As we talked about yesterday… there’s some rebuilding going on. Not a remodel. We’re not just talking about expanding the garage for an extra keggerator or for that hotrod you restored, alright? Everyone’s talking about it… so the World’s Crappiest Blog is picking up a blow torch and some diamond plate… and offering some ideas. I only preface this entire post with… I’m not, repeat NOT the sharpest tool in the garage. This may be a complete waste of your time. But, you all have been sending emails… been making some calls… asking “What up, G$?” So here’s a little something from the peanut gallery. Some of this flows right along… some of this is kind of rambling… and of course, what would be anything from QCI without a little randomnous… right? (and for some of you first time readers here… yes, that’s how I spell it). If you are going to take the time to read this… please comment… your party need’s you.MESSAGE AND BRANDING – You know… our brand as Republicans, has took a beating. We all know why we are Republicans in the first place right? From personal freedoms, less government, liberty… you all get it. It’s a great message. The problem is, we’ve been out messaged… what seems like a lot lately. Some of it is easy to fix… communication shops and good messengers help. But in many cases, it was bad issues and bad votes from the folks we put in office… makes it a little tough to defend bad votes. Kind of like the “prevent defense”… which we all know football fans, prevents you from winning.
BOLD MESSAGING – This will have to come from our communicators, candidates and incumbents. We are the party of big ideas. Let’s go with it. Great example… my favorite governor, Mitch Daniels of Indiana… he put together some pretty bold solutions that rocked both sides of the aisle. I think there was an article out there with the line, “For a guy that ruffled the feathers of pretty much everyone, he sure got their vote.” I’ll find it here soon and post it in the comments. And guess what happened… for a guy who was doomed at the beginning of this cycle, he won with a landslide… every single county in the state of Indiana. And he won big (traditionally tough for Rs… big gains in Central Indiana). This is a state that went for Obama for the first time since Goldwater. Let’s come up with some real bold solutions for issues of the day in our state. Spread the word, get feed back, communicate it and get it to law.
AND BEFORE YOU START FOAMING AT THE MOUTH – Stick to the principles… stick to the conservative principles that win… yet be inclusive at the same time. And I’ll admit this here first… how the hell did Tom Latham win his district??? Where the registration registration numbers are against him?
Less government, lower taxes, personal freedoms, pro life, pro family… are you working hard for your money? You should keep it. Everyone talks about riots in the streets… this Bailout stuff should scare the hell out of you. A lot of this will come from the candidates and messengers and how effective they are. This is what made Ronald Reagan great. There’s probably some who didn’t agree with everything with Reagan… but they knew what he stood for and communicated like a champion. The message, while it will come out of the offices of 621 East 9th, will have be the most effective out of our candidates… and their supporters... us... the best we can.
KILL ‘EM WITH KINDNESS – This is the best advice from my father that I will take to the bank. There’s no reason for personal attacks. What does it solve? What… you just brought down someone’s self esteem? Good for you... Have a debate on the issues. Have a debate on facts. When push comes to shove… we are right on the issues. We all know it. That doesn’t mean we have to Mickey Mouse everything… make about issues… and do it with a smile… no matter what the other side’s face looks. Kill ‘em with kindness. A healthy respectful discussion of issues will get you more votes… I’m not kidding.
TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY – This is an area were we have been way behind. Here in Iowa, we can’t assume that, out in the booneys, that they don’t have computers. They may have a crappy internet connection… but theys gots themselves a computer and the interweb. Hell, my 85 year old Grandma in God’s Country Iowa is on here (love you Grandma). Let’s utilize these tools… organize and spread our message. Don’t just create a MySpace page and a Facebook page… because the other side has one… USE IT! Got something on your mind? Start a blog. For crying out loud, I think everyone knows my car was stolen. It took 3 minutes until I got my first phone call about it from a friend… and less than a minute for someone to comment on it on Facebook. What’s the issue of the week? Get it out there. Twitter it. Put it on your Facebook status… send an email that wasn’t copy and pasted from an RNC release. Put your comments in there… personalize it. Create a tiny URL and blast it. The sooner we figure this out… the faster we’ll catch up... the echo chamber gets larger than just putting up an ad on the 50,000 blow torch of the Middle West. And for you fiscal conservatives out there… most of this stuff is the right price… it doesn’t cost anything other than the time put into it.
EVERYONE AND EVERYBODY – If we are gonna get anywhere with the GOP in Iowa, we need everybody. I mean EVERYONE. Think about how much talent we have in this state. How much experience? We have a ton! It’s gonna take the great county chairs, the activists who have taken a seat back. It’s gonna take former staffers, consultants and former legislators. It’s gonna take the newbies, the oldies and the ones we don’t know about yet. You getting the idea… but it is true.
I know… I know, there’s egos involved and factions who aren’t crazy about the other. But how’s that losing thing going for you? You’re gonna have to find things where you agree and things you are going to have to agree to disagree and move the party forward. You just are. Too much is at stake… Am I expecting everyone to sing kubaya? Hell no? We’re gonna be in a hole for a while. We will need everyone doing something. And you’re gonna have to get along with the Ford guys, when you drive a Chevy… suck it up.
I’m not saying everyone has to make an X amount of calls and door knocks (but you will sometime)… I’m saying, utilize the talent out there. Have a good network to fundraise? Host a party. Can you make a pretty cool Metallica YouTube tribute that you made? Help out a local candidate and make a web video, get it on YouTube and blast it. Are you a good writer? Start a blog! (and God forbid you might use your actual name… I know.. I know… cheap shot… you know I love you anonymous guys) Are you well connected in your local Rotary? Forward emails to them. Do you have awesome Hawkeye tailgate parties in your backyard, every weekend? Invite local candidates to be there. Just to hang out. As crazy as this all sounds… utilize these tools. Republicans come in all shapes, all sizes and all sorts of talents that can help elect good government.
BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION – This goes for everyone. Don’t get fed up and go home. There’s too much at stake. There’s been some talk about meetings going around the state. Some are put together in board rooms… some with a few friends over coffee… a roundtable of folks over pitchers of beer… and some held in church basements. This is a good thing. But… once you gather, you think and talk… reach out… and unite. Your party needs you more than ever to be a part of a solution… not a problem that will setback a lot of the hard work that’s yet to come.
HAVE FUN - For crying out loud… we need to have some fun again. We need to get creative and have a little fun. That means having social outings, networking sessions, coffee clubs… get a group together to go to a Barnstormer game (sorry shameless plug, our 2009 schedule is out by the way… in case you were wondering). I had a couple of left leaning friends who went to an Obama event… not because they were sure they were voting for him… because a buddy of theirs had a good time and invited them… and turns out they had a good time too. The Grand Ole Party… well should be a party… not like Animal House or something (although would be cool)…. You get what I’m saying. HAVE FUN.
MAKE THIS AN IOWA THING… NOT A BELTWAY THING – You know, wouldn’t it be something for once… the State Party didn’t have to do every little thing the RNC asks for. Know what I’m saying? Sure, there are things you have to do because the RNC is funding it… but let’s give this Iowa solutions. You know… other than Iowa keeping it’s first in the nation status… I could care less who is the new RNC Chair… worry about Iowa first. But come to think of it… with all of the Iowans out in DC… we could utilize their help too. Even if they are deployed to their home towns on an election year…
Side note for randomnous… aren’t Iowans… modest Texans when it comes to their state? If you get what I’m saying comment on it.
ALSO, THE ANON COMMENTER IS RIGHT – Not all the good ideas come from Des Moines… “Huh?!?!?!? WHAT!?!?!?!” Yea, I said it.
REMEMBER THAT PHONES ARE GREAT… AND DON’T HAVE TO BE FOR GOTV ONLY – Phone calls are probably one of the single most important thing in politics. You turn out the vote on them. You raise money on them. You get your message out on them. But… they are great for catching up. Keeping your ear on the ground… if we’re ever going to find out what is gonna work and what isn’t… we need to work the phones to get reads from the ground. And guess what’s going to happen, you are going to find out that certain issues are gonna work here. Some will work there. And God forbid… volunteers and activists, who give numerous hours of their free time, will feel more appreciated. And you’ll be getting more out of your Blackberry than you even imagined…
DO WHAT WE DO WELL – Hey… just because you’re rebuilding your garage… you don’t have to change the type of tools that have been reliable over the years. Sure you may need to upgrade your jig saw or get a new air compressor with more power… but you don’t need to change the methods… just tweak it a bit. This goes for the 72 Hour program, absentee ballots, going door to door, ect. We can tweak it and make it more efficient. When we get organized… it’s actually pretty cool to watch… because it goes like clock work. Not in every case… but, you know what I’m getting at. Don’t forget what we do best… maybe rotate the tires… maybe add a few fuel additives to make it perform a little better.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY – Speaking of things we’re good at… raising money. A lot of this comes with the people who raise the money (and are good at it) and the product we’re putting on the field. But this is a constant and one of the most important things… you want your 500 barnsigns to put on your properties and corners? It’s gonna take some money. That and did you know that the sun still rises in the east? Just checking…
99 COUNTY STRATEGY – Listen… I’m the last person who wants to paraphrase Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy. But, we have to be everywhere. There cannot be “Worthless” Counties anymore. There cannot be a county where we only have a GOP County Treasurer and no other party leadership in the county. We have to be actively out there working in weak counties, good counties, marginal counties and in some cases… regionalize the larger ones. I don’t care how you do it… you just have to be everywhere… if there’s people showing up to Grassley Town Halls when he visits every county, every year… there can be an effective County Party as well. It just takes some good Iowa grown ethanol in your Buick… and you gotta “have love will travel.”
90% OF EVERYTHING IS SHOWING UP – You gotta have a presence everywhere… in a fashion that is effective and appropriate. Maybe it should be 99%... you gotta be in every corner of the state.
WHAT’S AT STAKE – Terrace Hill, Terrace Hill, Terrace Hill… Let me tell you the worst kept secret in Iowa Republican politics… we’re gonna have a primary. But kids, we’s gonna need to unite after whatever happens… I’m as serious as cancer right now… We’re gonna have to unite. And move forward. FACT: if you hold the Governor’s office… you will have an infrastructure… a well oiled machine… appointments… you get to roll the table. This is an opportunity.
LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP, LEADERSHIP – With everything written above… ain’t nothin’ gonna happen without a leader. We’re frustrated. We just want someone to lead. It’s gonna take a good chair… and there’s gonna be a discussion. When you are on the phone lately… or checking comments on the blogs… Republicans are yearning for leadership. This is gonna be the debate for a while… who can do it? Is it an old face? Is it a new face? All I know is… it’s going to take someone… who can get along with all of the factions… the egos… the group of ladies who meet for coffee in a church basement… the group of guys at the country club who are arguing who should start at QB for Iowa… the 2nd shifter union crew at a local tap… someone who can communicate and be comfortable talking our message no matter the situation.
This is my little prayer… I hope when the fog clears… and when all of the factions have had their say… let’s unite! Let’s rally it up! And let’s strap on the helmets, do the work and create the Iowa Comeback… we can do it. I know we can. But… it’s gonna take some work… who’s with me? Whoever is the new chair… I’m gonna help… and to all of you reading this… let’s pull a Danny Ocean. “You are either in or you’re out… RIGHT NOW.” Are you in?
IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF DENNIS MILLER – “But this is only my opinion, I could be wrong.” If you just read this entire diatribe… please comment on it. Seriously guys… thumbs up? Thumbs down? How about a peace sign minus one? Let’s have a discussion about this… too much is at stake. There’s a comment section below. Just like the name of this blog… I will now take your questions, comments and insults.
19 comments:
Grant,
You hit the nail on the head. The Dems are highly organized in the state. We need to do the same. But it is going to take a commitment from everyone involved.
Thanks IDA!
I hope we can.
Great Ideas Grant, More people need to read this and PUT IT INTO PRACTICE!!!!
Grant - this is why you should consider being a candidate soon.
That was a tremendous read and an excellent mindset to be in as we begin to rebuild our Party.
Simply Awesome
Well said G. Egos have no place in our party moving forward; they should be checked at the door. 2006 & 08 were some nice big servings of humble pie. 2010 is ours. Watch out IDP cause you're in the crosshairs of a united front.
G$ does this mean you will come out of retirement!!! This is right on the money!
We also ned to re-learn how to communicate our ideas so that the people at the guys at the contry club understand the message as well as those at the local tap or at a union hall. The GOP is the party of those who work and have jobs not those who chose to live off of government. We should be appalled that the Dem's just gave 700 billion of our money to the largest banks/corporations in the county and plan to take even more of our money and our childrens money and hand it out!
I'm up north but I will comment when I have a better internet connection.
Well said Grant. I'm more than willing to help!! Count me in, buddy! Change is a coming...and it's a change WE can believe in! :)
Word.
"Kill them with Kindness" is right on the money and is something Latham has lived by. May be why he just won in a landslide in a terrible year for us. We all need to take a page from the book of Iowa's Dean of the Delegation.
Great work, Grant. Love your mind and heart.
Good thoughts, G...
I posted my response to what you had to say:
http://easterniowaconservative.blogspot.com/2008/11/future.html
~EIC
GREAT comments Grant. I'm in, Mr. Ocean!!
Awesome Grant... running for chair or something any time soon?? please!!!!!!
Hi Grant,
I’ve re-read you’re piece and have a little more time to add my two cents (and it might not be worth that). You’ve hit on some very important key points about how the Republican Party of Iowa can find its way out of the darkness (minority) into the light (majority). Two things I would add:
1. We had the majority in both Iowa and DC – what happened? I’ve heard Congressman Latham say it often (and perhaps his clarity on this is an important factor in his 28 county sweep of the 4th): “The Democrats didn’t WIN the majorities so much as we LOST them.” I know you touch on this, Grant, but I think it is extremely important to understand it as we look back to examine how and where we veered off course and as we look forward and contemplate our options for getting back on track. To the point; I don’t think compromising our core beliefs should be an option for our Party. I believe it is possible to appeal to a broad constituency without changing our fundamental principles. Indeed, it is in those fundamental principles where we find the most common ground with all who subscribe to a system of government (observe the small “g”) where freedom and liberty are the cornerstones.
2. It is extremely important for all who choose to engage in this great rebuilding of RPI to understand our opponent. I read an article a few years back in the Wall Street Journal. I believe it was a letter to the editor. I wish I could remember the author so I could find it again because she nails it in her description of the different approaches to campaigns and elections used by Democrats and Republicans. I seem to recall it was a State Legislator from Oklahoma who was a reformed Democrat. (I’m adding as much info as I have here in hopes one of your readers might help me locate the author and article). Anyway, to sum it up, she said Republicans should never forget that when it comes to winning elections the Democrats’ approach is “If we don’t win, we don’t eat”. THAT is the level of their commitment to controlling the levers of power; THAT is the level of their dependency on government programs and policies. If you think about it, it rings true and explains a lot about the Democrat leadership’s approach to campaigning and governing. The author goes on to explain and support her assertion with great deft. My memory isn’t good enough nor is it necessary to try and recreate her logic here. Suffice it to say, if you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand what we are up against. If you don’t understand what we are up against, then what hope do you have of rebuilding and reenergizing a Party with the necessary vision, purpose and assets to be successful? True that we have much introspection and internal work to do before we can turn our attention to the Democrats, but if you don’t have some sense of the nature of the sea, it is unlikely you will build a viable ship. I’m not suggesting we need to become mean and vicious in response. On the contrary, your comments about “kill ‘em with kindness” and let’s make this more fun are spot on! I’m just saying how important it is to understand our opponents’ commitment and motivation.
Thanks, Grant for all you do.
Conservatives are dragging the remnants of our movement into the wilderness with no idea how we will emerge or whether we will ever emerge as an electoral force in America which is recognizable, we must inevitably engage ourselves in the most soul- searing inquiry of what went wrong. This will be an agony but equally it will be effective only to the degree that it hurts. It will not succeed without bloodshed. There must be finger-pointing and bloodletting. We must carve to the bone. The process must be Darwinian. Those whose ideas are false must be bayoneted on the trial.
The object is to find our soul-nothing less. In a come to Jesus sense we must get absolutely clear what it means to be a conservative. Only at this point do we look to the tent flaps and open them. Those who cannot subscribe to the hard-won consensus, to a confession of faith as to what is a conservative, should walk out through that flap. Those who are attracted from the outside to the core message of conservatism should be encouraged to walk through the flap and enlarge the tent. What the left wants us to do is to expand the census in the tent prematurely and thus turn a movement into a menagerie.
We did not lose the 2008 election because we were excessively partisan while Obama was enlightened and transcendental. We lost the election because George Bush, John McCain and Karl Rove betrayed the soul of conservatism. A party without its soul is like an army which does not believe in itself, it cannot win the next contest. A party which had abandoned its principles and so lost the last two elections and has lost both its power as the ruling coalition and its status as the majority philosophy of the nation, cannot expect to swell its ranks by recruiting to a lost cause. The party must first know what the cause is and only then can it recruit. To again borrow the military analogy, a party like an army disintegrates without a mission. Armies are assigned missions but a political party finds its mission only through soul-searching. As this process occurs we will be told by the left that only a big tent party can win and that to become a big tent one must move to co-opt the center. That is not how it works. That is the reverse of the way it works.
The center is not peopled by voters with fixed notions about the exercise of power who wait for one of the great political parties to surrender their values and embrace the tempered and resolute opinions of the middle. That happens with splinter parties but not with the mushy middle. When an unaffiliated voter bestirs himself to enter the polling booth he is confronted with one of two options: right or left. He does not consider who has moved the farthest geographically from right to the left or left to right any more than he commits because of his own long held political beliefs. He votes for the person who best articulates his hopes and dreams at the moment. Put more charitably, he votes for the candidate who persuades that he is the best, and has the best to offer. If we as conservatives do not believe that we have the best to offer we should get out of the business.
A candidate, like a party, who is centered on his philosophy has integrity and is persuasive. And that philosophy must first have a vertical philosophical component which finds expression and out working in a horizontal governing philosophy.
In what seems like a violation of this principle, Barack Obama won all three debates and John McCain lost them. Debates are not decided on points, which John McCain might actually have won, but on who advances his election chances. By all accounts, the country left the debates feeling that Barack Obama was presidential. Since a perfect storm of historical forces and Republican Follies had disposed the nation to vote Democrat, Barack Obama passed the test and won the debates. John McCain lost the debates both because he lacked vision and because he lacked a governing political philosophy. A philosophy which is clear and shared by his base and attractive to the middle. His governing philosophy is, ultimately, whatever he thinks is his vision of America. McCain tried to play to the center. It came off as a pander even though McCain had a historical claim to bipartenship and Obama does not.
Because of his race, Obama was asked only to demonstrate that he could walk and talk like a president. Obama has won the middle, not because he pandered to them, which he did, but because he had the wind at his back.
As John McCain reverts from titular head of the Republican Party to United States Senator, it falls to the rest of us to contrive a governing philosophy which he, unfortunately, did not own and therefore could not bequeath to us. We had such a legacy from Ronald Reagan but we squandered it. We must construct our own. We must do it in the wilderness. We must do it unaided by intermeddling liberals. Theirs is the serpent's way, the easy way, a pander to the superficially popular, the accommodation to the middle.
Herein lies another question; What is the best vehicle for conservatives to retake the country? Change cannot be affected by simply dropping out and extending our middle finger to the establishment. We must have a firm foundation in what makes the system what it is. That means reading Alinsky, Marcuse and the like and learning from them. True revolutionaries knew the system and therefore knew how to make the system work in their favor. If the Republican Party is no longer an effective vehicle for conservatism, then we must build our own. Make no mistake, this is a rebuilding process for conservatives and we must resist any efforts by the left to sabotage the rebuilding process on the right which must be done exclusively by the right.
Snoozer Steve...Truly spoken like someone from the left trying to sabatoge a comeback.
Truly spoken like someone completely ignorant to winning political campaigns.
The Anons are spoken like someone who blames the marketing department if the product is defective.
Grant,
I agree with your points here. The re-branding argument paired with enhanced communication is clearly a must if we are going to increase our win/loss ratio.
I do believe that this has to have a close relationship though to the foaming at the mouth problem. Not only do we need to stick to basics (what we are good at) but we must learn how to more artfully package our ideological wares so as to maximize our share of the market. Word choice is everything.
Regards,
U.S. Grant
Grant and Dave
Some very poignant insight from you both.
I agree that it is not that the Dems have "beaten" us but rather we have wandered off into oblivion on our own.
No coherent message, no real communication up/down or to either side, etc
What have we done over the last year to correct our problems? Act like a bunch of kids on the playground pointing fingers at our friends and allies and complaining- for the most part completely ignoring the real opposition.
We need to pull together not push away. We need to get our proverbial you know what together and start working as a party that has real solutions to offer.
We need to rebuild from the bottom up as is obvious- but that can only be done with communication featuring a real message on who we are and what we believe- and most important why we believe.
A vast majority of us share our core beliefs. The internal problem as I see it is in the presentation and the priority of the message.
Hopefully there are enough of us in the Party that understand we need to approach our mistakes and defeats by not simply laying blame at everyone else's doorstep but realize that there is opportunity in every adversity- meaning that RPI as well as the national Party should be able to find much to use over the next two years to rebound.
Remember the doom and gloom in 92 gave way to great gains in 94, much of which can be attributed to Newt and the Contract.
We need a new relevant contract- proof we can once again stand united for our principles. The left will give us at all levels of goverment plenty of ammuniton to use I am sure.
Can we find the commonality and leadership coupled with a real message and presentation? Communication is the first and most important step at this time.
Andy Cable
Post a Comment