Tuesday, your blogger finally climbed out of her hole, looked around, and noticed that the world was going on as usual. After spending nearly all of October and November with a severe sinus infection, she knew she had to come out sometime, and chose Tuesday as her day. After all, she and her husband had paid sixty bucks for a John Locke Foundation Luncheon regarding election wrap-up, featuring John Gizzi and Bob Beckel, Marc Rotterman, and John Hood.
She hasn't spoken with many folks since the election. Only her family and closest friends have been confidants, while she focused on the activities of her young son and NC State football, along with the firing/stepping down of the University of Tennessee head football coach, Phillip Fulmer. But, she knew she would have to face the overwhelming sense of political defeat sooner or later, and Tuesday was that day.
At the luncheon, she heard a lot of theories and arguments. She laughed and nodded with many, and shook her head at at others. In the end, she had her own ideas of why we lost and what we must do to return to the winner's column.
1. The Party must return to its roots -
(We didn't say Liberty Caucus, as adherence to the Constitution is assumed, and any such caucus is not needed in a true conservative movement.)
We need to return to the fiscal (lower taxes, less government) and social (pro-capital punishment, pro-traditional family, pro-life - except in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother) principles that we have stood for in the past. We don't have to stand by and watch society disintegrate. Additionally, we need to continue to stand for a strong defense with a prepared military.
History tells us that those who live only for today, don't build anything for tomorrow. We can and must return to the conservative (traditional) policies of men like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Jesse Helms.
2. The Republican Party must root out it's moderates. Advisors that allowed Beverly Perdue to run to the right of Pat McCrory are to be congratulated. A speaker mentioned today at the Locke event that both Perdue and McCrory were two centrists running for North Carolina governor, yet Perdue ran to the right of McCrory on immigration and taxes, both hot-button issues for North Carolinians. Because most North Carolina voters are Democrats, why should they cross party lines when they are just as comfortable with the Democrat?
We must give the voters a clearer choice. We must run conservatives, rather than moderates. (Your blogger liked Pat McCrory and worked hard for him, but he was not the "east of I-95 conservative" that we needed to reshape our party.)
We need our GOP elected officials to tow the conservative line in Raleigh and in Washington. We don't want them to vote with Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Joe Hackney, and Marc Basnight or to take a walk on key issues (you know who you are).
3. Electronics & Communications: The Republican Party has always been stereotyped as "our father's party" and it now actually looks that way too. I've got no problems, personally, with looking for leadership from these seasoned citizens, as they have a lifetime of skills to draw upon. However, life is moving much faster these days, with the help of electronics and computers so small, they fit in your hand. We need younger leaders who understand this fact and can make the quick decisions to help our party change and adapt. For example, the Democrats, with their younger leaders, were able to faster mobilize voters with SMS texting, social networking (like Facebook), Twitter, You Tube, and more, all via handheld computers like the iPhone (pictured, left).
Republicans in North Carolina sent out a lot of press releases via email and email has been dead as a way to move people for two years. Your blogger has used these tools since they were first made available. It's fun learning and sharing these tools and they come and go quickly. No one was there to teach any of us.
The tools that will be used in the next big election cycle (in just four years) haven't been invented yet!
We need Technology Evangelists on the staff of the North Carolina Republican Party in two years, with our next big elections coming up, or we will lose again. The NCGOP didn't roll out a blog until late in the election cycle and I link to them, and but they won't link to anyone else. These "evangelists" can inform the leadership of the latest happenings and explain why they should incorporate the tools into their game plan.
Finally, we have to toss away old models, including that old thing called the "72-hour Get Out The Vote". With three days to go, nearly everyone, your blogger included, had already voted. So, what was the point of that? Further, as John Hood mentioned, on election day it rained, actually suppressing Republican voters in much of North Carolina.
By following these steps, we could be on our way to reclaiming what is rightfully ours. These issues do resonate with the high school and college kids coming up if we explain why they should be important. Education is the key, and so is keeping ahead of the curve electronically. The Democrats aren't smarter than we are. They are simply more effective in disseminating information to their voters.
The NC GOP staff worked very hard this election and they are to be commended. Linda Daves, Brent Woodcox and their team threw everything they had at the Democrats and I take my hat off to them.
But their hands were tied. They worked hard using very outdated tools. It was as if they went into battle flying sputtering, old model fighters, rather than the latest stealth jets.
They had an old-fashioned communications concept. The staff needed to be more adept, able to bob and weave and to use any tool available to them in that dogfight. There is no such thing as "training" for these tools. It's all "on the job". No one has ever trained your blogger to use anything. It's all self-taught. The technology comes fast and once the tool is used up, it's over. You adapt and change, or get run over in the process.
We can do this. Let's just pray the RNC and the GOP is listening. Let's go get 'em! KCC is here to help! I'm here to volunteer my time to help you help us! Who's with us?
Recent Comments