Voters Now Trust Republicans Most

This has nothing to do with what’s going on at AFP, sort of–but it now appears as though voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on all ten of the key issues Rasmussen Reports tracks. Click on the link to see the full breakdown.  Not every lead is statistically significant, but it should give us hope nonetheless!*

From the article:

Incumbent members of Congress don’t exactly get a vote of confidence from their constituents. Just 27% of voters think their representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job, down six points from November of last year. Only 37% believe their local congressional representative deserves reelection, compared to 42% who felt that way way last fall.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters say most members of Congress don’t care what their constituents think. Most voters continue to believe it would be better for the country if the majority of Congress is thrown out this November, but they also remain unconvinced that a Republican takeover will make a noticeable difference.

Now we can all just cross our fingers and hope that the 60% of voters who think their Congressman doesn’t care actually vote out their dud Congressman come November.

*I swear I’m not a fan of the Republican Party–but I think we can mostly agree that the Republican Party is better than the alternative.

Allie Winegar Duzett is the author of How to Save America: A Tactical Guide for Practical Patriots.  Find her on Twitter for livetweeting of the event. Crossposting today at Rightosphere and Conservatives4Congress.

Taking Back Education–AFP Summit

Still blogging from the Americans for Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit.

Isaac Morehouse with the Foundation for Economic Education says that to make a difference, we need to either shrink the Overton Window by narrowing the possibilities, or shift the Window entirely.  This means that we must change the window of what is acceptable to voters, either by making the window of potential options smaller, or by changing the window altogether.  To do this we must educate.  We need an informed electorate.

In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman points out that at the time of the American Founding, around 97% of Americans, male and female, were literate—which was even more astounding considering that in most nations at that time, reading was a privilege reserved for male aristocrats.  Nearly everyone could read, and moreover, nearly everyone did.   When Thomas Paine’s Common Sense came out, there was approximately one copy available for every three people on the American continent.  Virtually everyone on the continent had read Common Sense.  This is what it means to have an informed electorate.

This has to be our goal.  This has to be our goal.  We need to inform those around us, and not just for the short term.  We need to plan ahead with this.  The Left has been pretty effective with their long-term plans: see how they’ve almost completely conquered the field of academia.  Even the conservative, Christian college I attended had a strong left-wing bent in certain fields, such as environmental science.

We need to take back education.  And I don’t just mean in schools, although that’s important too, and we should all at least consider the possibility of someday becoming professors or professional schoolteachers.  But more than that, we need to blog.  We need to talk to our friends.  Update our Facebooks with important information.  We need to pass out flyers and invite our neighbors over for dinner to discuss the issues.  This is the way we’re going to make a difference in the long-term: we’re going to have to change our culture.  And that change will have to start with us.

Allie Winegar Duzett is the author of How to Save America: A Tactical Guide for Practical Patriots.  Find her on Twitter for livetweeting of the event. Crossposting today at Rightosphere, TruePoliticsUSA, and Conservatives4Congress.

Intentions Are Not Enough–AFP Summit

Blogging from the Americans for Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit today, and listening to Isaac Morehouse with the Foundation for Economic Education talk about how to make a difference.  He makes a good point:

Intentions are not enough.

I think this is a hard lesson the conservative movement is currently learning.  Just wanting smaller government and less spending is not enough.  We have to act.  And more importantly—when we act, we need to be sure that the ideas we are acting on are not just significant to us, but correct.

By this I mean, believing sincerely in something does not make it right.  Believing sincerely that a particular tactical move will make a difference politically does not automatically mean that it actually will.

This is why it’s so important that we as a movement and as individuals experiment with our political tactics.  And when we’ve found techniques that work, we need to keep using them.

Allie Winegar Duzett is the author of How to Save America: A Tactical Guide for Practical Patriots.  Find her on Twitter for livetweeting of the event. Crossposting today at TruePoliticsUSA, Rightosphere, and Conservatives4Congress.