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Why preaching to the choir is necessary this time

Preaching to the choir. Meant to signal the idea that a person is speaking to those who already agree with them, is generally avoided at this point in the election cycle – not this year.

As we close in on 80 days to the election, normally the campaigns would be working to pull independents to one side or the other, but with Obama running one of the most divisive administrations and campaigns in history, it may be more important to make sure that an excited base gets to the polls.

The “undecided voter” segment of the American population is unusually low. As of August 9th, a Gallup poll shows that undecideds are between 6% and 8% of probably voters. There just aren’t many votes left to grab in that tiny space.

The 2008 Obama campaign was successful because they excited their base with hope and change. The black, hispanic and youth vote came out in huge numbers to support the inexperienced and largely unknown senator from Illinois. With young people facing a dearth of jobs upon graduation, blacks seeing record unemployment and hispanics witnessing assaults on their christian values, entire blocks of Obama supporters may choose to just not vote at all.

Prior to the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney faces a similar challenge for different reasons. He wasn’t Conservative enough for TEA Partiers and moderates weren’t sure that they understood what he stood for – a mixture sure to cause low voter turnout on the GOP side.

Conservative bloggers, contributors, analysts and pundits have known that the hard left was never going to turn out for Romney – now they’ve started realizing that all that is needed to win is to get the base to turn out for him. Paul Ryan was a perfect pick by Romney for just that reason.

As the race to define Rep. Ryan heats up, it just might be time to preach to the choir. No Congressman has a perfect voting record, a gaffe-less public speaking history or perfectly-aligned ideology. The case must be made that despite their faults – the Romney-Ryan ticket is THE ticket and get the base excited about that ticket.

Romney’s pick of Ryan will bring in many in the TEA Party that appreciate his efforts to cut spending and restart the economy. While flawed in the eyes of some, he made real efforts to put forth a framework to reverse the trend of larger government and dangerous debt.

Paul Ryan is a staunch supporter of the second amendment earning an “A” from the NRA on his voting record. Something Romney tried to get with his “small varmints” comment..

Despite continual attacks from the left attempting to paint Ryan as the murderer of medicare and hater of females, his approval among seniors and woman is in good shape and will likely improve as they get to know him.

While every voter had an idea of who their perfect candidate was in the primaries, were in general election season now. That means a large swath of the right didn’t get the ticket they wanted – it means the majority selected a candidate and that’s where things lay.

Now the preaching must begin. Educating the electorate of their choices for Senate, the House and of course, the White House.

Taking only the Senate by a slim margin still leaves the government in grid-lock. Without a veto-proof majority, Obama will still issue executive order dictates and kill everything else that comes from Congress that does not agree with his far-left extremist ideology. America needs a change in the White House to reverse the damage.

This election is no longer about trying to win the middle – it’s about exciting the base and making sure they get to the polls in November.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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One Comment

  1. This may help some eyes open to the other side of the story: Today’s survey: Obama’s 2013 budget proposes over $1.3 Trillion ($1,300,000,000,000) dollars which continues to increase our deficit. This continues to explode beyond the total earning capability of the 1%, 2% or 99% of the population. Should Obama be reelected in 2012? https://tinyurl.com/6ojgpz6

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