"I shouldn't have to check my bank account before I fill up my car. Sooo much of my paycheck ends up going to gas. We haven't even talked about my heating bill at home. So when it comes to energy policy for this country, I'm for everything—solar, wind, shale gas, oil, whatever. I'm a Republican because we should have an all of the above energy policy.
First, if he likes "all of the above" energy policies, he should vote for Obama. Second, he shouldn't like "all of the above" energy policies, because they don't make his gas cheaper. They make all of the energy companies richer. Third, stop fucking driving everywhere. Or at least car pool with your awesome unemployed friends. What kind of a hipster are you?
Is this more evidence of the GOP's inability to resonate with young voters? It would be, if youth outreach really was the aim of this campaign. Certainly it evinces the same post-2006, post-2012 implosion reasoning we've seen Republicans display: "It's not our philosophy that's wrong! It's our messaging!" They've seen all the Obama ads, and they think the ads' cultural currency lies in their special sauce of buzzwords and images, not in the underlying ideas and beliefs. Conservatives give liberals credit for pathos, but never for ethos and logos, probably because of conservatives' pathological belief in their own ethical and logical superiority.
But I'm not convinced this is a serious effort, any more than the GOP's half-hearted, comically failing efforts at online crowdsourcing, grassroots outreaching, cyber innovating, or Hispanic bridge-building. It's not as if they made a truly bold ad showing Scott talk about how glad he is that his gay friends can finally share work benefits through marriage because so many GOP leaders have acceded to public opinion on that particular issue. They didn't make that ad because they don't want to alienate, you know, real Republicans.
More likely, an old donor wants to see some youth outreach, and the RNC finds Scott, a young Beltway acolyte to provide them with a simulacrum of youth culture for a couple of shekels. We have the horn-rimmed glasses! The pomaded hair! A brick tenement across a city street! Talk of money problems and friends!
The RNC likely doesn't give a flying rat's patoot if this campaign hooks in a single under-35 voter. But if it impresses a couple of rich country-club grandpas and loosens up their checkbooks, it will have served its purpose. This is marketing for dollars, not for votes. When the alpha and omega of your philosophy is market capitalism, you assume dollars can always buy votes. And until the American electorate starts proving Republicans wrong on a regular basis, the shitty, laughably cynical ad-making business will persist."
rest at http://gawker.com/the-gop-hipster-is-a-pampered-babbling-sack-of-horse-1547362023
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