Steven Kurlander: Real grassroots transition required: Rebuilding the GOP
Steven Kurlander: Real grassroots transition required: Rebuilding the GOP So far, if you were to sum up the Donald Trump team transition, it’s pretty disappointing in terms of delivering important changes in how Washington works that the president-elect promised during the campaign. For the most part, the present transition period is dominated by insiders from the Grand OLD Party, threatening the promise of a freethinking Trump White House and the promised change that America yearns for. Trump’s victory was rooted in a hope for true change in not only in the way Washington governs, but also in terms of changing the political system to be more responsive and representative of the true majority of American people. That included remaking and revitalizing a stratified and lethargic Republican Party that not only did everything possible to thwart his candidacy, but has proved incapable of truly connecting with a majority of Americans nationwide. If one thing is certainly obvious, it’s that President-elect Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election by putting together a truly grassroots populist campaign that won the hearts and minds of disillusioned Americans. These voters, many of whom had never voted or stopped voting, came to the polls to vote for Trump, or against Hillary. What defined this Trump swing group? These were the voters that both the Democratic and Republican parties had forsaken or taken for granted over the last two decades. Trump and his loyal, core staff ran a brilliant guerilla-style campaign, using unorthodox messaging and strategies that reached a 21st-century silent majority. Nowhere was this more true than in the make-or-break battleground of Florida. There, they fought with limited financial resources a victorious three front war against both the Democrats and Republican parties as well as the mainstream press, too. In fact, Florida was ground zero in that regard for Trump, whose team lead by seasoned political operative Karen Giorno and self-funded by the candidate not only knocked out former Florida Governor Jeb Bush before March 15, but leveled Senator Marco Rubio in his home state primary by winning 66 of 67 counties in the GOP primary. The agile, lean and mean Florida methodology crafted by Giorno became the populist Trump blueprint for victory in November as she was elevated to national coalitions and grassroots operatives, as well as the Director of Women’s Engagement and took the show on the road to North Carolina and Pennsylvania. It worked, carrying these states for Trump on Nov. 8 and gaining unheard of percentages in Democratic strongholds like Palm Beach County. “Karen Giorno understood how to win Florida for Mr. Trump and she did just that. Then she took that playbook to the other battlegrounds states. She’s a winner,” said former Hialeah Mayor Julio Martinez, who strongly supported Trump. But after such a brilliant victories in Florida and other states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan, the fear of the new Trump coalition has the GOP striking back — and leaving Trump loyalists like Giorno scratching their heads wondering how the RNC is taking credit for a victory they had very little if nothing to do with. Instead, the GOP that Trump conquered is now getting an undeserved second lease on life. They are also now rewriting the election narrative to claim sole credit for his win, especially in Florida. More troubling? you don’t hear anything at all about making changes to the Republican Party. In order for the GOP to survive, the achievement by Trump’s campaign of fusing the GOP faithful with independents and disenfranchised Democrats must be taken further to move the nation forward with a durable coalition. In addition to delivering on his campaign promises on trade, immigration and job creation, Trump also must “shake up” the present GOP party apparatus by bringing his original campaign and populist political philosophy into a new, rebuilt populist Republican Party. More importantly, unless Trump remakes a “Grand New Party” as his own brand of new American political reality, and includes members of his original “Trump” team from the campaign, he will quickly lose the goodwill of those that elected him to office. What looks right now like a “Bush-league” GOP domination of a Trump Administration certainly won’t result in making American Great Again, much less than ensuring a doomed presidency from the start. ___ Steven Kurlander blogs at Kurly’s Kommentary and writes for FloridaPolitics.com. He is an attorney and communications specialist living in Monticello, New York. He can be reached at kurlyskommentary@gmail.com.
Ben Pollara: A Democrat’s unsolicited advice for the GOP that created Donald Trump
What is more appealing for Democrats like me? Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, or a fractured convention that produces a nominee who received no Republican primary votes, like Paul Ryan? Honestly, both sound pretty good and likely to culminate in a Hillary Clinton presidency. But it’s not up to Democrats like me, and the questions Republicans should be asking themselves have more serious consequences for both their party and our system of governance. Beyond my partisanship, I hold a core belief in the essential function of the two-party system and the imperfect, yet better than the alternatives, manner in which it maintains the values of our republican democracy. Assuming Trump enters Cleveland with a plurality but not majority of delegates, to deny him the nomination would shatter the Republican Party for a decade to come, and with it the two-party system that balances the most extreme tendencies of American political ideology. The media reacted with shock at Trump’s assertion that a brokered convention that denied him the nomination would lead to rioting. Trump has said many outrageous things, many of them without basis in fact. This was not one of them. Just as Vietnam and Civil Rights nearly tore apart the Democratic Party in 1968, denying Trump the nomination through Byzantine delegate rules would succeed in doing the same to the Grand Old Party. The party of Lincoln must come to terms with the reality that it now holds that moniker by historical fact only. The Republican Party has, by virtue of a political strategy to build a winning national coalition post-New Deal, become the party of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and yes, Donald Trump. To survive, Republicans must face down that which they have wrought through two generations of “dog whistle” racism and us-vs-them fearmongering that, until recently, served the cynical corporatists and political elites in the party quite well. The Southern Strategy and the rise of fundamentalist religious extremism paved the way for the K Street Project and 20 of 28 years of Republican White House occupancy; the Tea Party and Birtherism gave rise to the Koch-era and hegemony of the legislative branch in D.C. and most state capitols. But the craven decisions that led to these triumphs are causing the Republican Party to collapse under the weight of its own base. What fueled government shutdowns over previously benign issues like raising the debt ceiling and funding Planned Parenthood (and the ultimate ouster of John Boehner as Speaker of the House) is precisely what is fueling Donald Trump’s success. It is willful ignorance and intellectual dishonesty of the first degree for Republicans to bemoan the “Make American Great Again” movement and its accompanying rhetoric of angry xenophobia without owning responsibility for creating the environment that spawned it. You reap what you sow. Give Trump the nomination he has earned; you fostered the environment that incubated him. Let Trump fail spectacularly in November. Then look in the mirror and begin to rebuild the Republican Party in the image of Abraham Lincoln, rather than David Duke and his ilk. The alternative is a splintering of the very foundation of our political system and a generation of Democratic hegemony, which may have pundits in the not distant future bemoaning that “Barack Obama wouldn’t have been able to win a single state’s primary in today’s Democratic Party. He was basically a Republican.” Republicans should ask themselves, what is scarier? Four more years of a Democrat in the White House, or a future where that statement is true? • • • Ben Pollara is a political consultant and a founding partner of LSN Partners, a Miami Beach-based government and public affairs firm. He runs United for Care, the Florida medical marijuana campaign and is a self-described “hyper-partisan” Democrat.
Jeb Bush = Tiger Woods
For the past several weeks, the mainstream press has reveled in pummeling the soft underbelly of Jeb Bush‘s non-campaign. From a bad week on the trail when Jeb couldn’t provide a cogent response to the Iraq war question to a host of new occupants pushing their way into the Republican presidential clown car to an alleged “shake-up” on his staff that involved, let’s see, giving a guy from Iowa a different title in his nascent organization, the press has been relentless in painting Jeb as a hapless rube riding the bad side of the Darwinian curve. And yet, despite the foreshadowing of his demise, Bush has been consistently, and sometimes even powerfully, moving the ball down the field. In the past two weeks, he has managed to pull off what no other Republican candidate has accomplished: a trip to Europe where he effortlessly projected the competence of a seasoned American statesman. Bush received solid reviews for his deft handling of foreign policy and his ability to build diplomatic bonds. By contrast, when Chris Christie recently visited the United Kingdom — usually a layup for an American politician — he managed to turn it into a political disaster. Eventually, Christie even refused to take questions from reporters. Scott Walker did little better while in Europe, comparing Wisconsin union protesters to ISIS and lamely concluding that he wouldn’t answer questions about foreign policy on foreign soil. And then there was this week’s official announcement. Bush’s organization shrewdly packed a college gymnasium with thousands of rabid Jebophiles, many of whom were Latinos armed with Jeb-logoed thundersticks. (Contrast this to the 800 or so people who showed up for the Marco Rubio announcement.) The excitement and enthusiasm were palpable, and what we saw was perhaps the first glimpse ever of how a dominant and resurgent Republican Party could look in the decade ahead. One sensed that if Jeb Bush is elected president that historians will look back on that frenzied rally as a pivotal moment in the evolution of the Grand Old Party, and at center stage was the man who dared to reimagine the party in a new and compellingly inclusive way. Bush’s announcement was shockingly different than any other presidential announcement (almost ever), and Jeb looked perfectly comfortable in the frenetic and diverse environment. Now the announcement tour rolls on with Jeb popping up in the usual (Sean Hannity) and less expected (Jimmy Fallon) venues. He seems to be in full command of his capacities, taking all questions and fulfilling his promise to “joyfully” campaign. This week the “White Lebron” will swing through the early primary states, shaking thousands of hands and selling himself at the retail level. It’s actually not Lebron whom Bush should be compared, but Tiger Woods. No, not the current Tiger Woods who recently missed the cut at the Quicken Loans National, but Tiger Woods circa 1999-2007 (which coincidentally overlaps with Bush’s time in office). For much of Woods storied golfing career, one of the bets offered was him vs. The Field, meaning you could wager either on Tiger winning or all of the other golfers playing in a tournament. That almost seems preposterous until you realize that going into most events The Field was only a slight favorite (a dollar bet would only earn you 50 cents, while a dollar bet on Woods would earn you a buck twenty). Of course, the smart money would week in and week out bet on The Field, but it would not feel good about doing so because there was so much potential on the other side of the proposition. The same can be said about the race for the GOP presidential nomination. With Rubio, Walker, John Kasich, and so many other talented golfers, err, candidates in the field, the smart money would probably take The Field versus Bush. Maybe. PredictIt, an online political stock market that uses the marketplace to forecast events, currently has a share of stock in Bush winning the GOP nomination at 42 cents (were Bush to actually win, that share would pay out at a dollar). That feels about right. It’s still safer to take the rest of The Field, but not by much. That’s how it was each weekend Tiger Woods played in a golf tournament. And that’s how the presidential race is shaping up in the early stages. Meanwhile, Jeb is fully on the comeback trail, although pitfalls may lay ahead. For starters, the pundit-fueled descriptions of his earlier missteps were overblown. There’s not really a systemic failure from which he needs to come back. But, the data points over the last few weeks point in a strongly positive direction. What we are seeing is Jeb unchained, a more seasoned and liberated version of the guy we remember as our very successful governor, now free to act like a real candidate and clearly comfortable in his own skin. This is the Jeb who, if he continues to take risks and amass a mountain of campaign contributions, can become our next president.
