50 state strategy

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: No matter what America's short term future holds (a liberal White House, a liberal Congress, etc.), the long term future of the conservative movement depends on our ability to evolve in substance and unify around principles, not personalities.

Anybody who blogs on this site can list the reasons why they're an American conservative. In fact, many conservatives who don't blog, or those who don't even know what a blog is, can list their reasons with an adequate level of logic in their explanation. But not every conservative is called to be part of a conservative movement; or, more importantly, not every conservative is attracted to be a participant of one or more parts of the conservative movement.

The reason I was attracted to the conservative movement as a student at the beginning of this decade was because I felt that the Right, significantly more so than the Left, had a better combination of message and infrastructure that could consistently win elections and legislative battles. One of the reasons why? It seemed to me at the time that the Right was a lot more concerned with principles than personalities when it came to political battles, the old cliche being that "Democrats fall in love, and Republicans fall in line." The Right has lost this advantage, not only because of the Democrats have successfully evolved their infrastructure to fit modern times, as Jon Henke notes; conservatives have also become intellectually lazy. Case in point: our movement's continuing love affair with Ronald Reagan.

Last month, I started The Next Right's 50 State Strategy Project, contacting all of the state party chairmen and chairwomen to get on-the-ground reports about what's going on in each state and what we should be paying attention to. Now that the convention is over, I resent my request to state party leadership, and I'm starting to get responses.

The first one is from Nebraska Republican Party Chairman Mark Quandahl. His responses are short, but I'll add some commentary to the answers:

Q: What are the most important races to watch from any level?

A: U.S. Senate (Mike Johanns) and 2nd District (Lee Terry)

The only numbers I could find on the Senate race was a late-July Rasmussen Reports poll that showed a 56% to 31% lead for Johanns over his Democratic opponent, Scott Kleeb. Terry leads Jim Esch 47% to 38%.

Q: Are there any ballot initiatives that are important to conservatives in your state?

A: Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative

I wrote on three civil rights initiatives earlier this summer, including the one in Nebraska. These initiatives are very important to the conservative movement: ending racial preferences, and emphasizing equal opportunity over equality of condition.

Q: Everyone knows that the issues of the day are energy, the economy, health care, Iraq, national security, etc. What are the issues that are unique to your state that John McCain should pay attention to and respond to?

A: Tax Burden

According to the Tax Foundation, Nebraska has the 17th highest state-local tax burden in the country. It also ranks 43rd when it comes to favorable business tax climate.

Q: The internet and new media have developed new features and facets within many parts of a campaign organization (GOTV, fundraising, communications, etc.) Which one part of a campaign or party organization would you like to see young, Web2.0 savvy Republican develop tools for?

A: Fundraising

Any ideas we can develop for Mark?

I emailed Mark back with an addition question: can Obama win Omaha's 1 electoral vote in their congressional distrcit electoral system? Apparently, McCain only leads by 4 points there, 46% to 42%.

If you can, encourage your state party chairs to reply back to me. The more info, the merrier.

Sorry to interrupt the VP discussion and debate party, but on to more important things ...

I will be going to the Minneapolis a week from now as part of the Alaska delegation, and I can't be more excited for my first convention. As I think about all of the different delegations I'll be meeting, I realized that many of our counterparts inside the Beltway on other blogs have made bald assertions and claims about the differents races in different states without knowing the real details of the political environments in those states.

I have written a couple of posts on the importance of building a GOP farm team, identifying targeted issues and up-and-coming conservative leaders in each state, county, and city. Because I have received a lot of positive feedback about this subject, I have decided to contact all of the state party chairmen before the convention to get on-the-ground reports about what's going on in each state and what we should be paying attention to. Here are the questions I've asked them to answer:

• What are the 3 most important races to watch from any level? (Statewide, congressional, legislative, city council, etc.)
• Who are the up-and-coming leaders in your state that no one knows about yet?
• Are there any ballot initiatives that are important to conservatives in your state?
• Everyone knows that the issues of the day are energy, the economy, health care, Iraq, national security, etc. What are the issues that are unique to your state that John McCain should pay attention to and respond to?
• The internet and new media have developed new features and facets within many parts of a campaign organization (GOTV, fundraising, communications, etc.) Which one part of a campaign or party organization would you like to see young, Web2.0 savvy Republican develop tools for?
• Over the next two months, what demographic subgroups should pollsters and operatives pay attention to when measuring progress in presidential and statewide races?
• What are the keys to growing the GOP in your state?
• If you consider your state to be a swing state, what unique characteristics about your state might push McCain over the top, or Obama under the victory threshold?

I hope to get some answers soon. I look forward to the good discussion about different ideas that different state parties might have ... as my mother told me when I was little, "Sharing is caring."

OK, back to the party. MSNBC is reporting that Kaine and Bayh have been informed they haven't been selected ... and a police car is in Joe Biden's driveway. Patrick's dream might come true.

Promoted by Patrick

This is a continuation of a previous post on why it's important for the next leaders of the GOP to focus their attention on identifying local and state leaders, as well as local and state issues, to win back the middle class:

"Major league/professional sports teams have 'farm team' systems where they can identify and train prospects. The best franchises in baseball have fully developed minor league system: Red Sox, Yankees, Angels, etc. The NBA only recently saw the usefulness of having a minor league system with the NBDL ... developing the Republican Minor League will be just as important, if not more important, than keeping the Republican Major League in line."

I was interested in a couple of the responses to this post, including a comment that argues that we should try our best to run in every race as well as a promotion of Slatecard, a Red counterpart to ActBlue.

I recently received an email from The Freedom Project, the PAC that provides "assistance to Republican candidates for federal office" run by John Boehner. (They pride themselves on being a "a web-based clearinghouse for Republican activism featuring online fundraising and grassroots tools, and regular updates on key races and critical issues.") The email, called "The Candidate Kit", was giving short blurbs on energy issues and legislation in Congress and giving advice to all candidates on messaging. Example from the email:

"Democrats continue to peddle their thoroughly debunked "use it or lose it" hoax. The Wall Street Journal calls it "obviously false." [READ MORE] Investor's Business Daily debunks a number of other "energy myths," nothing that "many in Congress seem either disconneted from reality or intentionally disingenuous about our energy crunch." ALL CANDIDATES: Challenge your opponent on supporting Democrats' "drill nothing" energy policy; point out that "use it or lose it" is already law and ask them to back their claims."

The obvious benefit from this is that all candidates, incumbents and challengers, can benefit from a clearinghouse that can assist them in messaging on national issues, especially an issue as hot as energy. My concern is that we start becoming lazy like the Democrats who share and plagarize messaging across the country in congressional and senate races.