Since our postings on this website after Christmas, I have been continuing to meet and correspond with local Republican activists about the plan and the intentions of our group. What I am hearing consistently is a version of the following comment: “I agree with your plan and I want to see it implemented. However, I don’t want to divide the party, and I don’t want to upset the people who have worked for years to be in leadership positions. Can’t we work with the current leadership to implement this plan? How can we trust that you won’t divide the party and change its principles?” I will try to address these concerns briefly.
The underlying concern, especially among many veterans of prior intra-party battles, is that our effort to promote this plan is actually a Trojan Horse designed to eliminate our party’s embrace of policies that promote a culture of life in opposition to the hedonism and death that are the consequences of the Democrat’s “progressive” agenda. These veterans fear that our effort is nothing more than a repeat of the “United Republican” movement within the local party in the 1990s. Although I have friends who were involved in the formation of United Republicans, and who are still members today, I have never been a member of that organization, nor do I embrace policies on the issue of “life” that differ from our party’s platform or the Declaration of Independence.
Our agenda is not to divide the party, or change its principles. Instead, our efforts are focused solely on changing the strategy of the party, so that it will grow and win elections. We do not intend to walk away from the party and form our own renegade group if our efforts are unsuccessful. Instead, we will explore every legal alternative available to create ancillary mechanisms to compliment whatever plan the party leadership does embrace, and to independently implement strategies to grow the party and elect Republican candidates until we can more directly effect the party’s strategic planning.
There are times when change is needed to help the whole movement, even though that change may interrupt the aspirations and ambitions of certain individuals. Unfortunately, no matter what faction has been in control of our party over the years, the reaction to new ideas and new blood has often been the same: resistance. It is this resistance that has led our party to nominate candidates like Nixon, Dole, and McCain more often than candidates like Goldwater and Reagan. We will not grow the base on the foundation of our principles if we don’t abandon our historic resistance to new strategies and new people.
It is not our intent to thwart anyone’s personal ambitions. In fact, we believe that if our proposed changes are implemented, all of the leaders of our party will benefit in the long-run. I reiterate that it is not my intent to inject myself into the leadership queue, but I will do everything I can to help implement this plan because I sincerely believe it is the right thing to do. If the current leadership embraces our ideas, we will work with them. If not, we intend to do whatever is necessary to make sure that our conservative principles are embraced by an expanded voter base so that we win elections in the future.
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2 comments:
Speaking for myself, the main thing I am interested in is whether we can get the job done with the leadership we have now. My own experience is that there's nobody home on Richmond Avenue. Either that, or I don't matter to them.
On most occasions when I've asked for help, I've received no reply. Campaigns I've worked with report the same story. There's no THERE there.
How can we win anything with a headquarters so understaffed, so out of touch, so non-responsive?
I appreciate your sensitivity to the past struggles within the party, and to the people who were made wary by them. I just hope everyone, past members, long-time party stalwarts, and newcomers will ask themselves one question...
Do I have confidence that the current leadership of the HCRP, as I interact with it and know it at present, can prevent Harris County from turning blue in 2010?
Can an honest person answer yes?
I totally agree.
We can't win elections with a fractured base, or with a shrinking base. Instead, our base has to reunite and grow in order to win elections. That is why two of the three missions of the plan are to reunite our factions and grow the base.
I know that the old feuds were based on real differences, but the principles of the party are no longer really in dispute. So, this battle now has become as meaningless to winning elections as the old "Hatfield and McCoy" feuds. It is time for the adults in this party to say, "enough is enough."
The real questions should be: can those of us who identify ourselves as Republicans because of the principles we share, unite together to win elections; and is the present leadership cable of reuniting our party, of expanding its base, of implementing a new electoral strategy, and of raising the money needed to implement these changes in order to win elections in 2009 and 2010?
The only reason I have gotten involved in this effort is because the answer to the first question must be "yes", but the answer to the second question is clearly, "no".
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