Sunday, November 30, 2008

"I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight"

For the past three years I have been wondering why the GOP has refused to play offense. As a party we have had to think about minimizing losses heading into election day instead of talking about which key Democrat Senator or Congressman we will knockout this time. There is now nolonger a single Republican in New England, and in the last presidential race key Republican states went Democrat while we were unable to flip a single Democrat state red.

For someone wanting to stop playing political defense, I was inspired and encouraged when I ran across a new movement called Rebuild the Party. Rebuild the Party is a new movement advocating a proposal set forth by a number of young political operatives lead by Patrick Ruffini on what the Republican Party needs to be doing to set itself up for 2010 and 2012. Those working on the project realized that we blew it on so many levels this election: fundraising, voter contact, organization, volunteer organization, use of technology, voter registration, etc, etc, etc... It then lays out a 10 Point Plan detailing what the next RNC Chair should do, and how to do it.

While introducing the website to his readers only days after the election, Patrick Ruffini said of the group who created Rebuild the Party,
"We challenge the idea that the Internet is more than a fun little add-on or that it's enough to prove you "get it" by setting up a Twitter account. The Obama campaign proved that the Internet is so much more than that: it is a serious platform for transforming literally everything about how your campaign is run, from media to fundraising to field."
After Obama used the internet to his avantage throughout his campaign, Republicans must stop sayign they don't know how to use the internet. They need to get out and embrace the internet and find new and creative ways to use the internet. Patrick Ruffini and the folks involved with Rebuild the Party understand the need to use the internet to it's fullest capacity, as well as fundamentally restructuring the GOP and rebuilding it from the ground up.

Please go to Rebuild the Party, endorse the plan, and hopefully the next RNC Chair will embrace the plan and do what it takes to get this party back on the right track.

2 comments:

Nerdette said...

Great post. I would also point out that Republicans/conservatives would gain more traction with the general public if we could hone not only our communication techniques (like internet), but communication POINTS. The liberals have done a credible job when in comes to incessantly harping on issues like environment, education, healthcare, welfare, how horrible the republicans are, utilizing class warefare, etc, etc. But they've at least delineated what matters to them. I don't see republicans at that stage yet. We've got to stop arguing among ourselves about what's really important and then, yes, use every means possible to get the word out. Like you said, move beyond playing defense all the time and get some offense action going. We've got a lot to run with, we've just got pick it up. :-)

Nerdette said...

Mike Huckabee sums my post above well:
"Republican's win elections when they hold a clarity on their positions". :-)