Lessons for the GOP from Steve Jobs

We always hear from the mainstream of the Republican leadership that you need to win the independents by persuading them. The result of that seems to be that the GOP leadership believes that a principle of politics is that you move to the independents to persuade the independents. You make your thoughts similar to the independents' thoughts. The Reagan counterargument has always been to persuade the independents to come to the conservatives.

This sounds remarkably similar to Steve Jobs's description of how to move the computer marketplace. Even as a liberal, he leaves the GOP a lesson by analogy. He believed that you needed to find a message about computers and software that drew people to your product.

Jobs did not try and play Microsoft and find pieces and parts that IBM used to build the first PC. He made his own product. He did not always make the rest of the tech world happy to see the way he did it.  His consumers were often pleased with the results of his late career products.

The Republican Party needs to learn a lesson from Jobs. Make your own product. Do not imitate your competitor. Rise and fall on your own merits.

Don't compromise on refusing tax rate increases. Give up on matters that make your product stronger. Push Romney's caps on deductions and let the taxpayer choose the deductions he chooses. (It is not as good as really low rates. There is too much incentive to spend money on tax advisors to save this year's taxes, rather than on growing businesses and wealth for future growth.)

Push strong national defense. Period.

Fight Islamic terror and expansionism. Period.

Push for strong healthcare through encouraging abundant medical practices in small doctor-owned practices and by removing governmental involvement in all healthcare. Make Medicare a voucher system.

Push for educational reform by encouraging private and parochial schools over public union-run schools.

With those messages, there is no way you will look like you are hobbling together a PC-clone computer or Democrat-clone platform. You will be your product. Rise and fall on your own merits.

Presidential Debate and Defining Victory

Last night's townhall debate leads to the constant question: "Who won?"

In some respects it is like answering the question for a bunch of 8 year olds doing foot races across the yard.

The first boy is very short compared to the group and is known to be slow. The leader of the bunch decides that he gets a 10 yard head start.

The second boy hates that "unfair" advantage but is the fastest in the group. He complains wildly in fear that he will not cross the finish line first given the head start.

The third boy is the leader and is trying to make the race competitive. He knows he will be beat, but he stands next to the fast boy and prepares to be beaten. Even so, he runs hard through the finish line.

When it is all over, boy #1 crosses the finish line half a step before boy #2. The yelling starts again in earnest.

Who won? The boys turn to you to referee the dispute after the fact.

Do you decide for boy #1 because he crossed the line first?

Do you decide for boy #2 because he covered the greater distance in a nearly identical period of time?

Do you decide for boy #3 because he has shown the greatest moral character trying to create a competitive race given the characteristics of each competitor?

Notice one assumption that I did not make. I did not assume that the boys agreed on what the definition of "victory" was. The boys start by assuming that winning means crossing the finish line first. When the fast boy #2 discovers that he could not win that way, likely changes his argument to be that he ran the fastest with an unfair head start to his opponent.

This scenario is what presidential debates are like. There are no set rules about how to define victory. It is all in the eyes of the beholder.

Simply put, with no definition of victory before the debate (and I don't count, "The President did better than last time" as a definition of victory), it is hard to give a fair and reasonable answer.

The President is like boy #1. He was given a forum in New York, a very blue state, among undecided voters who wrote questions with a significant Democrat overtone to them. These undecideds will decide no election. If this debate would have been held outside of Cleveland or in Akron, I doubt we would have had as much uniformity in tone.

Romney is a bit like boy #2 in performance and a bit like boy #3 in attitude. He outperformed the President in content, but he was starting from behind given the questioners, the location, and the moderator. Yet, Romney never complained about this. He agreed to it far in advance.

Using the finish line standard of measure, it was a solid tie. Both men got to the finish line on their points.

Using the quality of performance and distance covered in the period of time offered, Romney outperformed.

Ultimately, the problem in debates is that we do not have judges like Len Goodman holding up paddles showing scores on paddles while we wait for the public to vote. He has no immediate gratification of who won. We will know, though, in just a few weeks.

So gas prices are down?! What?!

This guy at Forbes.com has a brilliantly simple way to show that gas prices are not high. The dollar is just collapsing under the weight of Obama.

So should we start a website of the average cost of goods and services against the ounces of gold that the spot market would require?