HCRP's Outreach Vision and What It Needs

Yesterday, many local Republicans received an email letter from Bill Calhoun, the new Director of Outreach for the HCRP. This letter is part of a flurry of recent emails from the HCRP. Because I have been accused of being too negative and divisive, I want to start by pointing out a couple of positive points about what the party is now doing.

For whatever reason, the party is communicating with us--the grassroots--and that is a good development (my guess is that our efforts have played at least a small part in causing this change in behavior). The party is actually implementing some good ideas, like the First Friday meetings, and we should start to get feedback about the presentation of the details of its new strategic plan during the upcoming SD meetings this month and next. The "Roots" idea also holds promise, both as a way to reach out to Republicans who have gotten disenchanted with the party, and to potential Republicans in our neighborhoods. Moreover, it holds promise as an eventual supplement to a broader fundraising campaign. Similarly, Bill's letter shows that there is actually some thought being given to the underlying assumptions that will be incorporated into the outreach campaign now being formulated. This is all good news.

On the other hand, there is a lot less to Bill's letter than meets the eye. In the end, what it says is, "I've figured out that our outreach message needs to be about 'freedom', now please give me some money and I'll come up with a plan." Well...duh...this is a center-right community in a center-right country, so of course a message built around "freedom" (or "liberty" or "individual empowerment") should resonate throughout the county. If this is the first step in the development of an outreach campaign, it is a slow, baby step--and probably an ineffective step.

My strategic assumption is not that Republicans don't know what they stand for, or don't know what beliefs they hold in common with members of traditionally Democratic constituencies. Instead, my strategic assumption is that the problem our party faces, locally and nationally, is a loss of trust.

We have lost the trust of Republicans across all factions of the party, and traditionally Democratic constituencies have not trusted us for decades. We lost trust because of our strident opposition to issues without presenting corresponding positive alternatives, because of the gap between our rhetoric and our actions, because of our loss of fiscal discipline and managerial competence, and because we stopped listening to people who agree with us. Because we lost the trust of the voters, they have, for now, stopped believing us or listening to us. To many people--especially those living in metropolitan areas--the party is becoming irrelevant to their concerns. We have to earn their trust before we can ask for their money or their votes. Imagine if Bernie Madoff now walked up to one of the investors he bilked and said, "Hey, we still agree on free-market principles, so give me some money to invest." Would any sane person in that situation give him a penny? No, because he broke the bond of trust.

I know that some of the things I have said on this blog over the last two months have been critical of our party and its local leaders, and it is often hard to listen to or read such criticisms. However, if we do not correctly evaluate the reality we now face, we will fail to adopt an adequate strategy for the future. Recently, I re-read a short book entitled, The Challenge to Liberty, written by a late Republican leader. Much of what Bill Calhoun is saying in his letter is consistent with what this author said. Unfortunately, the author was Herbert Hoover, and the year of publication was 1934. Although Hoover’s words correctly summarized the Republican understanding of, and commitment to liberty and freedom, he had failed to apply those principles while in office, and the party failed to promote positive policies based on those principles in response to the New Deal. The result was that our party lost the public's trust, and the public stopped believing and listening to our party for decades. Instead, all the party did was say “no” to Roosevelt’s initiatives, based on the hope that the country would come to its senses and return to the Republicans in “the next election”. The next election did not come for 20 years.

Just saying “no” doesn’t persuade voters when what they want to here is “yes”—during such a time, they will listen only to positive policies effectively communicated. Had Republicans advocated positive policies based on a family-centric and neighborhood-centric view of government, which naturally demands effective local government and ultimately protects liberty, the history of Democratic political dominance during the middle of the 20th Century—and of all the harm it inflicted on our society—may have been different.

We are in a time when the voters want to here “yes”. If the First Friday, Roots or Outreach programs are going to help with fundraising and growing the party in Harris County, they first should focus on re-building relationships between the HCRP and the business community, our neighbors, and the traditionally Democratic constituencies through consistent and positive messages and actions. Once those initiatives take root, then we can ask these constituencies to give us their money and their votes. If we walk in with our hand out, we will accomplish no more than we currently do by waving from open convertibles in local parades.

Ed Hubbard

What Am I Going To Do About It? by Aaron Simpson

I was recently posed the question, “what are you going to do about it”. Well, let me tell you. As one of the folks that’s decided to take this Future of The HCRP thing we have here and run with it, I’m going to grow it as exponentially as possible. How? One action at a time.

It has been decided that for right now our goal will be to recruit as many precinct chairs as possible. The 48% vacancy rate is unacceptable and it needs to be cut in half by the next election cycle or, once again, we as a party will be dead in the water. I can sit here and complain that our leadership has known this and has let it go like the old busted houses you see them renovating on HGTV, but what good would that do?

Instead, I’m going to move forward. I have already started meeting with the various leaders of the auxiliary GOP groups in the area including College Republicans in attempt to get their members involved in the process, not just sitting on the sidelines waiting for direction and orders from Richmond Avenue. The younger crowd doesn’t like to be treated that way. It may have worked for the Boomers (sorry Ed) but it doesn’t work for the XYZ generations. We are also working on updating the main website for Future of The HCRP to become more interactive and coalition based. This help drive people to and from all of our respective websites with the goal of making our coalition united as well as draw as much traffic and discussion as possible.

I hope this answers the question, “what are you going to do about it”. This is our plan and we will move forward, move out and draw fire.

Ed Hubbard—Sometimes even the Houston Chronicle gets it right!

I know. You’re thinking I’ve lost my mind. But it’s true: sometimes the Editorial Board of the Houston Chronicle stumbles onto the right point.

Earlier today, the Chronicle posted this editorial about the dilemma facing the Republican Party, and the challenges facing our new national chairman, Michael Steele: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6245592.html.

Let me be very clear: the team behind this website welcomes the election of Michael Steele, and we will do all we can to support his national effort here in Harris County.

Since late November, we have been promoting a new strategic plan on this website. Last Friday, our national party chose a bold, new course in its selection of Michael Steele as its new chairman. Steele’s goals are consistent with the plan we have been promoting for the HCRP. In his brief acceptance speech, Chairman Steele directly challenged the status quo within our party by declaring, “[w]e’re going to say to friend and foe alike: ‘We want you to be a part of us, we want you to be with us.’ And for those who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over.” We couldn’t agree more.

Each era of reform within our party over the last 50 years has been preceded by a defense of the status quo. Unfortunately, many of the “rebels” who have joined and invigorated our party since 1978 are now obstructing reform and defending the status quo.

The contours of the HCRP’s plan announced last Tuesday are a defense of the status quo, are not consistent with the agenda Chairman Steele plans to pursue, and are encapsulated in a model that does not fit a political organization.

Therefore, we will work with those locally who support Chairman Steele and his goals in order to reunite this party, and to broaden its base by promoting our fundamental principles to all of the communities in this county, in order to elect Republicans to office. When the HCRP’s actions are consistent with our strategy, we will work with the county leadership; when it is not, we will work to promote Chairman Steele’s goals.

Ed Hubbard

Comment by Aaron Simpson: What's Bugging Me?

As I was thinking about the current situation in Harris County, I started to think about what got us here. Seven years ago the Republican Party in Harris County seated a new chairman. At that time, Harris County was a bulwark against the liberal tide in Texas. It was a reliably red vote and was one of the determining factors that kept Texas a deep red state in national elections. What happened? Three things happened. The loony left got very loud and very organized; the advent of Bush Derangement Syndrome and the fact that, from the RNC down to local parties, we were constantly playing catch-up with the Democrats messaging.

We already know the effect the loony left had on elections starting in 2004 and beyond. When the press’ coverage of the general election becoming more over the top; the Bush victory became an uphill victory in my opinion. I know this to be very close to fact because of the way they covered the war in Iraq. As a Marine returning home from combat, I saw the miss-information spread viciously and the administration fail miserably in its communication of the successes, though at the time very few, of the war in Iraq. I saw these successes. I know they happened. This type of journalistic malpractice is what contributed to and at the same time was a result of Bush Derangement Syndrome. I digress; this is another argument for another time.

We also had a huge problem with the messaging. It seemed that every where you turned you could see Howard Dean somewhere, spouting something negative about the Republican Party, whether it was true or not. Where was Mike Duncan, where was Tina Benkiser, where was Jared Woodfill? The messaging, the rebuttals or even an assertion of our own would have been nice. As a military guy, I’m not inclined to want to sit on the sidelines and wait to be attacked. This is one of the things that drove me crazy about being in Fallujah in the spring and summer of 2004, we were reactionary. That drives Marines crazy and it’s not what we’re meant to do. It’s not what Republicans are meant to do either. We’re meant to constantly have ideas and to take those ideas to the public and pound that message home until the people are sick of hearing it. We’ve failed in that area and it must be rectified.

Over the last few months, I have become more involved with local party politics and have had an opportunity to see firsthand where the good and the bad aspects of the local and national parties butt heads. This is where the observations listed above come from. I have also been involved in a very small movement that has three separate components.

All of these components are separate in that they have specific targets and goals on the micro level, but their macro goal of taking the local and national party into the 21st century is shared. We’ve hit some bumps and road blocks along the way. One of which is the accusation that it’s unchristian to question the competence of current leadership. As a follower of Christ, I take great offense to that. For someone to use the faith of some party members as a tool to keep the reins of power; is in my estimation, wicked. It smacks of some of the things Democrats and Socialists say to justify their oppressive economic and social agendas. “It’s what Jesus would do, for the least of these”. Wicked!

This is a political party, not a church. Although we should be Jesus with skin on when interacting with others on a day to day basis, we should never forget that our nation was founded on the questioning and criticism of the Anglican Church and the King of England. Was this un-Christian? The founders were doing what the apostles did in the time of Christ, questioning the establishment. That’s what we are doing here. I was saddened last Tuesday when I sat in the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee meeting as saw the solidification of the leaderships hold on the use of Christ as his crutch for holding on to power within the party.

This type of political posturing needs to be stopped. It will do nothing but alienate those that would otherwise be a member of our party, but won’t because they don’t want to go to a tent revival when they go to vote. National leaders from Michael Steele, to Mitch McConnell on down all agree that this type of bunker mentality will not work and that they Republican Party should become the “big tent” party it was once before, not at the expense of our core principle or platform, but a “big tent” none the less. I heard none of this at the meeting. All I heard was if you oppose us, you’re un-Christian and that won’t be tolerated. This is the narrow view that will destroy our local party and it has to stop.