California Conservative

I’ve been a Michael Steele fan since he was elected the Lt. Gov. of Maryland. He’s articulate, fiscally conservative and innovative. According to this Time Magazine article, he’s got the right idea for building the party. Here’s the paragraph that first caught my attention:

He said he would make clear to local party leaders that “if you want to be chairman under my leadership, don’t think this is a country-club atmosphere where we sit around drinking wine and eating cheese and talking amongst ourselves. If you don’t want to drill down and build coalitions in minority communities, then you have to give that seat to someone who does.”

One of the main points in the plan put together by Patrick Ruffini and his partners at RebuildTheParty.com is titled the 435 district strategy:

The 435 district strategy. 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.

Let’s ask some simple questions on why fighting for bigger blocks of votes in every demographic group and community is important. Here’s some questions I’m asking:

1) What are the odds that minority business owners like higher taxes and more burdensome regulations than white business owners? Businessmen are businessment. They like making money, which means that most businessmen, regardless of race, like lower marginal tax rates and less intrusive regulations.
2) Considering the fact that a significant portion of the Hispanic population are church-going Catholics, what’s the likelihood that Republicans can appeal to them by emphasizing President Obama’s abortion-on-demand agenda? Shouldn’t Republicans put a priority on significant weekly outreach to the Hispanic population?
3) Can we afford to leave any voting block unattended? Even if we had a big coalition, which we don’t, I’d still argue that we can’t. The thought of not competing for votes in every neighborhood disgusts me. The thought that there are CD chairs whose defeatist attitudes causes them to write off their district disgusts me, too.

Fighting for every vote puts Democrats on the defensive. Each time we force the Democrats to fight to win traditionally Democratic seats, the more we narrow their playing field.

Jennifer Rubin’s article is must reading for those interested in rebuilding the party. Here’s one of the suggestions she makes to Chairman Steele:

First, Steele should offer to debate DNC Chairman Tim Kaine coast-to-coast on the Democrats’ stimulus plan and the economic crisis. This is the number one issue on voters’ minds, and for once the Republicans are making headway. The public is souring on the House Democrats’ spend-a-thon disguised as a stimulus bill. And Republicans have an attractive message: cut the pork, reduce taxes, and, if we must spend gobs of money, do it on worthwhile infrastructure and needed national defense projects. Steele is a capable and likeable figure who could communicate this message well. And a debate offer would signify that the Republicans aren’t afraid to take on the administration when it is wrong. (It would also give Steele a high visibility platform to re-establish the GOP’s populist credentials, by among other things, taking on the Obama administration’s not very New Politics, including the White House’s proclivity to hire ex-lobbyists and tax cheats.)

I’d seriously doubt that Tim Kaine would debate Chairman Steele. Steele is far more charismatic and articulate than Gov. Kaine.

This would be a win-win situation for the RNC. If Gov. Kaine debates Chairman Steele, our chairman would be the most eloquent advocate for his party’s principles. Better yet, Chairman Steele would be the optimistic, charismatic advocate on stage. If Gov. Kaine refuses to debate, it’ll look like he’s intimidated by Steele.

Here’s another suggestion Ms. Rubin has for Chairman Steele:

And finally, Steele needs to find an appropriate day-to-day communication strategy during the Obama presidency. Far too often the message coming from the RNC is nitpicky, unduly nasty, and unhelpful in furthering the policy or political objectives of the party. None of this static is helpful. Fine tuning the tenor of the message (less angry, more humor, more fact-based) and focusing on the big ticket items and over-arching themes will help keep the party on track.

If ever there was anything I agreed with more, I wouldn’t know what it was. The tit-for-tat nonsense that we’ve seen from the RNC and the Minnesota GOP doesn’t win people over. It doesn’t inspire people, some of whom think of themselves as independents but are really conservatives waiting for conservatism to be properly explained to them, into becoming rabid conservative activists. The nitpicky, sniping messaging doesn’t lay out a conservative vision, either.

Barack Obama didn’t win because he offered an appealing vision for where he wanted to take America. He won because (a) he let people their vision of America onto him and (b) the GOP didn’t offer voters a vision. Our daily mission should focus on how we’d return the United States to a prospering economy. Our vision should focus on eliminating Wall Street corruption and getting credit flowing again without an endless parade of bailouts.

We’ve got alot of work to do to restore the conservative brand but it’s worth doing. Besides, it’s the right thing to do. Finally, America will thank us for caring about their prosperity and security. That’s when we’ll return to being the majority party in the United States.

That can’t happen soon enough.

Technorati Tags: RNC, Michael Steele, Minority Outreach, Hispanics, Catholics, Pro Life, Debates, Democrats, President Obama, Tim Kaine, DNC

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 am and is filed under Activism, Author: Gary Gross, Conservatism, DNC, Economy, Elections, Obama, Pelosi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.