On the heels of David Jennings’ pointed article on Chris Busby’s recent experience before the Harris County Republican Party Vacancy Committee, Chris Busby’s follow-up, and buzz and comments among activists, is there more to say? Yeah. Lots. Let’s keep talking.
There’s always tension between political activists, and their party’s candidates and officeholders. Activists advance principles. A party elects candidates. But their interests have to be balanced. A party that advances no principles is meaningless. But a party that wins no elections is irrelevant.
Everyone has a pet reason for the GOP losses in 2012. You can fault almost any factor when elections are close. I for one don’t believe standing for traditional principles is to blame. Not only should we stand for our beliefs – we can win with them. The Reagan/Edmund Burke/Bill Buckley coalition of economic, social, and foreign policy conservatives is still viable. But it needs updating.
I believe the Texas GOP has the right policies in place. But the irony is that demanding adherence on every issue can lose them all. How critical is opposing initiative and referendum? Or limiting jury service to registered voters? Did you know those are positions in the Texas GOP platform? Enforcing purity at all levels of party activism is not a winning formula. A party is a coalition. Winning in politics means building coalitions with those we don’t always agree with on everything.
We need what some call “infighting” to forge a new path for the GOP in Harris County. That means those of us who call ourselves conservative – including those of us who are pro-life and socially conservative – have to keep the big picture in mind. The status quo is hurting the cause of all conservatives, economic and social, because we are losing Harris County. More of the same – more of the status quo, more cowbell – will deliver Harris County to the Left for the foreseeable future.
Consultants and paid opinion makers exert too much influence in Harris County Republican primaries. Chasing money and (short-term) power, they fiddle while the Party burns. They play in the primary sandbox – focusing on winning half of the mere 8{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} to 12{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of voters who bother to vote in springtime Republican primaries. Then the GOP gets washed away by the waves of November elections.
This ain’t news. The Democrats have won the top of the ticket in Harris County three cycles in a row: 2008, 2010, and 2012. That followed the Dem takeover of Dallas in 2006. The Republican Party in Harris County has shriveled for over a decade. In the mid‑90s, there were over 700 Republican Precinct chairs in Harris County. Today, the County GOP has fewer than 500 precinct chairs – a 30{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} decline in the face of a 40{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} greater County population (3 million then; over 4.2 million today).
Where do these trends lead? Do we abandon the urban battleground – in Houston, the most ethnically diverse big city in the country – so the Democrats can occupy it uncontested? Can the Harris County Republican Party keep retreating west, until it ends up in Waller County?
Something’s gotta change.
Let’s learn from the Left. After getting whupped in 2004, the Democrats doubled down on their statist ideology, fortified by their Right & Left Coast cultural shock troops. They built coalitions of like‑but‑not‑identically‑minded people with a focus on advancing their cause, by little steps and big steps. They won Colorado. But it’s not plausible that our country swerved so far to the Left so quickly. Rather, our side has been outmaneuvered and outhustled for a decade, locally and nationally. Read The Blueprint and Inside the Cave see what the Left has been up to. And now they have Texas in their sights.
We need to get serious about winning Harris County. That means more grassroots activism, reaching real voters in communities the GOP has long ignored. The GOP needs better (modern!) technology, real marketing, sound finances, empowered activists. Quit preaching to the choir and start winning converts. We need to focus on beating Democrats and the Left.
Harris County ConservativesInAction is focused on equipping and training our activists with tools they can used to win elections. We will work this year with GOP activists, trainers, and precinct chairs, and other conservative groups across Harris County to help grassroots be more effective in their neighborhoods and precincts to win elections. We ask those with interest, ability, or money to pitch in. We need your help. Rome wasn’t built, and Harris County can’t be regained, overnight. But enough of us working together can carry the day. Don’t wait. Our country is at stake.
Paul Simpson is a lifelong conservative Republican grassroots activist, campaign organizer, and former Harris County Republican Party precinct chair, legal counsel, and treasurer; a lawyer, engineer, husband, and dad; and co-founder of Harris County ConservativesInAction. You can contact him at [email protected].
“If you can’t sell freedom and liberty, you suck…” ~ Andrew Breitbart
You cannot sell freedom and liberty to those who want to be taken care of. It’s a huge number. For many, it’s all they have known. But what you can do, is sell the rest of the country on ideas. It takes good, problem solving ideas. but it takes more. It takes a 50 state network of tech savvy people to tweet and email every day. As I understand it, ACORN, after disbanding, is now more than ten named groups. The groups have innocuous names, like ” a better tomorro” ( making that up) etc. They have face booked and emailed information with a twist. They have asked for a vote on something and an EMAIL address. Now the Democrats have taken all those emails and they have a network that is daunting. They have geared up people to respond over the most ridiculous lies, but people respond, and there’s another email address… also twitter. All of these groups named, ( old Acorn) link back to the DNC when traced. We have got to be smarter than they are.
Well said, Paul! We MUST build coalitions in order to win elections. Forming alliances with like minded groups and individuals will play a big role in our future success. Those who would hold us to adherence on every issue must learn that it is possible to compromise on priorities without sacrificing our principles.
Well said, Paul! We MUST build coalitions in order to win elections. Forming alliances with like minded groups and individuals will play a big role in our future success. Those who would hold us to adherence on every issue must learn that it is possible to compromise on priorities without sacrificing our principles.
Pardon me for not panicking, but I don’t see election results in Harris County as dismal as is represented.
2008 and 2012 can be blamed on O’Bomba at the top of the ticket. On our side I know there were people motivated to vote against him, but I didn’t see many people who were fired up about voting FOR Romney or McCain.
In 2010, the dems nominated Bill White, who had been a popular mayor of Houston. What helped them in much of Harris County hurt them elsewhere in the state, where some people spit when they say the word “Houston,” even though they come here to watch ball games, go to the rodeo or shop at our malls.
The main thing we need to go forward in 2014 and beyond is more grassroots involvement. I was active in the 2012 primary on behalf of numerous candidates. When they lost, I worked just as hard to help many of the people who beat them to win in the fall. Stuffing envelopes, sending emails, walking my neighborhood, etc. were just the beginning.
In the meantime, we are organizing on the east side of the county. Precinct 2 now has a Republican county commissioner. R.W. Bray was more than a blip in the special senate election in spite of being outspent 100 – 1.
Ed Emmett won twice, handily, and we took back some of the judicial benches that we lost in 2008.
In Dallas, when the Republicans started losing, they continued losing, from the top of the ticket to the bottom.
What we need to get past is a mindset of “my side lost so I’m taking my marbles and going home.”
I am with Zakes, Cravens and Stricklett; let’s not throw up our hands in desperation yet. Republicans do have a unique set of problems in maintaining their dominance in Harris County; but adopting the pragmatic democratic light approach of Carl Rove will bring the same defeat that McCain and Romney suffered.
Let’s face it, the only thing the in-charge national party leadership really cares about has power and $ signs for themselves and their group of elitist friends. There is already too much of this influence at the County level. We don’t need more.
There are many reasons for the republicans failure to connect with the voting population. But simply put, the primary failing of the republicans is they are talking over the heads of the ordinary voters. Republicans must craft a populous message based on the principles this nation was founded and sell it. Then, they must follow through. They must convince the voters every day, not every two years, they care about them.
Due to changing demographics, the only way you’re going to grow the Republican party is to out-sugardaddy the Democrats. Republicans have been trying that since 2001 and it hasn’t worked out too well. Until more individuals actually start paying some income taxes there’s no incentive for them to become fiscally conservative. That’s why the Dems are making headway in reliably red Texas. Keep ’em poor and dependent and you’ll have reliable voters willing to vote for anyone who will stick it to “the rich”. Offer amnesty. Turn a washed-up homosexual basketball player into a hero overnight simply because he’s gay while telling Christians to get into the closet and shut up. Purge from the language any gender-specific terms so as not to offend the perpetually offended “feminists”. Cobble together a constituency whose only common trait is the desire to always blame someone else for their misfortunes (because it just couldn’t be the fact that they majored in Gender/LBGT/Melanin Studies and are unemployable in the real world). *Then* you’ll have a winning combination.
If we had had policies in place over the last 20 or so years that encouraged private enterprise growth nationwide we would have been growing the middle class instead of robbing the shrinking middle class blind. In my opinion it’s too late to fix it. Fiddling with the inner-workings of the HCRP is akin to putting up new drapes in a burning building. The only cure is for the plantation overseers to run out of other people’s money to dole out and let the whole house of cards collapse.
Of course, that’s just my opinion ; – )