That title is not facetious, I actually truly believe that what the GOP is going through right now is natural and healthy.  For so long the Republican Party has been the next-in-line party where candidates patiently wait their turn and anyone outside of the accepted order is run off like burglar in the night.  To put it plainly, that was not healthy for the growth of the party.  The performance of the party from 2000 onward when we won control of all of the government has been an abject failure.  We’ve spent too much, started too many wars and are risking losing the next generation of voters by clinging too tightly to our 20th century notions on issues like criminal justice and social liberty.  The next-in-line party made our leaders more beholden to special interest groups, lobbyists and the consultant class than the voters and activists back home because they never fear nor respected them.  Year after year, failure after failure despite Congressional majorities, we have had enough. Â
Those who have had enough are also having a hard time settling on where they want to go.  Bubbling presidential campaigns of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina showed the interest in something different, as has Ted Cruz’s peaking success we are seeing now. But nobody has captured that spirit more than Donald Trump.  I’ve even caught myself fist-pumping him at times – not for his politics, which offend every single liberty-minded sensibility I have – but for the way he leaves establishment pols like Jeb Bush careening for answers.  This isn’t 2004 anymore and sadly there are too many Republicans that don’t understand this.  I’ve seen the new phrase on the other side of the party is “we want to govern.† But that’s exactly the problem, when we were in power in the 2000s and were governing, it was an absolute disgrace. Two wars that we are 15 years in, massive expansion of government, and out of control spending has tarnished this party and directly gave rise to Barack Obama’s presidency.  You want to know why Eric Cantor lost, why John Boehner is gone and Mitch McConnell needs Democrats to pass legislation?  Because these men didn’t and don’t understand that the ground has shifted underneath them.  It’s not longer enough to just say you are conservative, you have to actually follow through on it.
We need to figure this out and the only way to do it is to have an open and honest brawl about it.  What we are going through now is not destroying the Republican Party, it’s saving it.  We need to fight and figure this out, we need to have all voices in the party express themselves.  This is why Donald Trump’s attack on the RPV loyalty pledge is such an effective campaign tactic.  He’s method was wrong.  RPV is FAR FAR from being run by the RNC and people like David Ramadan were right to call him out on it. But Trump’s message is not wrong.  Remember, RPV and loyalty oaths aren’t new and it’s something I’m on record opposing as far back as 2011.  It’s silly because it’s unenforceable and sends the wrong message.  Political parties should serve at the whim of the people, not the opposite.  As I pointed out all those years ago, we didn’t need a loyalty oath in 2009 and 2010 did we? Â
And let’s lay something to bed right now.  When I hear that only Republicans should pick Republican candidates what that really means is only Republicans the establishment likes should pick Republican candidates.  If Donald Trump can get new independent voters to come into our party and into our process, I welcome them unreservedly and I don’t feel so insecure that they need to sign some asinine unenforceable piece of paper.  It’s the responsibility of the party to follow lead of the members, not the other way around.  Just read some of the blog posts by You Know Who and You Know Who Junior and you can see what I’m talking about.  The calls for unity are generally heard after spending two paragraphs attacking tea party leaders and primary voters supporting candidates that roughly have a total of 60% of our presidential primary vote.  Furthermore, and I know I’m in the minority here, but I actually love open primaries.  I want nothing to do with party registration, it’s none of the government’s business what political positions I have and I sure as hell don’t want to have to declare them to the state just so I can vote.  The voters should tell the parties what to do, not the other way around.  If Donald Trump finds new independent voters that don’t want to be Republicans full time, I’m fine with that.  The more the merrier! Party registration allows complete control over who can vote and who can’t.  That’s wrong.    Â
So I say let’s brawl this presidential primary.  Let’s get it out of our system.  Let’s be an open and transparent party where our voters actually have a say in who the nominee is.  The Democrats in 2008 had one of the greatest all-time primary bloodbaths in history and won.  What are we so afraid of?  I mean, if you’re in politics because you want to make money and get a job in the next GOP administration I get it.  But I’d rather have the craziest Trump voter than a job-seeking user of the party deciding who the nominee is.
Let’s fight and the let’s win!     Â
51 comments
Chris, you are a great guy and I really appreciate your perspective. I hope I can push back a little on one statement you made here though:
“When I hear that only Republicans should pick Republican candidates what that really means is only Republicans the establishment likes should pick Republican candidates.”
I’m not sure how you take that meaning? It means ANYONE WHO CONSIDERS THEMSELVES a Republican should pick the Republican nominee. Anyone. There is no secret handshake. No list of who is in and out. Any voter can self-select into the group of Republicans who choose our nominee… just because they want to… no outside approval needed.
Trump voters are welcome and wanted, as are supporters of any other candidate seeking the Republican nomination.
Yeah right, the Pretty Pretty Princess voter ID method. You been to a Frederick or Winchester meeting lately? The secret handshake starts with ‘A boot to the head’ and ends with ‘and the horse you rode in on. We need active and involved Trump supporters just to teach people how to better properly behave in a GOP public meeting.
Shoot me an email or give me a call, please. http://www.evegleason.us/#!contact/cyha It sounds like we are in agreement about both the nature of voting in the March 1 primary (the context of my statement above) and the need for reform in units that are exclude people from participation outside of the qualifications for participation in the party plan.
Chris, if you have rang door bells or made telephone calls using GOP lists, you must have heard folks with a big “R” after their name say ” but I am a Democrat”. We think they are with us because they voted in our primary. Now, when a Democrat votes in a Republican primary, it is often to support the candidate who is least likely to win in the general election.
Then the SCC should have chosen to have a convention instead of a primary.
Many of us tried to tell them, to no available. The establishment wanted a primary and this is the result.
BINGO!
how does a convention welcome new voters? there are many more hurdles to attending a convention (starting with going to unit meeting) than just going down to the local school house to vote
a convention would have nominated Cruz. whether he gets Va’s votes or not, at least we will have more than 5,000 evangelicals make that decision. Broader participation is the key
The convention welcomes new voters by introducing them to the nominating process. They get to participate at the very beginning and work their way up to actually voting to select the nominee. This requires an interest, an effort, and some degree of intellect and social skill. It is with this aggregate of individuals with varying degrees of support for creed, principles, and philosophy can congregate and associate to find, evaluate, and select the best possible candidate for office that can be ratified by the general electorate.
A convention would not/will not nominate Cruz because the collective wisdom of the GOP shall recognize him as not being a natural born citizen.
Please don’t mistake that watering down the skypilots with the general voting public will result in an adequate nominee.
The term ‘so open-minded that your brains leak out’ should be associated with primaries.
If you know the process to become a convention delegate. And you still have to sign a pledge!
Precisely! Win-Win.
There is no perfect way to do this … but in this cycle where people like Trump are bringing in new voters, I want them to feel welcomed.
Well take a two by four to “Moron” Ramadan! Most of our GOP leadership points to them and screams “Hellspawn” when they see a Trump supporter. The Trump support is an indicator of three things: 1) Our local party is weak and impotent. 2) Our eligible candidates suck. 3) The RNC establishment RINO DC Surrender Monkeys has destroyed our local party brand as well.
Send ’em to Howie, he’s got key Republicans in every unit that are Trump neutral/open/loyal.
Or we could have a primary that says to Joe Anyvoter “Heck, we don’t know what we’re doing either, you pick the guy”
I disagree, Maybe 10% crossover, and the dems ain’t that smart. And we have an experienced and purchased establishment that has brought the selection of sucky candidates to an artform.
I often ask myself why does the Republican Party exist? What is it’s purpose as a political entity – to what end do its members work to elect their fellow Republicans? What are it’s true priorities? Whose interests does it really serve? Why is this political party still around so long after its primary motivations for creation, the defense of the Union and the end of slavery, were achieved? The Democratic Party exists today solely to serve it’s entitlement clients – but the Republican Party’s justification is more ethereal. Is it just an arbitrary entity seeking a universal negative, designed in it’s modern manifestation to just push back against Democratic policies and demand they be more something (efficient) or less something (expensive) or does it have actual principles and priorities it seeks to make a reality but simply lacks the will to follow through and execute? The Republican Party’s base voters and supporters certainly seem to have such beliefs as documented in the Republican creed but this rarely seems to make it through the party’s process of synthesis that turns such beliefs into actual policy priorities. Being a negative force is not nothing, and blocking bad policy is worthwhile, but when given the opportunity to put good policy into place, or to take steps to make such policy more feasible in the future, where is the Republican Party to be found?
Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as the party of limited government and free markets. This is increasingly difficult to reconcile given House Speaker Ryan and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blatant and continuing support for Obama policy programs and their use of “minority” Democratic votes to move these programs through a Republican “majority” Congress. Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as a national security party, which believes in a clear-eyed trust but verify approach to dealing with our enemies. This is also impossible to reconcile after the Senate Republicans completely ceded their Constitutional duty regarding the Iran deal, putting them in the position (so politically advantageous in the realm of domestic policy) of decrying this deal as awful without being on the hook for anything that happens because of it. Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists today as the sole pro-life party in the United States, regardless of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s blocking any attempt to force President Obama and his fellow Senate Democrats to take a stand for or against not only the legality, but the
taxpayer subsidization of harvesting organs from aborted babies, meanwhile supporting the complete continuation of the funding of the Planned Parenthood Organization in the 2016 omnibus budget bill rushed through Congress and placed on President Obama’s desk for recent signature. Perhaps you believe the Republican Party exists as the party of limited government and free markets. This is impossible to reconcile after the latest budget bill which fully funds all of the Obama administrations subsidized and perennially unprofitable alternate energy companies with billions of tax payer funds, reanimates and fully funds that entity of pure corporate welfare, the Export-Import Bank or services the party’s corporatist constituency with endless special deals, considerations, outright giveaways and buried in multi thousand page omnibus budget bills that no one every reads, an endless supply of cheaper workforce labor via continuing expansion and funding growth of the misused H1-B and H2-B visa processes.
Put all this together and the stance of the Republican political caucus in the modern era has become little more then the servitors of an American corporate constituency. Is this base solid and firm enough to guarantee it’s continued existence into the 21st century, are these continuing backbench support functions of Democratic legislative goals by an elected Republican majority enough to encourage it’s actual voting base to continue to turn out and place votes for elected candidates that clearly are not serving their best interests? Is the constant refrain from establishment Republicans that laying the groundwork for taking the White House in 2016 in the form of another pre-packaged party candidate is it’s only focal point, where just winning is enough, as the existing base has come to increasingly understand that governing and fixing problems isn’t part of the desired party outcome. I don’t believe anyone can doubt that the party’s long term base is leeching away at an alarming rate with working and middle class families’ turning their backs on the Republican message and marketing efforts. Where does the future lie? I’m very sure it is not down the path we seem unable to lift our feet from as election cycle after election cycle we follow the same failing recipe.
The supposedly “most progressive†generation since the 1970s has increasingly been seen through extensive polling to be moving away from lock-step with the Democrats’ core values and constituencies. Millennials’ political registration has jumped from 40 percent “Independent†in 2008 to 50 percent in 2015. This trend spells trouble for Democrats
and a real opportunity for Republicans but as the establishment membership controlling the party today they collectively are neither emotionally, intellectually or organizationally prepared or predisposed to leverage the opportunity as a reinvigorating growth path for the party. Today’s GOP vision of nirvana for the country being some form of the USA in 1950s, sans segregation/racism is going to hold no span of interest or attention for it’s millennial future. I’ve been through an internal Republican clash like this in the 1980’s but that, even given all it’s vitriol, was largely about ideas and directions, today we are more focused on class, financial vested interests and cultural transition. If we don’t build the field soon I can confidently predict they won’t come and the party’s future won’t be a debate but more along the lines of who will hang on to the end to shout the lights off.
This was a relatively long read, as blog comments go, but it was very good.
Spooky accurate. Any advice?
I’ll put my reply in the context of Mark 2:13-17. Matthew was not a good character, he was a publican, in other words, a tax-gatherer for the Romans, yet while traveling among his righteous disciples Christ called this publican out to follow him. His disciples were appalled and questioned why approach such an unsavory man. Christ’s answer was quite simple but completely logical and insightful when he replied to them that “I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners” Republicans today keep repeating the same worn out talking points to the same useless genned up list of fellow travelers. While I of course do not consider non Republican’s sinners, I do consider them largely uninformed on what the party of Abraham Lincoln really stands for in the context of the modern world and that is where our complete focus and message branding should be directed. Riding from town to town on the shores of Galilee is not going to obviously get the message out but fixing the party’s complete failure to integrate 21st century communications in a messaging strategy will be a first reasonable step. Then commit to the internet as a medium that can carry the Republican message ( in my belief a conservative one) cheaply and efficiently to wide and varying segments of the US voting population. Follow this up by deploying effective party communicators into the these communities of interest pre-prepared with your targeted electronic messaging to handle direct face-to-face communication with interested converts. It worked two thousand plus years ago on a much larger stage so I think it can handle this much smaller problem. I don’t hold out much hope that the typical establishment Republican has any interest in rolling up their sleeves and going forth into these communities to spread the word. Not only will you not likely get them across the River Jordan you probably won’t even get them across the Potomac so this will be a job for the committed and the young, after all the future is really their’s in the first place. I personally saw someone who excelled at this type of outreach up close on several occasions. His name is Rand Paul, so I would sort of follow John McCain’s clueless lead and find another 99 “wacko birds” and set them free to spread the word. As a disclaimer to the potentially faint of heart out there this is most certainly not the Omni Homestead hospitality suite approach so BYOB.
Thank you
Okay, it’s official, TBE needs to take you on as a writer. You’re really good.
Looks to me like the Republican Party exists to:
– Help wealthy people benefit from government without helping to pay for it.
– Make sure labor cannot organize to fight for better working conditions.
– Control female sexuality and reproduction.
– Protect discrimination based on religious beliefs.
– Reject scientific understanding where it conflicts with business or religious interests.
– Protect the right of any nut off the street to buy a gun with no questions asked.
– Keep people they don’t like/agree with from living the way they see fit.
– Make sure government only helps the right kind of people.
– Slow the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
– Shrink government that would help citizens and expand government that controls them.
Need more?
And this is what happens when you open up the party to just any troll.
My, what an intelligent and thoughtful response.
Troll begone
What’s wrong? Is the truth that painful?
Shoo Troll shoo
Not chasing me off that easily, bubba. Happy New Year!
Your comments are outstanding. thank you.
The Incumbent Protection Act (Virginia Code § 24.2-509) needs to be repealed.
This would be of assistance in helping the members of the Party maintain control of their nominating process.
Agreed.
Do we have an understanding about the purpose and function of political parties? Or why two is best?
The electorate chooses the office-holder, the parties find and vet the nominees.
The parties will keep up with and anticipate the desires of the electorate. In this Information Age, it is proving to be vexing, but there is not as of yet a better alternative.
Spread the word…. Do what Trump did! …sign the darn pledge and vote!
It is unenforceable. (You don’t have to give your email and phone either. They are optional)
Correct. They cannot force you to provide any information.
Actually, they can pull up everything they need from the voter list.
Voter lists have phone numbers and email addresses?
The data monkeys can get that as soon as they get the lists.
Actually before with a decent GOTV and poll app.
Trump people are not going to be dissuaded by this, most democrats won’t be dissuaded by this, but some non-Republicans will be suppressed, and that’s a good thing.
The Donald will need this info for the general, so let’s not cut out own throats!
suppressing any votes, other than those illegally cast, is wrong. & stupid. this article wants to grow the party. then let people vote.
Ok, you know this is to select a Republican nomination right?
And that Republicans are the ones nominating.
So it’s not the non-Republican nomination and we don’t want non-Republicans voting, so we do stuff like make the voters affirm that they are a Republican.
It became a non-republican nomination when the RPV decided on an open primary. If they want a closed primary then the taxpayers shouldn’t pay for it. There is no party otherwise.
Very good point, but the law allows a statement for this purpose. It’s a trade-off, taxpayers pay for the primary for both parties, help the parties select a nominee, and in exchange the parties may require an an affinity statement.
If the party want only Republicans to choose Republican candidates they have the option of holding a convention. Since the taxpayers are paying for this, voting should be open to all citizens.
Voting is open to all voters, they get to choose which party ballot they want, and our side wants them to affirm that they are Republicans, because they are voting for a Republican nominee. So the affirmation is helping them to make sure they got the right ballot, it’s a voting aid.
No it is not a voting aid… making people choose which ballot they want for primaries held on the same day, I have no problem with. Requiring them to affirm party affiliation in an open primary is stupid and wrong. Stupid because it has no legal meaning and wrong because many people who are philosophically conservative and believe in the Republican Creed far more than most Republican politicians are completely cut out of the political process unless they are willing to identify themselves as Republicans.
I really thought I had a shot with ‘voting aid.’
Ok, so it is stupid and wrong, BUT it does fend off x democrats who will see it the same as being doused with holy water.
How about we just call it pointless and suffer through it?
The truly sad and tragic part is that there is no practical way to obtain any actual data/information from the numbers gained or lost from the pledge — it will just be something for us to fuss over while we whine about not having party registration.
Democrats set on causing mayhem will likely be fine with lying about their political beliefs. Tea party types and people who are conservative but have disavowed the Republican party are the ones most likely to be put off by the statement of affirmation. Note the affirmation is not whether they believe in Republican principles but whether they support the Republican party. I suspect this is a feature rather than a bug for establishment types on the SCC who don’t mind Democrats voting in an open primary but very much do mind non-establishment conservatives mucking up their rigged system.
Say 10% of Democrats generally vote in our primaries. Having the Statement will dissuade x% of them.
y% of he RINO’s on the right you’d think tend to be oathkeepers and would have an issue signing something that says ‘I’m a Republican’ but they’ve shown that signed statements aren’t honored on Petitions, nor Mass Meetings nor Canvass’ either.
X and Y walking away is less of a watering down of my vote, so I’m happy.
The RINO’s on the left (aka Establishment) already got their primary and necklaced the Conservatives with this Statement ‘poison pill’
The Statement is “I am a Republican” which can mean principles or party so it’s a wash there.
I’m kinda old-fashioned in that I want Republicans to select the Republican Nominee. Not non-Republicans of any stripe.
I would strongly suggest that the Statement be replaced with a Polygraph/Taser combination but I’m slightly more forward-thinking than most.
🙂 we should talk
or. you could have a convention & have the Shak Hill, EW Jackson &Cuccinelli wing of the party nominate a winning candidate
This is what you get when you lower your standards — we have gone out of our way to recruit ‘Low Info Delegates.’ Shak Hill did NOT win at a convention, EW Jackson was a unique political force of nature despite his staff, party, and supporters. Ken Cuccinelli was victim of bad timing, bad campaigning, and many RINO establishment shivs. But I wouldn’t give them their own wing quite just yet. With that said, I simply cannot believe that they have all climbed aboard the ineligible train. How about we instead say they have walked out on that wing?