Young Republicans want to shake up their party using this public beta Web site for their manifesto for GOP transformation.
In the face of last week’s crushing defeat at the polls, a group of prominent young Republicans has challenged the Republican National Committee to truly transform itself, with technology an important focus.
This makes a lot of sense but as I read their manifesto on their Web site, Rebuild the Party, it became painfully aware to me that they aren’t really focusing on transforming the GOP in substantive and strategic ways, but in merely tactical ones that sidestep the ideology and divisiveness that turned so many voters against them. Here’s what they say:
[Without change,] 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.
This is the first indication that these folks only see the structural and tactical as what needs to be transformed. And that tossed-off reference to the “toxic political environment” of the past few years completely ignores the GOP’s own contribution to the toxicity, and how that turned voters against it.
Priority No. 1 – The Internet
In a fitting analysis, the neo-Republican coalition declares:
Barack Obama and the Democrats’ ability to build their entire fundraising, GOTV [get out the vote], and communications machine from the Internet is the #1 existential challenge to our existing party model.
And it says that taking back the electorate depends on:
- Recruiting 5 million new online Republican activists.
- Holding local campaigns and parties accountable for winning their own districts and counties.
- Opening up the GOP’s technological ecosystem to entrepreneurial outsiders.
These are all good ideas but they avoid the issue of what it is these new online activists are supposed to advocate for. The Republican platform is merely about opposition; people need something to be in favor of. And the traditional Republican issues — smaller government, fiscal responsibility, strong foreign policy, keeping government out of people’s private business — have all largely been abandoned in the wake of the Bush administration’s craven lust for executive power and its obeisance to the social priorities of the radical Right.
Power to the People? Really?
The coalition notes that Obama’s campaign showed the power of “mass connectedness,” bypassing traditional power-brokers. Putting faith in the Internet requires a revitalized GOP that puts its faith in networked individuals by
- Using a volunteer-to-volunteer approach to build the grassroots.
- Raising funds from a network of millions instead of raising millions from a network of a few rich people and corporations. “Right now, we cannot compete with the Democrats’ scalable online fundraising machine and if this is not corrected our party will face a long-term financial deficit.”
- Recruiting 25,000 high-level activists — a few thousand to run races and the rest embedded throughout the country to keep the GOP “strong and relevant in local communities.”
- Reorganizing the RNC so that e-campaigning is an integrated part of its operations, not a mere add-on.
Again, this analysis focuses on improving the party’s framework without getting at what’s at the heart of Republican defections. The coalition hints at this in this passage, however, but unfortunately goes no further:
Moreover, our candidate recruitment should focus less on a candidate’s ability to collect $2,300 checks or to self-fund than on the strength of their message.
The critical question remains, what is it the Republican Party, post-2008, is going to stand for?
Not New Ideas, New Candidates!
“Without inspiring candidates with clear messages to rally around,” the coalition says, “all the strategies and tactics in the world will be for naught.” Unfortunately, its plan only focuses on the candidates, not the clear messages.
The party needs to consider no seat a safe one and run a 435-district, 50-state race. It also needs to build the strength of its back bench by recruiting good (and young!) candidates for state legislatures.
Here’s the problem: The Republicans successfully built local infrastructure through the 1980s and 90s by recruiting candidates for key local races, especially school boards, where conservatives tried to chip away at sex education, evolution and other dangerous things for young people to know about.
That tactic worked (and could still work) only with right-wing Christian fundamentalists because, again, these people know what they’re fighting for. The party itself needs a coherent, positive message, and this coalition isn’t providing one.
Oh, and By the Way, It’s All About The People
As an “afterword” (of all things!), the coalition urges the GOP to embrace a “Politics of ‘Us’”:
Obama tapped the Internet successfully because he made it about “you” and “us” not “me” and “I.” You were invited in. You were a key part of his campaign/movement. … Because of the Internet, “us” becomes a force more powerful than any in politics. The ability to donate or volunteer instantaneously online gives the millions of “us” more leverage than even the most connected group of insiders.
This is an important departure for Republicans, who have long touted themselves as the party of “individual liberty,” except, of course, where it contradicts fundamentalist Christian thinking. But will the GOP really give up the money from big business and donors that it accepts in exchange for giving them political power and access? That may be a bigger trade-off than the party is willing to make right now.
And in a final fit of irony, the coalition makes the mistake of assuming Obama is just another dreaded tax-and-spender, and that’s where they continue to miscalculate what is Obama’s appeal.
Obama’s victory could be a blessing in disguise for conservatives. … Obama as President would act in ways that contradict the bottom-up culture that fueled his campaign. In the campaign, it was “Yes We Can.” In the White House, it will be “Yes, Government Can.” Obama’s top-down government control of the health care and the economy will give conservatives an opening to once again recapture the mantle of distributed citizen activism. Obama campaigned against the establishment, and now he is the establishment.
Obama didn’t campaign against the establishment. He campaigned against how George Bush had twisted and usurped the establishment. He campaigned on a return to the constitutional principles that undergird and strengthen our society.
Consider the irony that the “top-down government control” of the economy the neo-Republicans decry was instituted by a Republican administration. And that a majority of the public wants the government intervening in what’s clearly been the failure of a barely regulated financial structure.
This coalition should beware of drawing today’s Democrats with yesterday’s crayons, as simply wanting top-down government control. We believe in dynamic markets and strong civil society, too; we just think government — accountable to the people, unlike profit-driven private-sector institutions — should play a leadership role, too.
Sidebar
Who Are These Neo-Republicans?
❖ Erick Erickson, managing editor, RedState.com (Macon, GA)
❖ David Kralik (San Francisco, CA)
❖ Mindy Finn, former eStrategy Director, Romney for President
❖ Patrick Ruffini, former Republican National Committee eCampaign Director & co-founder,The Next Right
❖ Mark Harris (Pittsburgh, PA)
❖ Phil Musser, former executive director, Republican Governors Association
❖ Michael Turk, former Republican National Committee eCampaign Director
❖ Justin Sayfie, former spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush (Ft. Lauderdale, FL)
❖ Charlie Smith, Chairman, College Republican National Committee Chairman
❖ Blake Harris, Co-Chairman, College Republican National Committee Chairman
❖ Peter Torkildsen, Chairman, Massachusetts Republican Party
❖ Matt Lewis, Townhall.com
❖ Brian Donahue, Jamestown Associates
❖ Mike Krempasky, co-founder RedState.com
❖ Jon Henke, co-founder, The Next Right
❖ Ben Domenech, co-founder RedState
❖ Kristen Soltis, The Winston Group
❖ Hugh Weber, former RNC Political Education Director
❖ Soren Dayton, co-founder, The Next Right
❖ Albert Maruggi, former RNC Press Secretary (St. Paul, MN)
❖ Scott Dismuke, AkinsCrisp Public Strategies (Nashville, TN)
❖ Robert Willington, Executive Director, Massachusetts Republican Party
❖ Joe Galli, former College Republican National Committee Chairman (Flagstaff, AZ)
❖ Clint Murphy, Georgia State Director, McCain-Palin 2008
❖ Christopher A. Keber (New York, NY)
❖ Dan Bayens, Strategy Group Media
❖ William Grayson (San Francisco, CA)
❖ Scott Graves, RedCounty.com (Orange County, CA)
❖ Sean Doughtie, Taproot Creative (Tallahassee, FL)
❖ Alex Brunk, Wilson Research Strategies
❖ David Mastio, RightyBlogs.com
❖ Tim Cameron (Atlanta, GA)
❖ Katie Witt, 2008 candidate for Colorado State Senate (Longmont, CO)
❖ Clayton Wagar, co-founder, RedState.com
❖ Dan Spencer, RedState.com
❖ Adam Schmidt, AdamJSchmidt.com
❖ Nick DeLeeuw, RightMichigan.com
❖ Matt Briney, Emotive LLC
❖ Aaron Marks, NextGenGOP.com
❖ James Clarkson, NextGenGOP.com
❖ Billy Valentine, former director, Students for Brownback
❖ Vince Galko, former executive director, Pennsylvania Republican State Committee
❖ Madeline Gorman Holbrook, RNC Communications, 2002-2003
❖ Matt Moon, contributing editor, The Next Right
❖ J. Peter Freire
