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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"The Republican Party's Talent Gap"
The Republican Party's Talent Gapby Alex Roarty at the Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/the-republican-partys-talent-gap/283995/?google_editors_picks=true
"SNIP.................................
The biggest deficit Republicans face isn't the skills of their operatives or the absence of newfangled campaign technology. It's their numbers: The GOP simply doesn't have enough peopleor a wide-enough variety of them. And even those men and women who are working are often fitted into the wrong kind of job.
A December study by the progressive political firm New Organizing Institute found a wide chasm between the number of staffers on Democratic versus Republican campaignsnationally, the ratio was close to 3-to-1 in favor of Democrats. In swing-state Nevada, where Republicans had hoped the housing bust and vibrant Mormon community would lift Mitt Romney to victory, the totals were even more lopsided: 498 Democrats worked the state, to only 20 Republicans.
While the study isn't perfectit doesn't offer a full count of staffers who worked for a consultancy, for example, and it doesn't differentiate between those who worked on a campaign for three months and those who were there for just three daysits findings rang true for many plugged-in strategists who work on campaigns. "The end of our pool is smaller than the end of their pool in a lot of vital areas," said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican operative.
Worse, according to some Republicans, those who are working aren't in the right positions. "Anyone who has hung around GOP campaigns can tell you that this sounds totally intuitively right," Ruffini wrote in a blog post assessing the data. "Republicans concentrate their talent on the most traditional aspects of campaigning, while Democrats tend to blaze new ground in areas like data analytics, and focus more on [the] field."
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applegrove
(118,778 posts)reasons. They can't change that reality. LOL!
"Most young Republican operatives view organizing as a mere entry point to a career that will eventually lead to bigger, and better-paying, gigs. "Democrats actually set up and train people to think about those jobs as careers," said Brian Stobie, a partner at the GOP data-management firm Optimus. "A field-organizing roll can be a career over there. In our world, it's a $27,000-a-year job you can't wait to get out of."
"All you're thinking the whole time is, 'I can't wait to get out of this and be the political director,' " he added."
NRaleighLiberal
(60,019 posts)Talent? Ideas? Creativity? Nope.
applegrove
(118,778 posts)all kinds of assholes. The GOP has a lot of money. So it has a lot of assholes. Assholes will not work for the betterment of the group.
Adam051188
(711 posts)the actor's motivation has been taken away. thus the play falls apart.
Johonny
(20,888 posts)Isn't it hard to mobilize people to work when FOX news tells them they are winning? It is sort of a self defeating echo chamber. You hear you are winning and the thing is in the bag so why would you work to help? If you add to that they have made being a community organizer a dirty word so why would you want to be one?
Basically they have made it one of their central themes that campaigning like Democrats is communist, immoral, illegal, stupid, wasteful, and not appropriate so why is it surprising they can't get their people to campaign like Democrats?
Now add to that all the grifting that sucks talent away and you have a disaster. You build up a talent base but here comes non-candidate Sarah Palin to your state. Off go all your workers for five days to help promote and make money for Palin to... I don't know shop for more clothes. How did that help you win an election? During the last election you had non-candidates like Trump. Palin, and Joe not a plumber going about sucking talent in some state nearly every day.
I see no way that 2015-16 is going to be better for them. Every year FOX creates a new media darling grifter to add to the pack. They are hungry and they will bleed away from the talent base. A talent base absolutely in fear of being considered the next ACORN.