Reforming the GOP.

Ever since President Obama trounced (I say trounced simply because it was clear months in advance--and contrary to what Dick Morris and Karl Rove had insisted--that there was no way that Romney could win--just ask Nate Silver) Mitt Romney in the presidential race pundits on the right and the left have been looking at how the GOP can reform itself to take back the White House.  Many like Bobby Jindal have suggested different messaging.  Jindal has specifically (and literally) said that the GOP needs to stop being stupid.  However, he seems to mean that they need to stop expressing themselves stupidly, not that they need to stop maintaining stupid positions.  Jindal has been largely praised for what has seemed like a bold move.  And the message has been received--at the House Republican retreat in January, GOP congressmen were instructed not to talk about rape.  On the other hand, Karl Rove's SuperPAC (the same SPAC that spent incredible amounts of money on 2012 elections and saw little return on its investment) has started a new project to keep Tea Partiers like Todd Akin (also trounced by Claire McCaskill), Richard Mourdock (whom the Tea Party used to oust Dick Lugar, and was then defeated by Joe Donnelly) and Paul Broun (who serves on the House Science Committee despite denying the big bang, evolution and apparently the whole discipline of embryology)  from running against more moderate and, more importantly, electable GOPers.  What is most interesting is that, while Rove seems to be offering practicable solutions to a GOP problem (as compared to the "stop talking about rape" approach), he has been bashed by many in his own party.  Conclusion:  Bobby Jindal was right.

Here's John Dickerson's competent analysis from this morning.

A terrible argument with a true conclusion.

I try to be logically consistent--which is to say that I try not to contradict myself.  Nevertheless, I am sure I do some times.  At times it is because my opinion has changed on an issue (in this sense, I am not embarrassed in the least by my contradictions, which are a sign of growth and learning).  Other times I have not fully understood an issue from all angles.  But I try not to contradict myself within the course of one and the same argument.  Jennifer Rubin, WP blogger, has an interesting article today on the problems with the primary process (at least on the GOP side).  Her conclusions (as ideas, not as conclusions) are quite interesting.

Nevertheless, good logic is not a matter of good conclusions (only), but of strong premises.  In the course of her argument, Rubin claims that the test of a GOP candidate has become to narrow:

The problem is the second half of this part of the argument:

You cannot claim both that the strainer is incredibly fine and that Romney somehow made it through.  Romney conformed to almost none of the conditions Rubin has described in the second paragraph above--he's not a life-long conservative by most standards; his position on immigration included the insane notion of "self-deportation"; he had little blue-collar appeal (47% remark did not endear him to this demographic); and he did little to wow conservatives with his rhetoric.  So, if you read her article today, just skip to the end:

Senators who stare at goats.

Dear citizens of Georgia,

This is what your GOP state senators are doing with your tax dollars.

Sincerely,

The Idiot Whisperer.