Response to Recent Feedback II

As we get more comments to the plan and about our efforts, another reaction has emerged. We are now hearing from some party activists that, though they like the ideas we have proposed, we are violating the processes of the party by the way we are promoting them, and we are being disrespectful of our leadership by making our views known in public. Although I respect the people who have voiced these concerns, and their commitment to this party, the concerns themselves invert the role of “We the People” of which Reagan always spoke. With all due respect, we who vote in the Republican primary, and who vote for Republican candidates in the general election, run this party. Our views should be shown more respect by our elected servants.

A political party is not a club, a congregation, or an office-place, and we are not plebes, congregants or employees who voluntarily serve a group, a leader, an employer, or a higher power. A political party is one of the organs through which we, the sovereign citizens, have chosen to run this country. Each precinct chair is an elected servant of the Republican voters in that precinct. Each precinct delegate, who starts the process of selecting our Senate District and state representatives, also is an elected servant of the Republican voters in that precinct, as are the party representatives they ultimately choose. Finally, the county chairman of the party is the elected servant of all Republicans in this county.

These servants ultimately have one job: to preserve and use the party apparatus to elect Republicans to government office. When they fail in that job, we, the people, have the right and duty to object, and to propose and demand change from our servants. In the event those servants won’t change, we have the right and duty to demand they surrender their office. The momentary processes of the party are only valid to the extent they help elect Republicans to office. If the processes don’t help that effort, they should be changed, and we have the right to call for such change from our servants. It is not divisive or disrespectful to fulfill our obligations as the real leaders of the party.

We often ask, “what would Ronald Reagan do?” This has always been the wrong question, for Reagan’s message to us was that the Republican mission doesn’t seek a hero on a white horse or place its leaders on such a pedestal. Instead, he always turned to “We the People” of our party and our country and asked us to answer the call of the person we see in our mirror every morning and every night—the call of the real leaders and sovereigns of this country. The question he challenged all of us to ask ourselves is, “what will I do?”

In the tradition of Reagan, we are asking our Precinct Chairs, our Senate District representatives and our County Chairman—our elected servants—as well as all of the Republicans in this county, to look in the mirror and ask themselves, “what will I do to rebuild the Harris County Republican Party.” We have the right and the duty to expect an answer.