The Republicans are sending campaign staffs to boot camp to teach them how to put out the fire after one of their candidates comes out in support of rape.
Buried in a Washington Post story about Republican plans to retake the Senate in 2014 was this little gem, “The NRSC is planning at least eight boot camps for staff in states with competitive races. Kevin McLaughlin, a veteran operative hired to work with campaign staff around the country, will run the communications schools with an eye toward preventing mishaps. He will also be in charge of a kind of campaign fire department, charged with quickly putting out blazes once mistakes are made.”
There are so many things wrong with this.
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Instead of teaching their candidates and campaigns that rape is a bad thing, Republicans have decided that what they need is better damage control. The party is conceding that they are still going to nominate pro-rape whack jobs, but they are going to try to do a better job convincing the country that electing a pro-rape/rapist Republican to the United States Senate is no big deal.
The Republican Party is still treating the symptoms instead of the disease. It is all part of the mindset that it is the message, not the party’s ideas, that is the problem. A much easier method of dealing with this would be to stop nominating candidates who believe that a raped woman can’t get pregnant, and in such things as legitimate rape. If the party would stop nominating socially conservative extremists, they wouldn’t need to worry about having a rapid response team in place to deal with the fallout when their candidates declare themselves pro-rape.
It isn’t that the Republican Party has been slow to react to the comments. It is that these should have never been said in the first place. This isn’t a difficult concept. Rape is a crime. People who commit rape are criminals. A political party should not be diminishing a heinous and violent crime, or supporting the perpetrators.
This isn’t hard Republicans. Voters will like you more if you stop supporting rape.
The Republican Party remains absolutely, utterly, absurdly clueless as to why they keep losing elections.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
