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Sept. 9, 2022

581: Republicans Need to Start Playing OFFENSE

On today's episode, I'm joined by Kenny Cody to talk about why Republicans need to start playing offense versus constantly playing defense to Democratic narratives.

On today's episode, I'm joined by Kenny Cody to talk about why Republicans need to start playing offense versus constantly playing defense to Democratic narratives.


We discuss how Democrats have found success in the past by telling voters they're the party that cares about people, while Republicans are just the party of the rich. And we talk about how this strategy has helped them win over some of our own voters—which means if you're a Republican and want to win elections, you need to start talking about issues that resonate with more than just your base.


We'll also discuss some examples of how framing works in practice, and what Republicans can do differently this time around!

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Transcript

Brian Nichols  0:01  
The focusing on winning arguments. We're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Well, happy Friday there, folks, Brian Nichols, you're on The Brian Nichols Show and for joining us on of course, another phone that builds episode I am as always your humble ghost. And today we have a gentleman who's gonna join us and talk about his concerns. Yes. Cody's concerns they had to do with the GOP not playing enough offense. But first of all, go ahead and give a shout out to today's sponsor in that is the amazing group that is Young Americans for Liberty these guys. I want to tell you with this opportunity to jump headfirst into a liberty movement and make some real impact and that is with a Young Americans for Liberty who is currently recruiting campaign field staff to help elect pro Liberty candidates across the country as part of Operation win at the door. These principle candidates are dedicated fighting for gun rights keeping our troops home, parental rights and education, criminal justice reform, ending our sense of spending and many other winning Liberty policies. And when I say winning, I mean it. Their work speak for itself. These are the folks out there who helped us pass constitutional candidate carry in Indiana, Texas and Alabama to help fight the lockdowns every step step of the way, all while helping make Liberty win. So if you want to help make a difference, and get Liberty candidates elected across the country, and be a part of this fight to actually make an impact in our insane political climate in 2022. And you can join one of these campaigns now through November 8 Gas covered housing fully provided and you'll be compensated a total of $2,800 a month for your work on the campaign trail. Sounds interesting had the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash y al to apply and make a real change in this country today. That's Brian Nichols. show.com forward slash y al let's make liberty when one more time Brian Nichols show.com forward slash why a L All right, folks. Well, with that being said looking forward to talking about yeah, getting some Liberty folks into Office making Liberty win but that requires them to be actually playing some offense talking about that on Cody's concerns Kenny Cody, welcome back to The Brian Nichols Show.

Kenny Cody  2:20  
Hey Brian, how are you brother got to be here.

Brian Nichols  2:22  
Good to have you back on the show Kenny and thank you for obviously fighting the good fight telling the truth where it's so desperately needs to be spoken about and right now you're doing that over in a nice article you just dropped there over at news Newsmax dot News Week. Sorry Newsmax and that piece was focusing yes on a lot of these Republican candidates out there Kenny Who are they seemingly playing defense when? Right now? It seems like they have nothing but momentum on the offensive side of the ball. Man I'm in football mode. I don't know if you saw the bills in the Rams last night I was in a pool by the way with my co workers for the day job. I said hey, you know what? I can only pick one team per week that I think is going to win and I get one underdog I'm supposed to pick at least throughout the year. I thought perfect chance for the Rams be the underdog now I picked the the Rams they lost last night terribly to the bills. So yeah, that hurt my pool chances. But uh, Hey, I see the importance. Right, the bills offense, it was potent Republican offense. Where's that? Kenny?

Kenny Cody  3:20  
Unfortunately, for a lot of candidates out there, you know, I think it's below partly due to leadership. I think Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are kind of dropping the ball when it comes to funding when it comes to messaging. You know, I mean, at some points that, you know, Republicans have heard for a long time that, you know, Republicans are going on cat tax cuts, independent voters have heard for a long time that were going on tax cuts around the economy, all that kind of stuff. But there comes a point where you kind of have to give people a reason to buy in. I mean, people know that conservatives are usually pretty good with money, or at least a better at dealing with money than the Democrats are. So we've already won on that issue. But we have to actually sell ourselves, right. I mean, you talk about all the time about you get to meet people where they're at and Republicans aren't doing that right now, unfortunately, I think there are good examples out there. You know, I mean, I think Blythe Masters is doing a great job in Arizona. I mean, he's he's only down two points right now in the Arizona Senate race with it against Mark Kelly, you know, a former guy who was a Rothbardian, libertarian guy endorsed by clipper growth, you know, one of the most conservative candidates in the nation in terms of fiscal responsibility, but he knows how to sail and knows how to message. You know, in the article, I'll talk about how, you know, unfortunately, a lot of Republicans kind of forget where the battles are won and kind of how you need to message also, you know, one of the one of the reasons that one of the reasons that I think that's for some of the Masters is succeeding right now is if you're a perfect example of like abortion, right, so abortion is a very, very, very, very polarizing issue, especially after the Roe v. Wade ruling in the Dobbs ruling. You know, he kind of painted Kelly out to be an extremist, right? A lot of Democrats are for some reason, painting Republicans to be the extremists have their anti women and stuff like that, because they want to give the power back to the States when it comes to the issue of abortion, but with somebody like masters, he's saying, look, look, I'm just against later robbery abortion. I am against, you know when and being able to make that decision up till birth, you know, that's barbaric. And Kelly is supportive of an abortion procedure and abortion law that is only second to a place like North Korea or to China. Like that's the kind of abortion policy he said he supports. That's not sensible. And it's not even independent or bipartisan. So the way that he phrased that, in knowing that Arizona is sort of a swing state and knowing that the messaging needs to be formulated in a different way, is very much like the kind of approach that kind of has to be done at this point. You know, most primaries are over, you know, New Hampshire, I think, is one of the last primaries in any election cycle where Republicans are going into Republicans, now you have to go against Democrats, and you have to appeal to independents, you have to appeal to even sort of maybe Blue Dog Democrats, and you have to appeal to moderate Republicans and masters as far right as he is in terms of his political philosophy. And the way he is messaging towards Arizona right now is exactly the pathway that Republicans across the nation need be forming their messaging as?

Brian Nichols  5:59  
Yeah, well, we we talked about this back on I think was Wednesday's episode, I had an older episode with our good friend, Spike Cohen. And we talked about the importance of meeting people where they're at and the issues they care about, right. And then the episode I talked about, you know, when you look at not just the importance of meeting people on the issues, particularly but specifically, the where they're at part, that means that you have to use the language that they're using, right. So let's let's give a real life example. For my day job, I'm speaking to a different audience than the political audience, the Libertarian audience, I'm speaking to technology executives, and sea level professionals. So all of a sudden, the language, the verbiage, that's all changing, and the way I approach those conversations, it changes. So the same thing is true, when you're trying to meet people on the issues that matter to them and changing, not necessarily the principles that you're speaking about. But the way that you're reflecting those ideas, on the issues that impact your average person. That's where it's important for us to not get stuck in the idealism and the ideas of liberty and the isms that are in the ideas of liberty, but rather to take those ideas and bring them forward to your average person, make the ideas make sense, make them real, instead of just being an ism, right? And that's where we'll win is is when we can take the ideas and make it so your average person can can easily plug it from idea to real life solution and then see the tangible value of that immediately. And that's where that's where we're gonna win.

Kenny Cody  7:26  
Right. You know, I think that's a it's a selling point of populism. I know a lot of libertarians and a lot of conservatives hate the idea of populism, the camp associated with Sanders and other people, you know, Patrick Buchanan, whatever. But the populism, all populism is is exactly what you just said. And in many people were there at knowing what issues actually mattered people and knowing conservative solutions to questions people might have and problems people might have, you know, I was talking the other day about, you know, how Republicans have always had this issue of talking over people's heads. And I've always said this to Republicans are oftentimes look as the student top people, right, they're always looked at the repeating of the politicians who are in the Republican Party, or the people who are dressed the most professionally, and they're the CEOs of the they're the lawyers, and then the Democratic Party for until very recently, has always been the party of the working people, you know, the working people getting elected, you know, those the Republicans are the ones who kind of move their way up the ladder and being district leaders and being and then being the Chief of Staff, and then being, you know, been an intern, and if you've tube staff working their way up to being a congressman replacing somebody. And the Democrats have always been the ones who are union leaders and others that are kind of a working class people. And finally, the Republicans, I think, with people like masters, people like Joe pence, and other businessmen that have become elected, kind of have the idea of, okay, we can be the class and we can be the party of working people as well. I mean, somebody like Joe Cantu is a, you know, a Greenbrae. You know, his his, his widow got killed when we're overseas. And that's why he is against, you know, for Maurice Greenbrae. himself, his wife got killed in the military, why you've seen him serve in the military in Syria, I believe. And, you know, he has a reason to be anti interventionist, and as a working man there have been elected before in his life and, you know, ran on that idea and beat an incumbent Congresswoman who voted for impeachment, you know, so these kinds of people want people like Blythe masters who, you know, works in big tech and knows how to go against big tech. And that was how to message against big tech and sales on a message of you should be able to support a family on a single income. Now, no, that doesn't. That doesn't appeal to leftists, right, that doesn't appeal to the progressive ideology. But with somebody like masters, it does appeal to like suburban women and suburban women in general and women in general, you know, people that even man who believe there should be one breadwinner in the world, that's the man or the woman. You know, selling that idea is really popular with independents and really popular with suburban areas that are the vast majority of the deciders and elections in Arizona. So knowing those battles and knowing how to message and knowing where you can win, I mean, like I've said on this podcast before, you have got to know the battles that you can win And you know, Master's is not going to win on bipartisanship he just more than likely he just isn't. And he's trying to make Kelly out to be an extremist. Right because Kelly's voted 100% llama Joe Biden ever since he's gotten office so he's able to sell that. Like he's, you know, first time Kelly campaign campaign is a bipartisan campaign as a moderate to replace a moderate lock, you know, or what most people would consider a moderate and John McCain in the same way with cinema, right? Buts Kelly's voted 100% Lambda Joe Biden and Blake Matthews is like, look, you know, I'm just trying not to be an extremist. I'm trying not to just alienate people and alienate a half of that, you know, half of the population. And Kelly's done that, say you have campaigning as a moderate and campaigning as a bipartisan figure, and then in the ending up being one of the most partisan senators and one of the most partisan legislators in the entire US Congress. So, you know, I'm, I enjoy masters, I think he's a great candidate. And it's bad. Don't just pick him out because I enjoy him. I mean, if any other candidate was doing it, I think Adam Laxalt is very good at this in Nevada. Somebody who has established in the state and his grandparents have held office, and he's been the Attorney General, he's done a very good job and appealing either as a populace to a beat and being murdered in a state like Nevada. Ours is doing better. He wasn't at first, I don't think he was doing great and just making it all about inflation, everything and now he's kind of concentrating on fentimans lived at home all his life. He's been you know, a recluse. And now he can't even debate because he won't admit that his strokes affected his way to be able to politic, and we'll be honest about that, how can we trust him to the senator, now he's getting better at it. So there are people that are getting better, and there are people who can do a lot better. And I think we have to reflect on what we're doing rods and campaigns like Laxalt, and campaigns like Blythe masters and apply that to races we need to win. You know, those are my Colorado, those in Ohio, you know, those in Pennsylvania, Georgia, wherever else, we need to make sure that we can actually win in these areas, especially in swing states where independent voters are looking to be appealed to in the way that masters and other ours right now,

Brian Nichols  11:59  
sticking in Arizona, Carey Lake, she's running for governor there in Arizona. And I think, just from Yeah, I really haven't done too much digging into her values, principles, anything like that. But strictly from a messaging standpoint, she knocks it out of the park, she has 22 years in media, she knows what the game is, and she knows how to play it. And with that, she does a phenomenal job of resetting narratives. We talked about this a couple episodes back with Karla Garrick. The important to not only doing that, but also back to the focus of your article Kenny over at Newsmax is the importance of playing offense is not just going ahead and diffusing the opposing narrative, but then in turn, setting your own narrative setting your own attack forward. And that's what I thought, you know, she does phenomenally who else would you look at across the United States. And you mentioned a few folks out there besides Blake masters who are running anybody else in particular that stands out, there's a really good job at effectively, not just defusing narratives, but then actually countering and resetting narratives. I have one comes to my mind. I'm curious if you had another one to

Kenny Cody  13:02  
carry like he's gay, like you'd like you said, I think I've tweeted about their day. I mean, when she's asked questions by the press is when she her star shines the most, because she knows exactly how to handle anchors and how to handle people who are ranking women or whatever, who are asking her questions, journalists, whatever, she knows exactly how they ask questions, because she's done it. And, you know, she was a, you know, people criticize her for being a Democrat as recently as 2016, and things like that. And from above is that that doesn't work in an area like Arizona, that as a swing state itself. I mean, she knows how to appeal to Democrats and appeal to Republicans. And she's using this sort of populist message and the idea of Trump right, I

Brian Nichols  13:39  
mean, you know, what can you I mean, interrupt the fact that she's a Democrat soon, but you 2016 That usually Brian 2016, that would have mattered to me, I would have been like, Guys, are you kidding me? But now somebody who's like taking a step to switch from Democrat to Republican as soon as today that tells me that they're doing so for a different reason than just it looks politically expedient. They're doing so because they've seen that, yeah, the old Democratic Party, it ain't the Democratic Party. They even thought it was let alone what it actually was sorry. Oh, yeah.

Kenny Cody  14:12  
And I absolutely agree. I mean, that brings up a great point about the state of Tennessee, right. I mean, when you think Tennessee, you don't think, you know, swing state and you don't think Democrat, but just 12 years ago, we turned over the majority in the House from Democrat to Republican and we turned over a Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen the into Bill has been getting elected. And they're turning over you know, you know, the Morrison he's our senator have been there for a long time and Bob Kirby in there for a long time. We're like two younger versions of you know, you know, Haggerty who's not young but he's old you know, a little a little older but has an energy and Marsha Blackburn who is in her 70s But as an energetic and anti establishment attitude in comparison to the old establishment types like Corker and Alexander. And the way Tennessee's changed just from that, I mean, I know plenty people in mocking Counting breasts and one cop County, you know, the 8020 Republican county that we are now he won Cobb County as recently as 2000. And I think 2006. And I mean, Sam and got 43%, here against Blackburn in 2008 2018. Yeah. That's he was the most popular Democrat potentially had ever seen, and somebody who won their elections last 67, he will get success in the vote when he was running for governor. And then he gets 42% in in Tennessee in 2018. And that shows how much the state has changed very quickly. So when somebody says they change the repeat for being a Democrat, Republican, um, at first, I'm like, great, that's awesome news for us. Right. Like somebody who realizes how far left and how government growing they are, you know, the Democratic Party has become and, you know, kind of embracing the idea of federal government expansion, you know, not kind of going, you

Brian Nichols  15:54  
know, I mean, really quick to could you imagine, like, if you had, I mean, I was thinking, as you're saying that, but like, if you could imagine somebody being upset that they have a brand new customer, right, like, that's the approach, it's like, we just spent all the time energy and effort through your marketing through your sales, and you get them to actually flip over. And then the first thing you say is, I don't trust you as my new customer. It's just Yeah, it's baffling,

Kenny Cody  16:21  
in my opinion, like, it should be a celebrated thing. I mean, when we are doing so either, because one, a few things have happened, right for them to convert over. mean, there's, there's bad choices, and I can get elected in this area, as a Republican more likely than a Democrat or whatever. I mean, there's instances like that, but usually, when a Democrat switch over to be the Republican, either or, either the Democrat has said, I'm not on my party anymore, the party has went far past what I originally had the idea of why I was a Democrat. And then you have the idea of the Republican Party, like so appealing now that they are embracing the working man, you know, they're campaigning on issues that I actually care about, you know, they're, they're doing things like, you know, being anti war and acknowledging that there's problems with the elite and things like that, like, you know, that's appealing to a lot of populace is made up people call like Joe Kent, before, you know, kind of give a compliment to Bernie Sanders and really, to me, you know, that if that just means that we are playing to the working class a lot more than before, right. So it's, it's, it's weird to me when that's a criticism because I think it deserves to be celebrated as a county chair. You know, it's awesome to me when I see a threat all time, all time Democrats that I've always voted Democrat primaries, then have went all straight Republican, that means the Democratic Party has done something wrong, the Republican Party has done something wrong. So people like like and can't and others who are superb on how to appeal to the working class and are superb on the what how to appeal to the general public are the best kinds of Republicans the best kind of candidates right now, in my opinion.

Brian Nichols  17:54  
All right, Kenny. Well, we're already getting a hard pressed for time here. Hard to imagine it goes fast here on a Friday. But you know what, it's because we've had a busy week, which absolutely, you know what that means that we had a productive week, which I want to definitely take as a win. Now, folks, if you are getting value from the episodes, you know, we asked you to please go ahead and give these episodes a share. But also, I'm going to ask you to do us a favor as well. Now these episodes they they are more often than not a labor of love. And you know, folks like Kenny joins us here on the show. And you know, to help keep the lights on, it requires folks like us so if you want to go ahead and help support The Brian Nichols Show, well you can go ahead and do so over at Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support and there's two things you can do. Number one, you can become a super fan $5 a month you get access to our Patreon which is we have monthly one on ones with yours truly will do some Q and A's as well but also if you want to go ahead and just support the show once $5 $10 100 bucks I don't care whatever it can be. Everything goes right back in here into the program and it goes right back into helping us have folks on the show like Kenny and you know folks like we had yesterday we had Chris Russa on mana who was running for Congress out in New Jersey as a big L libertarian and all 580 plus other episodes of the program. So yeah, every little bit helps. So folks, if you would be interested in helping us grow here at the show, I would greatly appreciate it. So one more time Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support and of course please support our sponsors. Today Young Americans for Liberty operation when at the door we also have some other great sponsors like I don't know blood of tyrants wine Kenny's a big fan of that right Kenny?

Kenny Cody  19:32  
Oh, yes. But boy Tyron sent me some good wine especially to enjoy a steak and things like that. I've still got one more bottle that I'm going to work on here next month, I think so it's they were great. I mean, it's just a it's a very good one. It's it's very last to be to be a stout one. I know. It sounds weird to be a statline it's very last but it's great tasting. I enjoyed I enjoyed it very much.

Brian Nichols  19:53  
See I don't drink anymore, folks. So you're gonna have to listen to Kenny on this and trust his his guidance and he's said nothing but positive reviews, less bar so, and by the way, Kenny's sentiments, they're not rare and I've actually been hearing from folks all across not just the Liberty world, but beyond that the blood of tyrants wine is a plus. And also, it's got pretty darn cool names. So I head over to the Brian Nichols show.com forward slash sponsors, and you can go ahead and support actually those four slash wine there you go forward slash wine. And now you can go ahead and get your own bottle of blood of tyrants wine, but make sure you use code TBNS at checkout for $5 off all right, Kenny. But that being said, final thoughts for the audience this this Friday this week? What do you got for us

Kenny Cody  20:32  
just you know, to Republicans that you know are doing over elections you know, it's it's September so don't beat sued and just confident yet, you know, the article wasn't to say Republicans are doing and the article wasn't to say, you know, we need to worry about you know, elections I just won't you know, good examples to be good examples, right? I just want a good example such as masters or somebody like Lake and can't to formulate your phrasing and messaging in the correct way I want them to be able to concentrate on what is you know, kind of correlate for people you know, many people where they're at and and that was going on when those are all popular sentiments, at least to me, that's a lot of these Republicans need to embrace. I mean, we've heard we know inflation is bad, right? Like, we know, inflation is bad. We know taxes are bad gas prices are up. Yep, we got that. Now, you gotta find what, what what else matters people because we've been doing the same thing over and over again, month, month, month to month, no matter what. And now we have to concentrate and say what is actually mattering to people currently, if that's inflation, if that's gas prices, then hit on that. But if somebody's like, like Mark Kelly is calling you an extremist when he is for the up to term abortion, then attack him on that, right just like Masters House, or whatever your opponent is doing is people like AWS attacking Fetterman for, you know, living off his parents till he's 50 years old attack that you should be a US senator if he's doing that. So knowing where you can win, knowing the battle is gonna win, knowing where your opponents are weak at and where are you not playing defense, you're actually going on offense and promoting Republican values or pouring libertarian values, and not defending yourself, when you start defending yourself up, that's when you lose, and you have to play the offense and sell your point is to defend your point. So to me, if any political candidate or any buddy who's in politics know the first time you start defending your position is when you've really lost. So go on the offense and promote your position about why your solutions and why your values matter to people. And that's when you're going to be able to win

Brian Nichols  22:25  
here here. And you know, I really don't have anything further to add beyond it the end of the day, folks, you're not selling an idea, you're not selling a service or a product, we're selling change. We're trying to get somebody to move from their comfortable status quo to a different solution. And it requires us to help get them outside of their comfort zones. And it doesn't happen overnight. For the political sale. It can take days, weeks, months and years. I've seen folks I've been working on now for well over a couple of years. And you're just starting to see a little bit of the cracks in the armor versus there are some folks that are in our target market that are specifically open to hearing a different way of doing things it might take them a couple of days or a week to actually get on board. So back to Kenny's point too. It's a matter of knowing your market and making sure you're meeting those specific people where they're at on the issues they care about as well. So with that being said, Kenny Cody, it's always a blast having you on here my friend, we're gonna go ahead and find you the wall, continue the conversation, but also, we're gonna go ahead and read this banger over a Newsmax.

Kenny Cody  23:28  
Yeah, so you can read on Twitter, you can go either go to newsmax.com and just type in Kenny county archives or there, you know, I'm on Twitter and look at the links that I usually post I usually post the most recent article at the top of my Twitter page and my pinned tweet. You can also find me on townhall.com You can find me on Twitter usually I'm actually the Southern Regional Director for the Republicans for national renewal now so did some work for them over that organization. So you'll be seeing a lot more of my stuff and a lot more of their work through the sale hopefully here over the next few months. So yeah, just mainly social media KDC third at an Instagram, kini County on Facebook and at TD Cody on Twitter and you'll be able to see most of my stuff from there and be looking out you know, gonna be gonna have to do some big things over next year.

Brian Nichols  24:12  
Awesome. And folks, we'll make that really easy for you to if you're on the podcast version of the show, all I gotta do is click the podcast catcher artwork, I bring rate the Brian Nichols show.com where you can find today's episode all 580 other episodes plus you will find all of Kenny social media links his entire bio and you can find all those great links over at townhall and Newsmax there as well. Plus, you can find me to your transcript of today's episode. And also you'll see that we have a video version of the program head over to either YouTube or over on Odyssey either way, just make sure you go ahead and hit that subscribe button and little notification bell so you're not missing a single time. We have an awesome episode like our conversation here with Kenny go live. And other than that, folks, by the way, I mentioned it earlier, but did you catch my conversation yesterday? with Chris Ramana, where we talked about Yeah, it's enough is enough. It's time for us to end the wars. What was the end the wars end the Fed, fed and then bring your end the Fed and then civil rights. That was the main focus. I gotta get my own episodes right. Either way, I'll make it easy for you. I'll include that right here below for you on YouTube. Just click there, it'll bring you right over. And then if you want, go ahead, check that out. Again, over on the podcast versions of the Brian Nichols show.com. You can check out all 580 Plus episodes. All right, with that being said, thanks for joining us, folks. It's Brian Nichols signing off here for Kenny Cody. We'll see you next week

Unknown Speaker  25:33  
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Kenny CodyProfile Photo

Kenny Cody

Columnist

Chairman of the
Cocke County GOP.

Columnist for
Newsmax.com and Townhall.com.

Representative-at- Large for The Tea Party Project.

Economics & English Teacher @ Cosby High School