Wealthy contributors who dashed off six- and seven-figure checks last year are eyeing super PACs and other politically active groups more skeptically frustrated that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to elect Romney went for naught.
The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter." ― Malcolm Gladwell Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
The Republican Partys senior operatives publicly are committing the cardinal sin of promising to spend tens of millions of dollars of its most generous donors money to lard up on data: knowledge. What instead is required to restore its ability to make good winning decisions is virtue: understanding. This critical distinction appears lost on the politicos.
Memo to the GOP donor base: to win (in 2014 and 2016 and beyond) the GOP can and must get just two things just right. First the GOP must (and can) reunite its libertarian and conservative factions around the Constitution. Second the party must (and can) use tech to decentralize not centralize: sending power to the edge.
How?
As this columnist recently noted the party can and must regenerate the principled operating alliance between its donor base the high-dollar libertarian financial elites and its popular base conservative very much including social conservative activists. This requires leadership humility rather than cleverness.
It readily can be done by the GOPs rededicating itself to the core American principles contained in the Declaration of Independence the Constitution and the Gettysburg Address. These hold doctrines compelling to libertarians to conservatives and to the vast majority of Americas voters including both independents and Reagan Democrats.
These documents contain Americas political genome. They set forth the requisite mission statement" for any political party bound for victory: Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" from the Declaration of Independence; the small r" republican principles and the Bill of Rights commitment to civil liberties from the Constitution; and the populist manifesto that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedomand that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth" conclusion of the Gettysburg Address.
Second the GOP must wake up to use tech to put power to the edge." Power to the edge" is a doctrine developed by the great air-to-air combat strategist Genghis John" Boyd. As the Wikipedia summarizes the profoundly successful (and profoundly influential although not on the GOP) Boyd Theory:
The key to survival and autonomy is the ability to adapt to change not perfect adaptation to existing circumstances. Indeed Boyd noted that radical uncertainty is a necessary precondition of physical and mental vitality: all new opportunities and ideas spring from some mismatch between reality and ideas about it as examples from the history of science engineering and business illustrate."
Most GOP superconsultants and senior operatives act at base as managers rather than leaders. The concept that radical uncertainty is a necessary precondition of … vitality" is utterly alien to a manager. Managers crave a delusive certainty.
It is bitterly ironic that a political party doctrinally committed to smaller government and free enterprise should be mired operationally in utterly discredited dogmas of central command and control. The obliviousness of the GOPs magnificos to political battle doctrine fully assimilated by the left will if left unchecked prove fatal to the GOP and if so to the GOPs vision for America.
The GOP establishment has proven and is continuing to prove itself recalcitrant at standing for small r" republican principles liberty and in sending power to the edge." But there is hope. The GOPs key donors are showing signs according to the Washington Post of taking control away from the entrenched party leadership.
In their pitches many organizations are pledging to diversify their approaches and not rely as heavily on expensive television advertising as they did in the last election…. The new emphasis is on digital campaigns and get-out-the-vote organizing … .
The operatives promise to diversify" sounds like an exercise in becoming fully buzzword compliant" rather than understanding." Nothing they have announced even hints at a desire to use tech to take power to the edge." Of course the consultants desire to maintain their own command and control at all costs. For many of the party elites actually winning elections is secondary almost an amenity.
There are grounds for hope that the big donors wont fall for it. The donors arent stupid. And the GOP high command with endless rationalizations for defeat bears an obvious resemblance to the Pentagon after its humiliating loss in a 2002 quarter-billion dollar war game Millennium Challenge.
Malcolm Gladwell in Blink recounts the story.
It was the largest and most expensive war game thus far in history. It would end up costing a quarter of a billion dollars which is more than some countries spend on their entire defense budget.
With Millennium Challenge … the Blue Team representing the Pentagon was given greater intellectual resources than perhaps any army in history. … They were given an unprecedented amount of information and intelligence from every corner of the U.S. government and a methodology that was logical and systematic and rational and rigorous. They had every toy in the Pentagons arsenal.
…
War is shrouded in fog. The point of Millennium Challenge was to show that with the full benefit of high-powered satellites and sensors and supercomputers that fog could be lifted….
Paul Van Riper head of the opposing Red Team … was the antithesis of this position. … Van Riper became convinced that war was inherently unpredictable and messy and non-linear. … It wasnt that Van Riper hated all rational analysis. Its that he thought it was inappropriate in the midst of battle where uncertainties of war and the pressures of time made it impossible to compare options carefully and calmly.
Van Riper was supposed to be cowed and overwhelmed in the face of a larger foe. … When Red Teams surprise attack was over sixteen American ships lay at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Had Millennium Challenge been a real war instead of just an exercise twenty thousand American servicemen and women would have been killed before their own army had even fired a shot.
…
In the weeks and months that followed there were numerous explanations from the analysts… about exactly what happened that day in July. … But none of the explanations change the fact that Blue Team suffered a catastrophic failure."
The GOP has proven itself proficient at losing through hubris elections. It is proficient at concocting numerous explanations." Its operatives and professionals have gone through extravagant exercises the RNC forensic audit" or autopsy" (or whitewash") being but one to regain their control over the hundreds of millions of dollars to be milked from its elite donor base. Happily it is looking as if that donor base is no pushover.
The fortunes of the Republican Party and of the republic depend on the GOPs superdonors demanding the Grand Old Party rediscover its core mission of championing small-r republican American principles including liberty and constitutional rights. And the future of the GOP and of America itself depends on sending power to the edge."
Let the lingering hangover among conservative donors" turn into a full-blown donor revolt. Radical uncertainty teaches us that power to the edge" is the only way to victory in war in business in government … and in politics.
The donors have been deferential to senior operatives and party officials. But just as shareholders who have been deferential to entrenched management can losing patience turn against managers that continually lose market share and money so these donors can turn. Andy Kroll in Mother Jones observes: 72 percent of all super-PAC donations in the 2012 election cycle came from just 253 rich people who each gave half a million dollars or more."
It is in these or some of these just 253 rich people" that hope for a GOP renaissance resides. The superdonors have the power to pull the Rogue Elephant from the precipice.
The GOPs officials and superconsultants have been overheard throwing around All Hat No Cattle" sums $20 million for the proposed Rove-favored Data Trust for example.
Sounds like bluster. Where is all this money supposed to come from? According to a page one article by the Washington Posts Matea Gold on Sunday June 22 Conservative donors eye independent groups with new skepticism:
Seven months after the 2012 election a lingering hangover among conservative donors has stalled efforts by right-leaning independent groups to fill their coffers. Wealthy contributors who dashed off six- and seven-figure checks last year are eyeing super PACs and other politically active groups more skeptically frustrated that the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to elect Romney went for naught.
In their pitches many organizations are pledging to diversify their approaches and not rely as heavily on expensive television advertising as they did in the last election…. The new emphasis is on digital campaigns and get-out-the-vote organizing … .
The operatives promise to diversify" sounds like an exercise in becoming fully buzzword compliant" rather than understanding." Nothing they have announced even hints at a desire to use tech to take power to the edge." Of course the consultants desire to maintain their own command and control at all costs. For many of the party elites actually winning elections is secondary almost an amenity.
There are grounds for hope that the big donors wont fall for it. The donors arent stupid. And the GOP high command with endless rationalizations for defeat bears an obvious resemblance to the Pentagon after its humiliating loss in a 2002 quarter-billion dollar war game Millennium Challenge.
Malcolm Gladwell in Blink recounts the story.
It was the largest and most expensive war game thus far in history. It would end up costing a quarter of a billion dollars which is more than some countries spend on their entire defense budget.
With Millennium Challenge … the Blue Team representing the Pentagon was given greater intellectual resources than perhaps any army in history. … They were given an unprecedented amount of information and intelligence from every corner of the U.S. government and a methodology that was logical and systematic and rational and rigorous. They had every toy in the Pentagons arsenal.
…
War is shrouded in fog. The point of Millennium Challenge was to show that with the full benefit of high-powered satellites and sensors and supercomputers that fog could be lifted….
Paul Van Riper head of the opposing Red Team … was the antithesis of this position. … Van Riper became convinced that war was inherently unpredictable and messy and non-linear. … It wasnt that Van Riper hated all rational analysis. Its that he thought it was inappropriate in the midst of battle where uncertainties of war and the pressures of time made it impossible to compare options carefully and calmly.
Van Riper was supposed to be cowed and overwhelmed in the face of a larger foe. … When Red Teams surprise attack was over sixteen American ships lay at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Had Millennium Challenge been a real war instead of just an exercise twenty thousand American servicemen and women would have been killed before their own army had even fired a shot.
…
In the weeks and months that followed there were numerous explanations from the analysts… about exactly what happened that day in July. … But none of the explanations change the fact that Blue Team suffered a catastrophic failure."
The GOP has proven itself proficient at losing through hubris elections. It is proficient at concocting numerous explanations." Its operatives and professionals have gone through extravagant exercises the RNC forensic audit" or autopsy" (or whitewash") being but one to regain their control over the hundreds of millions of dollars to be milked from its elite donor base. Happily it is looking as if that donor base is no pushover.
The fortunes of the Republican Party and of the republic depend on the GOPs superdonors demanding the Grand Old Party rediscover its core mission of championing small-r republican American principles including liberty and constitutional rights. And the future of the GOP and of America itself depends on sending power to the edge."
Let the lingering hangover among conservative donors" turn into a full-blown donor revolt. Radical uncertainty teaches us that power to the edge" is the only way to victory in war in business in government … and in politics.