And So the Rebuilding Begins…
I was going to blog about this sooner, but it looks like there is already an effort among Republicans to retool and renovate the GOP. Called “Rebuild the Party,” it’s a group of young conservatives under the age of 40. In many ways, they have learned from the Obama campaign and are using technology to help in finding ways to modernize the party.
Here are a few words from the homepage:
As Republicans, we face a choice.
Either we can spend the next several months — or years — trying to figure out what just happened, excusing our defeat away as a temporary blip or the result of a poor environment, and waiting for Barack Obama to trip up. Or we can refuse to take this defeat lying down, and start building the future of our party now.
2008 made one thing clear: if allowed to go unchecked, the Democrats’ structural advantages, including their use of the Internet, their more than 2-to-1 advantage with young voters, their discovery of a better grassroots model — will be as big a threat to the future of the GOP as the toxic political environment we have faced the last few years.
The time is now to set in motion the changes needed to rebuild our party from the grassroots up, modernize the way we run campaigns, and attract different, energetic, and younger candidates at all levels.
We must be conservative in philosophy — but bold in our approach. We don’t need a slight tweak here or there. We need transformation. We can’t keep fighting a 21st century war with 20th century weapons.
This is a document about bringing the Republican Party into the future — and it isn’t just about strategies and tactics.
They also seem to be saying it’s fruitless to look for another Reagan:
Revitalizing the party will have much to do with how we talk about issues and standing on principle. And, above all, it will require leadership.
At the same time, waiting for a political savior to materialize out of thin air is not an option. Eventually, strong new leaders will emerge. And when they do, they must inherit a party stronger than the one in its current state. Our grassroots must be stronger and more open. We must inspire young leaders to want to run for office as Republicans.
There are several ideas afoot, but there is one that makes the most sense and it basically copies what the Democrats did in 2006 and 2008:
By 2012, the Republican Party will field candidates in all 435 Congressional districts in America, from inner city Philadelphia to suburban Dallas, and our leaders must be held accountable for progress towards this goal. With an 80 plus vote margin separating Democrats from Republicans in the House, it’s time to widen the playing field, not narrow it. While our targeting has gotten narrower, honing in on a class of seats we feel entitled to because they lean Republican, Democrats have been stealing traditionally 60-40 Republican seats right and left. It’s time to return the favor.
What’s more, it won’t be good enough to run perfunctory races in safe seats. 2008 showed us that every seat — Republican or Democrat — is potentially a target. If you aren’t seriously challenged this time, chances are you’ll be challenged the next time, or the time after that. Incumbents who don’t prepare for this reality will find themselves scrambling to catch up when the inevitable happens. That means that our party needs to set a new standard that campaigns will be professional and fully staffed in each and every seat.
That’s a good strategy, but that will also mean that they have to make some accommodations on social issues due to location. The Dems ran candidates that were more conservative in areas that leaned more Republican. If this group wants to run candidates everywhere, especially in districts that lean Democrat, then they need to run candidates that are pro-choice and pro-gay rights to have a shot. Here in Minneapolis, the GOP seems to always run people who are socially conservative in a district that is not even close to that.
All in all, Rebuild the Party has a good idea and is not just a flash in the pan. It’s headed up by Patrick Ruffini, a GOP operative and seems to be pretty diverse, with people across the GOP political spectrum. They have also added a tool where people can suggest ways the GOP can change and also vote on those issues.
I don’t know if this has a chance, but who knows? If you know of someone who is a conservative and under 40, you might want to pass this along to them.
Share This
Related Posts
-
Mitt Romney Tells Voters: If I’m elected, Don’t Expect Huge Tax Cuts
Posted on Sep 26, 2012
-
Labour Suffers Yet Another Defeat
Posted on Jun 5, 2009
-
The Little Brat On The World’s Block
Posted on May 25, 2009
-
Rush Limbaugh, Michael Steele and the Republican Party: The Sequel
Posted on Mar 3, 2009
The idea that the Repulbilcans can run the same type of campaign as the Democrats is insane. The blue dog Democrats are never asked how they can be in the same party as the Congressional Black Caucus or Barney Frank. If you paid attention to the media, you would believe that the blue dogs are in a different political party as the CBC, or the CHC.
Yet, ever Republicans is forced to answer for some school board in Kansas when they push creationism or some school board in Texas that wants prayer at football games.
The Republicans have to face the fact that there are over 100 Congressional Districts where they have zero chance of winning and a dollar spent there is a dollar not spent in a competative district. Of course, admitting that also means that they to have the problem that the Repulbicans support for open borders and unlimited immigration was a horrible mistake.
The Republicans largest interest group is white evangelicals who voted for McCain by a 3:1 margin. Any viable candidate has to receive the blessing of James Dobson and Richard Land.
These folks do not understand that the political process is one of compromise, and so end up getting a lot of backs up in resistance.
The GOP will continue to lose elections unless they can silence the evangelicals and welcome ALL Americans into their party.
kritt,
Can the small government party really ever welcome All Americans into their party. As long blacks demand quotas, AA, and Set asides, is there really a place for them in conservative politics. AS long as La Raza demands open borders and unlimited immigration, is there really a place for Hispanics in Conservative politics.
The Replubicans are caught in a demographic trap. They need to appeal to minorities but lose more white voters in the process. Look at the millions of Repulblicans who stayed home last Tuesday because they believe that the Repubican Party can gone left them.
Also, it is odd that the Democrats say that politics in the art of cmpromise but continue to give the CBC exactly what it wants even though most Americans want an end to quotas, set asides, AA and most Americans want more control on the borders.
SD Why don't you include white niche groups in your rant? By ending AA, the legacy program will embolden more mediocre incompetent whites like G. W. Bush and Kerry. Maybe McClown can fly at Delta Airlines, his third from the bottom ranking at Annapolis is very impressive. The Walton's run WallyWorld by birth and injection, thats your lily white meritocracy in action.
Rudi,
First, the last time I looked, the consitution does not ban discrimination on the bases of business connection. However, it does ban discrimionation onthe basis of race and ethnicity.
Second, the preferences given to black and minorities but no longer given to women is much greater than the preferences given to legacies. That is why the University of Michigan has to be forced by court order to produce the documents on how much preference was given to the children of rich, white collar black families.
There are some odd niches that also hurt small government conservatives to include college professors, pubic sector emloyees, unions, Jews, gays, that the Repulbicans have zero chance of overcoming.
The Republican party should go back to “small government conservative” principles and be OPEN to compromise on social issues.
- As long as the GOP leadership continues to have a litmus test for membership that's written by the religious-right, they WILL alienate a large percentage of Americans.
- As long as they continue to call anyone who disagrees with them, “un-American”, “socialists”, “terrorist sympathizers”, etc they are going to alienate a percentage of Americans.
- As long as they continue to single out groups of Americans for divisive political stunts, they are going to alienate a percentage of Americans.
Why the Libertarian party continues to follow the GOP instead of flourishing on their own is beyond me.
Rambie,
There are not enough middle class and upper middle class whites wo are small government conservatives but socially liberal to make a political party funcitonal. Even the current groups that make up the Repulbican Party are not demographically large enough to sustain a conservative party. Forcing out the social conservatives while appealling to urban whites is just another way for the Repulbicans to commit suicide.
If people are really interested in pushing conservatives ideas, they would probably be better off in voting the Democratic primaries for the most conservative candidate. Trying to take over the Democratic Party from the inside is about the only way that conservatives can hope to offset the advantages that Democrats have with Hispanics and blacks.
SD: SD: There are not enough middle class and upper middle class whites wo are small government conservatives but socially liberal to make a political party funcitonal.
I guess that begs the question… why do they have to be white?
Although it's not realistic given how our society and government has evolved, I would prefer BOTH parties stay out of dictating social issues. However, in the long run, the party of denying rights will always eventually lose out to the party of expanding rights as long as we hold true to the principles underlying the statement, “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
SD- If Sarah Palin, Harriet Miers, and Clarence Thomas were not AA picks I don't know what would be!
SD –again I'm disturbed that you seem to be obsessed with the racial makeup of both parties.
kritt,
To ignore the racia makeup of both parties is to ignore politics. Blacks and Hispanics are reflexive Democarts voters who the Republicans have zero chance of winning over. Thus, conservatives have to find a way to offset that advantage and the best way is to probably try to take over the Democratic Party from the inside. That way, conservatives can take advantage of blacks and Hispanics reflexive voting for Democrats and for the elite white progressives into a white only party on the left of the current Democratic party.
Not true, SD. Hispanics voted in large numbers for W in '00 and '04. Without their votes, he would have lost to Democratic opponents.
The right lost the Hispanic vote by obsessing over the open borders issue.
What you fail to see is that the GOP is also losing in areas that were their strongholds– like the suburbs of Richmond, VA which went blue for the first time in recent memory. Many moderates are leaving the party. Women also went for Obama, as did younger voters and college educated whites .Elections can be analyzed by looking at region, education level, gender, age etc. Race is just one of many factors.
W received less than 40% of the Hispanics vote in 2004 and was probably closer to 35%. Look at the voting results from counties that are majority Hispanics. They voted 2 to 1 for Democrats.
Of course, when you are talking about Richmond suburbs, you are talking about white voters. White voters are the only real swing voters in the U.S. Women have voted majority Democrats for decades and single women voted DEmocratic 2 to 1 but if you remove black women, the number is not near as large. The same goes for everything else. When you have a demographic group that votes 95% for one party, that demographic dominates over others.
What those whites in suburbs Richmond (of course they live there because the Richmond Public Schools are overwhelmingly black and are horrible) is that as the U.S. becomes less white, they will become targets for higher taxes and for social engineerings. Then they will realize that in the coming one party state, that they will have no say in how the government works.