A Demand for New Party Leadership

Dear Friends:

I am sorry for not writing to you earlier. This past week has been very tough for me as I’m sure it was for you, too.

There was no single reason why we lost. But one thing is clear: our leaders have now presided over two election losses, and the most recent one was historic. We can slice and dice everything that went wrong but at the end of the day, and at a minimum, we need accountability. To that end, I want you to know that I have called for RPV Chair John Whitbeck to resign. He has made it clear to me that he has no intention of resigning. This is a big mistake; one that will seal our fate in 2018 – and not for the good. I do not see our Party leaders learning from this systematic failure or changing direction any time soon.

Until there is real and serious change, I cannot in good conscience call on you to knock on doors, make phone calls, or donate to candidates. Therefore, I am resigning from my position as Sully District Chair effective immediately.

I know that there are many more leaders who feel the way I do and I call on them to garner the courage to join me in demanding a change in leadership.

I want to thank all of you for the many hours you have given to our conservative cause. I also want to thank all of the candidates who have run, especially my friend Delegate Jim LeMunyon who is by far one of the most highly qualified legislators to have served in the General Assembly.

I will continue to communicate with you and hope that you will join me in demanding a change in leadership.

John Guevara

Full Statement Demanding for a Leadership Change

Ladies and Gentlemen:
My name is John Guevara. I am the District Chairman for Sully District located in Fairfax, Virginia. I have been District Chair since March 2017.

We find ourselves, yet again, in the familiar presence of defeat. The anger, concern, and downright frustration among the conservative base is so palpable you can almost touch it. After thousands of volunteer hours knocking on doors, making phone calls, and millions of dollars of donations to our candidates, we saw perhaps the most spectacular defeat of our party in recent memory. Good men and women were elected out by an angry electorate. They came to the polls in record numbers, backed by millions of dollars from outside groups that wanted to ensure our defeat. They got it.

I have been on Facebook, Twitter, conservative websites, and other news sites and what I read is appalling. Experts and non-experts are giving their opinion ad nauseam on why we suffered this embarrassing defeat. But what I’m not hearing is: “How was this missed?” To lose a gubernatorial election by 1-2% points is perhaps acceptable to some degree. But to lose by 7% points is a failure of our leadership! I, like you, am on the front lines. We expect our County Chairmen, and State Leaders to provide us the intelligence on where to direct our grassroots efforts. An effective leadership system would have recognized that this election was lost on November 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump won the presidential election. We could have minimized our losses by redirecting resources to races that we knew would be close. Instead, we were told, “Continue doing what you’re doing.” We did. And we lost a record fifteen General Assembly seats, and three, I repeat, three state-wide races. And now good conservative men and women will no longer be a voice for you and me in Richmond.

So here we are…again. But it doesn’t have to be this way anymore. I am here to tell you that I am demanding for new leadership from the top to the bottom. We need a new RPV Chair and we need new County Chairs. We must recognize that we can no longer keep doing business as usual when the radical left has changed the game. New leadership sends a strong message to our front-line volunteers that we recognize a failure, and that we will take bold steps to redirect our party for our conservative cause.

This is not personal. We have good people in leadership roles. But the fact remains, this was a systematic failure. And if we are serious about winning again then we must demand for new faces, a new message, and new leaders in our party.

I hope you will join me in calling for this immediate change.

Thank you.

John Guevara