Matt Moon's blog

From this morning's Washington Times:

In what would amount to a slap in the face to a sitting Republican president and the party's Senate and House leaders, national GOP officials, including the vice chairman of the Republican National Committee, are sponsoring a resolution opposing the resort to "socialist" means to save capitalism.

"We can't be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms," said Solomon Yue, a cosponsor of a resolution that would put the RNC -- the party's national governing body -- on the record as opposing the U.S. government bailouts of the financial and auto industries ...

The RNC has never played a leading policy role or any policy role except once every four years in framing the national party platform, which is quickly forgotten and almost never referred to for another four years.

Part of the Rebuild the Party plan calls for significant changes in the way we run the party.

The power of traditional connections is being replaced by the power of mass connectedness. Politics is taking place on a grander stage than ever before, with millions, and not just tens of thousands -- participating directly in the process. Millions of people can not only vote, but they can organize with each other across geographic boundaries to build political power in real time. Their sheer scale allows them to rapidly outflank traditional power brokers in a way that simply wasn't possible before.

The Republican Party can no longer survive in a modern era if we resist this new reality. With our power in Washington waning, our grassroots are the source of our greatest strength -- not a problem to be managed. To revitalize ourselves, we must invite the crowd back in and tap their energy and creativity.

One can legitimately opine that this resolution authored by RNC Vice Chairman James Bopp comes from a realization from some RNC members about the importance of our grassroots infrastructure. But this resolution only offers more questions than answers that I could provide. Please share your thoughts on the following:

• If you were on the RNC, would you vote for the resolution? (I probably would.)
• In both the short term and long term, is it a good idea for the RNC to play an active philosophical-policy leadership role beyond the platform? Or should the party stick to reorganizing the infrastructure, tools and strategies for future election cycles?
• Should part of the "revitalization" of the GOP and "tapping the grassroots' energy and creativity" be public policy oriented?
• If the RNC were to take on more of a public policy role, how would that role differ if we were in the Congressional majority vs. minority? How would that role differ if we have the White House vs. not having the White House?

Comments and thoughts please.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: Future campaigns can no longer afford to just find the right phrases. We have to find the right arguments and the right way to communicate them.

Lately, a lot of the discussion has rightfully centered on policy. Earlier, Jon Henke asked us to consider what policies we should advocate and support. I've spent some time outlining a theme for a new set of items we can go forward with: the Agenda of Equal Opportunity. Although I would much rather talk about substance than rhetoric, I wanted to take a break from the policy discussion and discuss campaign messaging.

Max Borders has a quite comprehensive four part series on the "Art of Persuasion," analyzing the importance of merging rational policy discussion with critical ideas in communication: emotional wedges, metaphors & models, typology and imagery. What also caught my attention was a December 15 Roll Call op-ed from pollster David Winston, responding to fellow pollster Stuart Rothenberg, rejecting attack-based campaigns:

The truth is, voters don’t want to hear why the other guy is bad. They want to know why you are a better choice. People want hear how candidates will govern, how they will solve problems and what they really stand for.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) put it this way: “Wal-Mart doesn’t get ahead by attacking Sears but by offering better value.” In the past two elections, Republicans failed to win over voters because they failed to tell them how they would address their concerns.

The GOP has spent the past 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to drive up Democrats’ negatives. Sometimes they succeeded, but rather than solidifying the GOP’s majority coalition, over time, this self-defeating strategy made it permanently vulnerable. Republicans found themselves with razor-thin victories, no mandate to govern and growing unfavorable ratings.

Don't get me wrong. There is still value in opposition research and compare-contrast messaging. But Winston is right in that a campaign's opposition, or attacks on an opposition, can't be the foundation of a campaign's message. In fact, an attack-based campaign is really a campaign that's playing defense instead of offense. This seems counter-intuitive, but the reality is that campaigns founded on attacking their opponents means that they either have nearly nothing substantive to say about their guy, or their opponent's message is better at resonating with voters. Or both.

The extension of Winston's point is this: campaigns (and candidates) can tend to get too intellectual or quite anti-intellectual, and the GOP's problem in the past few cycles has been the latter. Campaigns need to formulate and execute a messaging strategy that's not ten steps below the voter nor ten steps ahead of the voter. Rather, campaigns need to outline a substantive agenda, and find a way to communicate that agenda that's only one step above the voter.

In an earlier post, I briefly went over some "Rules of Debate," describing my time as volunteer debate coach at a local high school in Alaska. (I debated in high school and college as well. Yes, I'm a nerd.) I taught my students that in any debate of any format, great substance always has to come before great style. Great style should never make bad substance good, but it can greatly enhance good substance. Let's go over some pointers that I've previously given to my debate students and see how they can apply to campaign messaging. (Continue reading below the fold.)

Disclaimer: I don't intend on this post being some sort of cookie-cutter strategy. I know that messaging depends on the audience and that all politics is truly local. This is why voter indentification, voter persuasion and GOTV efforts need to be integrated now more than ever.

In Part 1 of this subject, I discussed the Agenda of Equal Opportunity as a new "Contract with America" that could coalesce old principles and new ideas together to unite different sectors of the conservative movement; reach out to independents, conservative Democrats, ethnic minorities and young voters; and allow for a lively platform debate not only on the national level, but also at the state level.

A couple days ago, Jon asked the following: "What policy should Republicans be advocating and pursuing to limit government and regain popular support?" Aaron Marks had a partial answer to that question by talking about reviving the economy through free market principles. David Brooks and Bill Kristol have recently argued that government has grown to be too big and too entrenched, especially in a time of recession, for us to successfully argue for principles of freedom and less government. It's surprising to see that folks like Brooks and Kristol, self-identified conservative intellectuals, have conceded the intellectual battleground on the proper role of government.

Then I read an interesting column from Robert Samuelson in Newsweek a couple weeks ago, defending lobbying as "democracy in action." His observations are thought-provoking:

We here in Washington are anticipating a stampede of lobbyists, influence peddlers, media consultants, paid "experts" and self-styled crusaders. Who brought us this onslaught of special pleaders? Why it's Barack Obama, the man who vowed to "change" how Washington works and banish from the political arena all those "special interests" that were depicted as a form of lowlife. Well, this is one Obama promise doomed to fail.

The only way to eliminate lobbying and special interests is to eliminate government. The more powerful government becomes, the more lobbying there will be. So, paradoxically, Obama's ambitions for more expansive government will promote special pleading. You need only watch the response to the expected "economic stimulus" plan—totaling perhaps $700 billion—to verify this eternal truth. A LOBBYING FRENZY FOR FEDERAL FUNDS headlined a Washington Post story. The auto-industry bailout has inspired a similar swarming.

I couldn't have said it any better.

In Part 1, I proposed that the three principles of an Agenda of Equal Opportunity should be (1) promoting freedom, (2) fighting for accountability and the rule of law, and (3) branding smaller government as "smarter" government, and vice versa. Along with the thoughts of Samuelson, these principles can be combined to start a serious intellectual discussion and debate about government reform and the proper role of government.

Soren started this discussion earlier, trying to prod the GOP into adopting a transparency and ethics agenda. And today, Jon made the valid argument that the deeds of Gov. Rod Blagojevich are a "matter of routine" with Congress when it comes to earmarks and pork. While these items do put us on the political offensive, they don't necessarily put is on the intellectual or public policy offensive. Sure, in order to put us in that position, any government reform package has to be sweeping and comprehensive. (But the want of any "comprehensiveness" of any government reform legislation should not prevent us from making little reforms here and there.) What principles and policies should we put out there?

• Earmark Reform: While not comprehensive, pork is probably here to stay. So let's make the process of requesting pork transparent throughout the entire budgeting process.
• Budget Reform: This can be comprehensive. The Federal Government passes separate budgets for different bureacracies at different times. The line between operational costs and capital costs of government is blurred. Somehow, the federal government needs to pass operational and capital budgets separately to know exactly what the day-to-day operations of government costs, and what long term projects that government has alloted.
• Bureacratic Reform: We need to develop some sort of system that tracks, in a detailed fashion, the "performance" of government agencies so that we can know what works and what doesn't. Each agency should be required to submit substantive goals they want to achieve in the next one, two and five years with the money they request. If those agencies don't achieve satisfactory completion of those goals, they should get less money or go "out-of-business" for being inept. If those agencies do achieve those goals, or go beyond them, they should be rewarded. (That's how it works in the private sector.) Kristina Rasmussen of the National Taxpayers Union talks about a similar existing accountability review system in an opinion piece in The Hill. By the way, the Pentagon should not be excluded from this type of bureacratic reform, even if Republicans fight against it.
• Tax Reform: Is it really impossible to get rid of the excessive progressivity in our tax code? Maybe. But one thing that can be done is to reduce the complexity of the tax code. One of the reasons why there are so many lobbyists is that government can choose who to reward and who to punish in a very quiet, but powerful manner through the tax code, whether they be credits, deductions, exclusions, etc. We can debate the flat tax vs. fair tax proposals, but one thing is clear: individuals and businesses should make decisions based on the market, not based on the tax code.

So how does all of this relate to the Agenda of Equal Opportunity? Simple. Not only is it government's job to provide equal opportunity (and not equal outcomes) through the law, substantively. It is also government's job to provide equal opportunity procedurally through the daily operations of government. The principles involved are just as simple, and are easy to communicate:

• Money is not the fix-all to all of society's and government's problems. Everybody knows that throwing money at a problem doesn't necessarily create a solution. In order to create equal opportunity for those interested in using government money wisely, government should adopt "investment principles" instead of "spending priorities," paying attention to outputs as well as inputs of government agencies.
• Smaller government means smarter government, and vice versa. Smaller, smarter government doesn't only mean reducing the size of government. It also means government regulating the externalities of market forces, not the market itself.
• Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. (This is the tie-in to Samuelson's argument.) When government does pick winners and losers, through the tax code or the budget or the administrative code, it can lead to problems. "Special interests" don't create problems for government; bigger government leads to more "special interests."

I'm sure individuals, businesses and other organizations don't want to spend money for lobbyists. So instead of relying on who can get the best lobbyist inside the Beltway, instead of trying to compete for the attention of lawmakers, instead of attempting to get the government to distort the market in their favor, the American people should rely on their creativity and ingenuity to compete and succeed in society. All government needs to do is give them the equal opportunity to do so. A smaller, smarter government that can truly provide equal opportunity will also be a "cleaner" government. Let's not concede the intellectual battleground on the size and the role of government ... especially now!

There's been a lot of talk about the future of the mainstream media, including how and when newspapers will die. Earlier this summer, I blogged on whether or not TV ads are now a waste of money in political campaigns. But there hasn't been as much discussion about the future of the Internet.

Yesterday, Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet & American Life Project released The Future of the Internet III, a "survey of internet leaders, activists and analysts" on how the Internet will evolve over the next decade and how it will shape society (or how society will shape the Internet even further.) I am not a Web 2.0 expert like others who write here, but some of the key findings evoke several questions on how the evolving Internet will impact the future political campaign:

"The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020."

It seems like the mobile device will be the primary tool of 24-hour news cycle as more and more people move away from CNN and Fox News towards Twitter updates on their BlackBerry from the New York Times or RSS Feeds from the Politico on iPhones. What kind of political (or commercial) ads will voters see on Twitterific or in the sidebars of sites they visit? And with so many ways to communicate with voters on mobile devices, what will the primary objective of these "mobile online ads" be? To get your email address or phone number so that you can be texted? More importantly, what kind "mobile online ads" would be tolerated by the user? How can the political ad on the mobile device not become spam?

"The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness."

True. Politics will always have a few people like Rod Blagojevich. But Soren rightfully points out that the GOP should take on a transparency and ethics agenda, and the Internet is the obvious portal by which, for instance, "faster and more complete campaign finance information" can be transmitted. And with the growth in ability to show video on mobile devices, will the demand for "putting video of all publically accessible business meetings online" will grow? More importantly, there's a real possibility that increased transparency can initiate a more substantive two-way conversation between voters and candidates. Will the future of the Internet as a transparency portal allow voters to ask for information from campaigns and allow campaigns to more instantly respond to information requests?

"The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations."

My first reaction would probably be similar to Patrick's: that the Internet is not just about blogs and Twitter ... and that investment in grassroots organizations will still be much more important that in old and/or new media buys. In order to be a registered voter, you still have to have a physical place of residence. But with personal and work time being merged as well as physical and virtual reality, campaigns, state parties and the national party organization have to embark on a long term, on-going voter indentification efforts to see where people spend most of their time online, what their online and offline interests are and how they intersect, where and how often they get their news, etc. What other questions would be relevant in such a voter identification project?

As the summary of the report states, the respondents "disagree about whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives." But as the physical and virtual interaction and communication between human being start to overlap, how campaigns interact with voters will have to be re-examined.

Today's style section in the Washington Post features newly minted House Minority Whip, Congressman Eric Cantor. He seems to be decidedly undecided on what can move the GOP forward in upcoming election cycles:

On his nightstand, Cantor heaps prescriptions for his ailing party: "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again," by David Frum, formerly a speechwriter for President Bush; "The Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream," by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam. He pores over newspaper columns, he says, seeking wisdom "from the George Wills of the world, the Bill Kristols of the world, the Charles Krauthammers of the world."

"I'm very fixated on trying to determine what went wrong and how we can fix it," he says over toasted cheese sandwiches and tuna melts at a pharmacy diner here.

But the answers aren't east to find.

He keeps looking.

"Nobody," he says, "is right on the money yet."

(Is there a difference between "grilled cheese" and "toasted cheese" sandwiches?) Anyhow, let me humbly attempt to present a "prescription" that Cantor and others could consider.

There have been a lot of healthy debates on this site, most of which I've been proud to contribute to: how to view and use new media, fixing the movement vs. resetting the movement, top-down idea creation vs. grassroots idea growth. Michael Turk asked a few weeks ago: which comes first - ideas for message? The answer is clear: ideas. But it means that we have to increase our intellectual capacity and creativity with both the ideas and the messaging of those ideas. Example: McCain Health Tax Credit = Good Idea; McCain's Explanation of His Plan = Terrible.

Like Newt Gingrich's Contract with America in 1994, Republicans need to coalese our principles and our ideas into a unifying theme: An Agenda of Equal Opportunity. With a specific set of economic issues, Congressmen Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor have made good attempts with the Roadmap for America's Future and the Middle Class Bill of Rights, respectively. But, of course, there are more than economic issues, more than fiscal conservatives in the movement, and many principles tied to those issues. Having our unifying theme being an Agenda of Equal Opportunity can battle the New "New Deal" that the Obama administration is and will be presenting. Let's take a look at the principles, the issues, the infrastructure and the reasons why this theme might work.

Apologies for the long lapse between blog posts. The flu and work have been keeping me at bay.

I have not yet made a decision as to who to support for the RNC chairmanship, and I have not yet heard or met every candidate running. So it would be unfair for me to endorse anybody at this point. But I am intrigued with Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis.

This morning at the American Spectator's Newsmaker Breakfast at the offices of Americans for Tax Reform, Anuzis made his case to be the party's top man, saying that he wants the GOP to be rebranded as the party that can "restore the American dream." Talking about his immigrant roots, Anuzis identified himself as a believer in the Newt Gingrich-Jack Kemp message of the "opportunity society."

The most interesting part of the conversation came up after being asked about his "losing" record as party chairman of the Great Lakes State and how that qualifies him to head the RNC. Anuzis responded agressively, saying that that means no party chair from a blue state should be qualified to run for the GOP chairmanship. He said that his background growing up in blue-collar suburbia among Reagan Democrats and Independents makes him especially qualified to be the next chairman because those are the voters that the we need to go after.

While I don't necessarily agree that past categorizations of voter identification will work in future election cycles, I'm impressed with Anuzis for a few reasons:

• While everybody realizes that the party needs to be rebranded, I like the direction he's going when it comes to the type of rebranding we need. I'm all about building "An Agenda of Equal Opportunity" that can battle the liberal movement's "Agenda of Equal Outcomes."
• Anuzis seems like someone willing to take risks. He's endorsed the RebuildTheParty.com platform and has had great state legislative recruitment success in Michigan, something that he could translate to a 435 District Strategy (something that Patrick has been plugging). He also talked a lot about outreach to African-Americans and going to their playing field: churches.
• Anuzis seems to get Web 2.0 tools. While I don't know whether or not he's interested in buildings communities vs. building lists (as Chip Saltsman mentioned), he has been using Twitter to communicate with conservatives. When asked about criticism of him concerning his use of Twitter to promote himself instead of the Michigan GOP, he rightfully said that people aren't interested in having a conversation with press releases from the Michigan GOP. People are interested in having conversations with personalities. Sure, he's using his Twitter account to promote his candidacy for the chairmanship; but he's also using it to build a community by being refreshingly honest and approachable in his Tweets. (By the way, I'll be shameless here. If you'd like to follow me on Twitter, I'm @alaskan.)

I haven't been paying attention to who the front-runners are for the chairmanship and which candidates have how much support. But if Anuzis does not win, the new chairman should consider tapping Anuzis to be a liaison to the state parties and giving him a travel budget to visit all 50 states consistently. If the new chairman does not tap him, Anuzis should consider working with groups like Slatecard or building a new organization that can allow him to help rebuild state and local parties. Why?

• While Congressional leaders need to come up with their own agenda of equal opportunity, Anuzis could be a great at helping state legislators and state legislative candidates in each state coming up with state-based agendas of equal opportunity. Like Soren has mentioned before, the battles that need to be won are at the state level. Anuzis can use what he learned about recruiting in Michigan and help party leaders around the nation recruit for state legislative, city council and school board seats to build a strong GOP Farm Team.
• Anuzis' use and willingness to learn Web 2.0 tools could give him a platform to help state and local party leaders start building online communities instead of online lists. Patrick is correct that Twitter is only one small part of Web tools that we can use. Anuzis could be a bridge between the 50+ and 60+ generation of party leaders that have no clue about Web 2.0 tools and the under-40 activists that can help state and local parties reach the next level.

There are some state and local parties that are in shambles, and the next chairman of the RNC can't spend of all his time worrying about every party organization. But it would be wise for the next set of GOP leaders to help Saul Anuzis (or someone else) travel to and help rebuild party organizations in all 435 districts.

Bottom Line Up Front: It might not be enough to rely on "ranking members" to serve as a loyal opposition. The next leaders of the GOP should consider building a "shadow cabinet" system with a mix of public policy scholars and elected officials at all levels (even from different wings of the conservative movement) to serve as an anchor during our time in the minority.

I have to admit that I'm somewhat relieved with Barack Obama's selections for his economic team. They are not as bad as they could've been: Tim Geithner at Treasury, Larry Summers at the NEC, and Christina Romer chairing the CEA are all sensible people who know their economics. Larry Kudlow opines that this might be a "pro-growth economic team. While I'm not willing to go that far, I'm especially satisfied with the selection of Romer, who wrote a paper at the National Bureau of Economic Research with her husband David in November 2006 on the "Marcoeconomic Effects of Tax Changes" ...

"The resulting estimates indicate that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes. The large effect stems in considerable part from a powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment. We also find that tax changes intended to counteract projected changes in private economic activity have been largely unsuccessful, and that tax increases designed to reduce a persistent budget deficit appear to have much smaller output costs than other exogenous tax increases."

Phew!

Anyhow, after reading Patrick's recent post about our friends on the Left having very few to no new ideas as well as Stephen Gordon's post on regaining the trust of the small government wing of our party, it got me thinking: what's the best way for the GOP to start off on the right public policy footing beginning January 20th, 2009? (We need to come up with creative solutions based on first principles before coming up with a message. The McCain campaign had it backward.)

Bottom Line Up Front: Ethnic minority outreach means "reaching out" to them where they are, not inviting them to where we are. But it doesn't mean pandering to them based on rhetoric tied to their ethnic identity.

A very important part of the RebuildTheParty.com platform is to rebuild our grassroots infrastructure. One of the issues to be debated is how much our party has to centralize or decentralize our grassroots operations; but what's clear is that the fabric of our state, county and local parties has been falling apart.

Part of rebuilding our grassroots infrastructure at the state and local levels has to include pressing the "Restart" button on coalition building among a series of constituency groups, including ethinic minorities. Sophia Nelson, an African-American Republican congressional staffer, writes about minority outreach in an opinion piece in today's Washington Post entitled "It's My Party, But I Don't Feel Part of It."

"The problem, former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele told the Washington Times last week, is that party officials 'don't give a damn.' To them, he said, 'outreach means let's throw a cocktail party, find some black folks and Hispanics and women, wrap our arms around them -- 'See, look at us.' And then we go back to the same old, same old.'

"'The party has simply not understood the importance of having highly visible black Republican operatives, elected officials and political spokespersons working for it on an ongoing basis,' adds an African American who worked for the Republican National Committee during the administration of the first President Bush. 'It's not our message as much as it is our messengers that are killing us.'

"It didn't have to be this way. Only a few years ago, then-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman was aggressively reaching out to the black community. At the NAACP convention in 2005, he apologized for the party's past embrace of racial polarization to gain political advantage. 'We were wrong,' he said. But Mehlman's efforts, like those of George H.W. Bush and President Gerald R. Ford in the 1970s and, ironically, Lee Atwater in 1989, have never really been followed up on in a way that has successfully made inroads and attracted black voters to the GOP fold."

Steele is right! (I have yet to be impressed by any of the candidates for the Chairmanship ofthe RNC, but Steele is starting to impress me.) While having highly visible ethnic minority operatives is nice, we make no effort (no matter what race our party leaders might be) to go to visit African-American churches, Hispanic community meetings, etc. I'm convinced that it has to do with the fact that Republican leaders today don't have the self-confidence and/or feel uncomfortable going to what they perceive as "hostile territory." Whenever I've mentioned the idea of visitng ethnic minority churches to GOP candidates and campaign managers, they've always told me it's a waste of time. This is the type of mentality we need to purge from the GOP: a risk-averse, institutional protectionist attitude that's a disease in our party.

But we have to engage in minority outreach the right way ...

"Consider the comments of Shannon Reeves, an African American who started a college Republican chapter at Grambling State University in 1988. In 2003, he wrote an open letter to the party after it was disclosed that in 1999, a newsletter published by the then-vice chairman of the California Republican Party had carried an essay suggesting that the country would have been better off if the South had won the Civil War.

"'I am tired of being embarrassed by elected Republican officials who have no sensitivity for issues that alienate whole segments of our population,' Reeves wrote. 'This embarrassment is different for a black Republican. Not only do we have to sit in rooms and behave professionally towards Republicans who share this ideology, we have to go home to a hostile environment where we are called Uncle Tom and maligned as a sell-out to the community because of our membership in the Republican Party.'"

While there might be some truth to the need to develop certain sensitivities, we absolutely cannot engage "whole segments of our population" with a message that panders to their identity. Republicans cannot talk about "Black issues" vs. "Hispanic issues" vs. "Asian issues" like the Democrats do. Just take a look at Barack Obama's campaign website: under the "People" tab, there are policy agendas for different ethnic segments of Americans, which I find offending because it is antithetical to Obama's campaign rhetoric of coming together as "one nation."

Nelson provides some other steps, in both the public policy and political realms, that future party leaders should consider:

"Republicans need to go to black churches, colleges and other organizations to make the case for the party as a viable option for African Americans. It should mentor and nurture young black Republicans on college campuses, teaching them to canvass, providing paid internships and encouraging them to attend party rules and platform meetings, where real political power resides. It should introduce elected black state and local officials to the national donor base to help them build their coffers for future elections. It should recruit blacks in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic and in urban districts, offering a Marshall Plan of sorts to rebuild our cities, encourage entrepreneurship and small business start-ups and promote lower taxes for job creation."

These are great ideas. The only problem is that most of these ideas, including invitations to party meetings, would never be accepted by current GOP leaders who want to protect their status. A question to all of the candidates for the RNC Chairmanship: are you willing to take risks? Are you willing to engage in real outreach efforts that don't concede any large segment of voters?

Instead of trying to be creative with a message and tailoring policy around that message (a characteristic that we saw during the McCain campaign), let's be creative with domestic, economic and social policy and tailor our message around those policies. An agenda of "equal opportunity" might be able to reach out to different ethnic groups (and even to centrist constituencies across the board) without pandering to their indentities.

So what are the next steps?

• Embrace the reality that communities are formed around common identities while also coming up with an agenda that can reach out to all communities. (I've discussed this at length about the Asian-American constituency.)
• As Patrick discusses, use Web 1.0 and 2.0 platforms to build the netroots of the Right that can merge with a rebuilt grassroots infrastructure. Recruiting activists and educating them about these tools will be critical.
• Visit every church, every potluck, every ethnic coalition meeting, etc. at the local level to talk about local issues. Any strategy to build a GOP Farm Team must include candidates and party officials that are willing to step outside of their comfort zone.

To put it in twelve words: the next leaders of the Republican Party need to grow a pair.

Bottom Line Up Front: The next leadership group of the GOP must rise above the different wings of the party. Political inclusiveness, public policy creativity, long term strategic thinking and risk-taking are the characteristics I'll be looking for in a chairman/minority leader.

I am now a proud coalition member of RebuildTheParty.com, and today's newspapers are highlighting stories and opinion pieces on the future of the GOP. Adam Nagourney of the New York Times writes an all-encompassing piece on the upcoming RGA meeting in Miami as well as leadership battles for the RNC chairmanship and Congressional minority leadership positions. Newt Gingrich points out that "the party would be wiser to offer a broad idea of what it stood for and how it would lead the country, and pick its battles carefully." Gingrich and former Maryland Lt. Governor and current GOPAC chairman are privately seeking the RNC chairmanship, according to Ralph Hallow of the Washington Times. One of the sticking points seems to focus on how to emulate Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy:

"Republicans, especially state party leaders, have become envious of the organization and money that Mr. Dean's operation deployed in two victorious election cycles in which Democrats regained and expanded control of Congress and captured the White House.

"Republicans agree that their national party is leaderless and in desperate need of someone who has the force of personality and history of accomplishments to command national attention to take on Mr. Obama. Someone is also needed to unite disparate factions that, even in the best of times, generate internal friction among themselves."

I've written before on the importance of building a GOP Farm Team, but a little disappointed with the few responses to questions I had for state party chairs. Patrick recently urged us to "expand the map" by coming up with a 435 District Strategy. There were 8 op-eds today on the future of the GOP, 6 of them in the Wall Street Journal, that deserve some thought and response.

I'm writing this post from my hometown of Anchorage, AK, where the results should come in soon. As you will see, this letter is just as much a message to the Right as it is a congratulatory message to Barack Obama.

Dear Mr. President-Elect:

Congratulations on your victory tonight. As a conservative who voted for your opponent, Sen. John McCain, it is a disappointing night for me and those who share my philosophy of government. Yet, despite our disagreements on public policy, I am (and other fellow Americans should be) proud of your accomplishment.

As someone who cares deeply about the issues surrounding race and ethnicity in America, I sincerely hope that your Presidency can contribute to moving us towards a more color-blind society.

While it could be argued that no Republican could win this year, your campaign has still taught us several important things. First, your campaign has shown that no state should be taken for granted. With the grassroots organization that you built, which is a bottom-up phenomenon itself, you put folks everywhere, including my home state of Alaska. You should thank Senator Hillary Clinton for battling you to the bitter end in your primary fight: she made you a stronger candidate and it forced you to build a stronger grassroots team in all 50 states, contributing to your victory. You knew that you wouldn't win every state. But Howard Dean's long term 50 state strategy put you on the offense and McCain on the defense throughout the fall, and your team assisted many Democrats down ticket in red states that were going to stay red this year.

Second, your campaign has thankfully shown that public financing is dead. I think most fellow conservatives would agree that one of our most vehement disagreements with Sen. McCain was his support of public financing of campaign. While your explanation of not taking public money was disingenuous at best, it gives both parties a chance to compete for creative ways to raise money and gives the country a chance to call for more transparency in campaign finance.

Third, your campaign has shown that a centralized long term campaign organization is not mutually exclusive with decentralized short term action plans. Over the past decade, failed campaigns have shown that grassroots action by itself cannot succeed without direction. In this election, the GOP has shown that revolving too much around a "campaign command center" can cause inflexibility and limited mobility in a grassroots organization.

Tonight the pundits will talk about increased turnout, the youth vote, the pendulum swinging back to the Left, etc. But I want to mention some things about your election that you had no control over. You are the first Internet President. How will your administration use the growing Web 1.0 tools and Web 2.0 community for public policy purposes? You have a large netroots organization behind you. How will they play in a governing position vs. playing in a campaigning position? You come into the White House with a divided Democratic Party: the netroots far left vs. the grassroots center-left. Where will you govern from? Will you try to merge the netroots with the grassroots?

From your tax proposals to your health care plan to your foreign policy to your philosophy of government, expect a "loyal opposition" from a changed Republican Party. You will face a conservative movement that will fight you on the intellectual battleground or continue to be anti-intellectual. You will face a conservative movement that will come up with creative counter-solutions that the American people can be informed of, or a movement that will look back to old messages that don't work. You will face a conservative movement that will promote principles of freedom or promote a watered-down version of more government. One thing is for sure: you will face a conservative movement yearning for a new set of leaders.

I will do my utmost to fight against every one of your proposals that limits freedom, and fight for every one of your proposals that promote freedom, although I am pessimistic about your plans to do the latter. From my point of view, it's not government's job to make history; that's a job that should be left to the American people.

But for making history tonight, congratulations once again, Mr. President-Elect.

Sincerely,

MM