GOP Chairman Plans to Get Jiggy With One Armed Midgets

Fresh from a November butt whooping that is still stinging, Republican National Committe Chairman Michael Steele is set to modernize the GOP and get down with the young folks.

From this CNN article:

“We need messengers to really capture that region — young, Hispanic, black, across section…” he said in an interview published Thursday. “We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings.”

He added, jokingly, that “we need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets.”

At first glance, it appears that Chairman Steele lifted this strategy from a bad movie from the '80's, something like Breakin' 2': Electric Boogaloo or any other flick where a group must cross the culture gap in order to save the rec center, or in this case, a political party.

I think Steele is missing the most important thing in politics; that ideas come first and then come the supporters. It wasn't simple voter backlash that cost the Republicans the elections of 2006 and 2008. The public perception of them is that they cannot be trusted and this perception was well earned. Michael Steele can't just tell everyone they have a new and better idea and expect everyone to believe him

Steele described the new multi-platform PR offensive as “avant-garde, technically. It will come to [the] table with things that will surprise everyone — off the hook.” Asked whether that meant cutting-edge tactics, Steele demurred. “I don't do 'cutting-edge,’” he said. “That's what Democrats are doing. We're going beyond cutting-edge.”

Perhaps he means bleeding edge or some other buzzword that gets thrown around corporate offices. One thing is for sure, I doubt we're going to see anything from the Republican party that is "off the hook", unless it involves an admission that about a dozen things that happened over the last eight years were a mistake. Don't hold your breath.