the National Review?

I'll just repeat what I wrote in a post last spring (substitute "Marco Rubio" for "Congressman Ryan" and "Romney"):

I wonder, why are Republicans always complaining about the "liberal" media when they only talk to newspapers and television stations owned by Rupert Murdoch? Why are they so mystified that they can't reach independents and Democrats? Why didn't Congressman Ryan publish his budget in the New York Times or the Washington Post or USA Today? Announcing his plan through the Journal is just preaching to the choir. And why didn't Romney appear on some of the Sunday shows before Labor Day (when President Obama's team was defining him)? Why didn't he give some interviews to CBS or NBC or ABC? Why did he confine himself to the network that employs people like Sarah Palin?

Is it really any wonder that the Republican Party has such low approval ratings? Why don't they try talking to the rest of the nation? Make their case to us, not just the GOP base. How on earth do Republicans expect to convince us of the wisdom of their policies when they won't even talk to us?

1 comment:

Ed Crotty said...

"epistemic closure" remains the law of the land on the right. Dr. Krugman covered it a while back, and while it seems like some Republicans have learned the lesson ( Boehner and Ryan ), Rubio always seems like he's fighting the previous battle, like he's just a little slow.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/30/notes-on-epistemic-closure/