This morning, one week prior to the end of filing for office for candidates for various offices, including the office of precinct chairman, local columnist David Jennings posted this blog with some observations about the state of filings in Harris County. Throughout today I have posted two responses that I consider to be very important. I hope you'll take the time to look at the original post and then look at my two responses below.
****************************************
Dave:
I just went to the HCRP website and did a quick name count. Of the 874 precincts that currently exist, the party had filled about 470 precinct chair seats by October, 2009. Of the 885 precincts that will exist after January 1, 2010, there were only about 350 precincts with applicants as of December 23rd (and 15 of those precincts had more than one applicant). With 4 1/2 days left for filing, I am concerned that we won't even match the current number of precinct chairs coming out of the primary.
We need to send an SOS to everyone in the party, and to everyone who cares about the party and electing Republicans, to sign-up, or get their neighbors or club members to sign-up. Looking at the statistics from the 2008 General Election, on average there was a 7% greater turnout between the precincts where Republicans had a chair and where it did not have a chair. However, the stratification was even more pronounced: where we had a chair, we were 3 times more likely to have turnout of over 70%; where we did not have a chair, we were 4 times more likely to have turnout below 60%. Moreover, there were 156 precincts where Republicans do well, or are at least competitive, where we had no chair. If we had gained a 7% better turnout in those precincts on average, most of the down-ballot races that Republicans lost in 2008 would have been won.
We must fill these positions!
****************************************
UPDATE:
Ok...here's an update and an analysis as of the last posting by the HCRP for filings through today (as of 4:25 p.m.). Candidates have filed for 360 precints. Of the 8 who filed between the morning posting and the afternoon posting, 6 are incumbents, 1 challenger has filed where the incumbent has not yet filed, and 1 person has filed for a vacant seat.
For the 360 seats, here is how the filings breakdown so far: 273 are seats where the incumbents have filed and there is no challenger; 35 are occupied seats where a new person has filed, but the incumbent has not filed; 43 are currently vacant seats are where a new person has filed; and 15 seats are contested so far. Of those contested seats--3 of the races are between two newcomers for a vacant seat; 3 are between two newcomers for occupied seats where the incumbent has not yet filed; and 9 are contested between the incumbent and a challenger.
Here's the good news--55 newcomers have filed to run for precinct chair, with 49 of them seeking vacant seats, which would mean a gain of 49 precincts for the party if we keep the currently occupied chairs filled. And...we have 3 1/2 more days in which to try and fill more vacant seats.
Here's the bad news--only 282 out of about 470 incumbents have filed. If the current pace of filings continue, we will not match the current number of filled seats, even with the gains we are making in filling vacant seats.
We can't win elections without boots on the ground, and we currently only cover half the county. The goal was not to go backwards. We must fill these positions!
Monday, December 28, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A Holiday Greeting
As I begin a few days of celebration with my family, I want to wish all of you a happy and joyous holiday—whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, or another religious or cultural observance, or just enjoy the spirit of the season. I also want to share three reflections.
First, even though we Republicans have had a rough time over the last few years, we each have much to be thankful for in our own lives. Both our shared experiences and our personal experiences—and the good and bad in both—are part of what gives us strength, nurtures our character, and builds wisdom. I believe that from this developing strength, character, and wisdom will come the foundation for seizing opportunities in the coming years.
Second, for me this has been a year of challenge, but also one of promise. It has been a year since I challenged the incumbent Chair of the HCRP to fix the problems with the party organization or step aside to allow new leadership to do so. Since I made that challenge, there have been a lot of days when I, and a few of my closest allies, have felt quite alone in this struggle. However, I recently visited with a group of people in which a precinct chair referred to me as the “acting chair,” because I had been driving the agenda of the party for months. Though I was taken aback by the statement, I appreciated the gracious nod to what we have been trying to accomplish.
Beginning last December, through meetings with young activists and established party leaders, I helped nurture and support young leaders who formed new organizations such as Raging Elephants, Conservador Alliance, and the local Tea Party Society, which are building relationships in our African-American and Latino communities, and providing a voice to a new conservative activism in our community. I also worked to gain support for our strategic vision throughout our party. Our efforts have led to phenomenal results so far:
Not bad for just 12 months of agitating from outside the party organization--and I want to thank everyone who has helped me, and who are joining our ranks daily (I will start posting on this website next week the substantial endorsements I have received already). I think it is fair to ask whether any of this would have happened had I not posted that challenge to the incumbent a year ago. Even if I don’t win this race, we will have accomplished more to improve the party organization in the last year than the incumbent did over his first 7 years—and just think what we could accomplish together if I win.
Finally, I want to leave you with a thought based on my reading of a New-Testament verse that always touches me. In his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul makes the following challenge:
When you read this passage, think about those settlers who came to this continent in the 1600s and established families, churches, schools and neighborhoods based on this challenge; think about Jefferson’s reference to God’s gift of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and what the words “liberty" and "happiness” meant to our forefathers before the French Revolution; and think about the monumental struggles our ancestors waged to try to meet that challenge here and abroad over the last three centuries. Then, ask yourself: what have I done to meet this challenge? If you find your answer to be like mine, then let’s commit ourselves in the coming years to meet this challenge—in our families, our communities, and in our country—not just to regain the liberty we are losing, but to then use it correctly, so that we can pass on this gift to our children better than we received it.
Happy Holidays to all!
First, even though we Republicans have had a rough time over the last few years, we each have much to be thankful for in our own lives. Both our shared experiences and our personal experiences—and the good and bad in both—are part of what gives us strength, nurtures our character, and builds wisdom. I believe that from this developing strength, character, and wisdom will come the foundation for seizing opportunities in the coming years.
Second, for me this has been a year of challenge, but also one of promise. It has been a year since I challenged the incumbent Chair of the HCRP to fix the problems with the party organization or step aside to allow new leadership to do so. Since I made that challenge, there have been a lot of days when I, and a few of my closest allies, have felt quite alone in this struggle. However, I recently visited with a group of people in which a precinct chair referred to me as the “acting chair,” because I had been driving the agenda of the party for months. Though I was taken aback by the statement, I appreciated the gracious nod to what we have been trying to accomplish.
Beginning last December, through meetings with young activists and established party leaders, I helped nurture and support young leaders who formed new organizations such as Raging Elephants, Conservador Alliance, and the local Tea Party Society, which are building relationships in our African-American and Latino communities, and providing a voice to a new conservative activism in our community. I also worked to gain support for our strategic vision throughout our party. Our efforts have led to phenomenal results so far:
* Raging Elephants successfully placed a billboard promoting the GOP in a traditionally African-American Community, conducted workshops on how to expand the GOP into new communities, and its leader has gained a growing local and national following;
* The leader of Conservador Alliance recently was named by the Republican National Committee, and the Republican Party of Texas to serve as the statewide director of a new party-affiliated organization: Latino National Republican Coalition;
* Two activists, who helped coordinate our early meetings, went on to form and lead the local Tea Party movement;
* At least five county GOP parties across the State of Texas have referenced my proposed strategic plan, and discussed it with me, as they have revised their own written mission statements and strategic plans;
* Our local GOP leadership, after seven years of inaction, responded to our efforts with an aggressive communication blitz that has included emails, social-networking training, townhall meetings, public discussions of its own plan for the future, an audit of its finances and financial reporting, and the re-opening of an East Side satellite office with the purpose of engaging in community activities that we have been proposing all year; and
* Two more candidates have joined the first real competitive race for Chair in almost 15 years, all three of my opponents are discussing issues and goals that we have been discussing all year, and there are now 9 scheduled or proposed debates during the month of January, 2010.
Not bad for just 12 months of agitating from outside the party organization--and I want to thank everyone who has helped me, and who are joining our ranks daily (I will start posting on this website next week the substantial endorsements I have received already). I think it is fair to ask whether any of this would have happened had I not posted that challenge to the incumbent a year ago. Even if I don’t win this race, we will have accomplished more to improve the party organization in the last year than the incumbent did over his first 7 years—and just think what we could accomplish together if I win.
Finally, I want to leave you with a thought based on my reading of a New-Testament verse that always touches me. In his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul makes the following challenge:
For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself’”
When you read this passage, think about those settlers who came to this continent in the 1600s and established families, churches, schools and neighborhoods based on this challenge; think about Jefferson’s reference to God’s gift of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and what the words “liberty" and "happiness” meant to our forefathers before the French Revolution; and think about the monumental struggles our ancestors waged to try to meet that challenge here and abroad over the last three centuries. Then, ask yourself: what have I done to meet this challenge? If you find your answer to be like mine, then let’s commit ourselves in the coming years to meet this challenge—in our families, our communities, and in our country—not just to regain the liberty we are losing, but to then use it correctly, so that we can pass on this gift to our children better than we received it.
Happy Holidays to all!
Saturday, December 19, 2009
HCRP Finances - The Real Story
As the story about the HCRP's financial predicament and reporting are slowly coming to light, first at Big Jolly Politics, then the Texas Watchdog, and now the Houston Chronicle, I want to clear the air on a couple of points:
First, the two arguments that the incumbent is making in defense of his regime-that the checks in question may have been held and not deposited for months after they were written, that the HCRP raised $2.5 million dollars in 2008-show how out of touch this current leadership team is with sound management practices, and with reality. If the party actually had the checks in question and noted their receipt by acknowledging the contributors on the invitation and program for the annual dinner, but did not deposit them timely, this is highly unsound money management and risk management, and it must be reformed in order to protect the party from the risk of loss or theft in the future. As for the $2.5 million figure, here is the reality (based on the publicly filed reports covering the entire year of 2008):
In reality, the ticket supported the party, and allowed it to keep the lights on at Richmond Avenue, not the other way around. This trend continued into 2009, as one elected official was the party's largest contributor during the first 6 months, giving $15,000 of the little over $100,000 the party reported it raised.
Second, as I called for before-and the other candidates have since echoed-we need an independent audit and inventory of the party immediately in order to:
I hope you will join us in continuing to call for reform at Richmond Avenue.
First, the two arguments that the incumbent is making in defense of his regime-that the checks in question may have been held and not deposited for months after they were written, that the HCRP raised $2.5 million dollars in 2008-show how out of touch this current leadership team is with sound management practices, and with reality. If the party actually had the checks in question and noted their receipt by acknowledging the contributors on the invitation and program for the annual dinner, but did not deposit them timely, this is highly unsound money management and risk management, and it must be reformed in order to protect the party from the risk of loss or theft in the future. As for the $2.5 million figure, here is the reality (based on the publicly filed reports covering the entire year of 2008):
* A little over $2.4 million passed through the HCRP accounts during 2008;
* Of that figure, over $1.9 came from judicial candidates' campaign accounts, or from the state party, to fund joint campaign activities-it was money raised by others for a specific purpose, dedicated to that purpose, and spent for that purpose-the HCRP did not raise this money itself, nor did it have any discretion as to how it would be spent;
* Of the remaining amount, the HCRP spent a little more than $416,000 on its own operations;
* It raised less than $300,000 to cover those operating expenses, from a contributor base of about 300 individuals-two of whom contributed about $85,000 of the total sum; and
* The remaining amount to cover the HCRP's expenses-$150,120-came from 46 campaign accounts from non-judicial elected officials and candidates, 31 individual candidates and elected officials, and 11 HCRP officials.
In reality, the ticket supported the party, and allowed it to keep the lights on at Richmond Avenue, not the other way around. This trend continued into 2009, as one elected official was the party's largest contributor during the first 6 months, giving $15,000 of the little over $100,000 the party reported it raised.
Second, as I called for before-and the other candidates have since echoed-we need an independent audit and inventory of the party immediately in order to:
* know what our baseline is for budgeting and fundraising needs;
* create an information base from which to institute new and better money-management practices and procedures for the HCRP going forward;
* re-instill confidence in our contributor base that we will handle their contributions wisely; and
* re-build credibility with our constituents that we can be trusted with handling public funds.
I hope you will join us in continuing to call for reform at Richmond Avenue.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Good News for a Transition to a New Chair
At last night’s dinner sponsored by the HCRP, it was announced that Gary Polland will be the co-chair for the local Victory 2010 Campaign, which is the party’s formal effort to support the election of the local Republican ticket next fall. This is good news for two reasons:
One of the concerns that I have heard voiced over the last few months by both the current team at Richmond Avenue and others, was that changing leadership during the middle of the 2010 election cycle would be too disruptive, and it could hurt the ticket. With this new development, there should be no disruption felt by our elected officials and candidates if we win, and as we focus on implementing elements of our strategic plan.
In fact, to make sure that this positive signal is reinforced, I declare right now that I support this appointment, and, if I win election to the Chair in the March Primary, I will ask Gary to remain as co-chair of the Victory 2010 Campaign.
1. We are assured of a steady, experienced person being available to help the current team at Richmond Avenue during this critical election cycle; and
2, It will allow for a smooth transition to a new chair after the March primary.
One of the concerns that I have heard voiced over the last few months by both the current team at Richmond Avenue and others, was that changing leadership during the middle of the 2010 election cycle would be too disruptive, and it could hurt the ticket. With this new development, there should be no disruption felt by our elected officials and candidates if we win, and as we focus on implementing elements of our strategic plan.
In fact, to make sure that this positive signal is reinforced, I declare right now that I support this appointment, and, if I win election to the Chair in the March Primary, I will ask Gary to remain as co-chair of the Victory 2010 Campaign.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
A Lesson from 2009 for 2010
Let me first start this post by congratulating Republicans Stephen Costello, Brenda Stardig and Al Hoang for their victories in Saturday's run-off election. They will join fellow Republicans Anne Clutterbuck and Michael Sullivan on the Houston City Council next year. Let me also extend congratulations across the aisle to our Mayor-elect, Annise Parker, as we all wish her—and the City we love—well during her term.
Every victory in a contested race means someone lost, and too many Republicans and conservative candidates lost winnable races in November and last Saturday. Some of these losses were heart-wrenchingly close after well-fought battles. Others were lost through mistakes and self-inflicted wounds. Most, I believe could have been won with more effective help from the HCRP.
Like many of you, I have struggled to find a silver lining in this cloud—a positive lesson to take with us into the political battles ahead in 2010. Then, as I watched the recriminations and blame fly in email after email over the last few days, a friend’s comment provided the perspective I needed. In talking about the run-off election, its aftermath, and what it means for our party, he made the following observation:
For over a year now, I have tried to persuade you to look beyond the faults of our opponents—and those of our friends, too—in order to re-ignite our passion for our shared values, and then to fight for those values in every corner of this county with a positive agenda. At the heart of all of our beliefs in life, liberty, limited government, and effective local government, is a belief that government doesn’t love your neighbor, people do. It is people, working individually, and through their families, churches, civic organizations—and yes, through their local governments and schools, too—that have built our neighborhoods and sustained our society. Government (especially the state and federal government) should marshal the power it is given to protect the society we create and maintain, but it should not use such power to replace us in our duty to care for our children, our families, our schools, and our communities. To defeat the forces that would expand the role of government, we need to live by our principles—not by tearing down our opponents, but by helping up our neighbors.
To do that, we first must re-focus our party toward effectively promoting a positive agenda based on our shared principles, rather than continuing to fight over who among us is the purest in our commitment to those principles. If we Republicans, including all those who have become estranged from our party for whatever reason, unite, and then go out into the communities that we have ignored for too long and invite our neighbors who share our principles to join us in this effort, we can and will succeed in 2010, and for many years to come.
Every victory in a contested race means someone lost, and too many Republicans and conservative candidates lost winnable races in November and last Saturday. Some of these losses were heart-wrenchingly close after well-fought battles. Others were lost through mistakes and self-inflicted wounds. Most, I believe could have been won with more effective help from the HCRP.
Like many of you, I have struggled to find a silver lining in this cloud—a positive lesson to take with us into the political battles ahead in 2010. Then, as I watched the recriminations and blame fly in email after email over the last few days, a friend’s comment provided the perspective I needed. In talking about the run-off election, its aftermath, and what it means for our party, he made the following observation:
Ed has the foundation of faith and integrity to unite the party…that should be his focus. We can’t abandon values for the sake of victory. We need less big government and more church involvement to help people help themselves. Look around on who is feeding the poor at this time of year. Churches do it without notice and without seeking praise or recognition. That is not just the words from an ultra right guy. I simply believe it to be true.
For over a year now, I have tried to persuade you to look beyond the faults of our opponents—and those of our friends, too—in order to re-ignite our passion for our shared values, and then to fight for those values in every corner of this county with a positive agenda. At the heart of all of our beliefs in life, liberty, limited government, and effective local government, is a belief that government doesn’t love your neighbor, people do. It is people, working individually, and through their families, churches, civic organizations—and yes, through their local governments and schools, too—that have built our neighborhoods and sustained our society. Government (especially the state and federal government) should marshal the power it is given to protect the society we create and maintain, but it should not use such power to replace us in our duty to care for our children, our families, our schools, and our communities. To defeat the forces that would expand the role of government, we need to live by our principles—not by tearing down our opponents, but by helping up our neighbors.
To do that, we first must re-focus our party toward effectively promoting a positive agenda based on our shared principles, rather than continuing to fight over who among us is the purest in our commitment to those principles. If we Republicans, including all those who have become estranged from our party for whatever reason, unite, and then go out into the communities that we have ignored for too long and invite our neighbors who share our principles to join us in this effort, we can and will succeed in 2010, and for many years to come.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Growth will require Unity within the GOP
Not long ago I posted a summary of my criticism of statements made by a certain local conservative, who has been a close associate of the incumbent HCRP Chair. I posted the criticism both on my blog, and as a comment to a post on another site. The gist of my criticism was that I thought it was wrong for Republicans to inject the sexual orientation of one of the candidates for mayor as an issue into that race, rather than focus on the policies and agendas that candidate is advocating.
After we cut the skin with that issue, the Houston Chronicle tore off the scab and infected the community with an indefensible editorial cartoon depicting Dr. Steven Hotze and Gene Locke. For the record, I am not a fan of “political correctness,” and I support raucous debate of the issues in print and electronic editorials and cartoons. Moreover, I know that one rarely wins in a war of words with a newspaper. But the Chronicle really lost all perspective when it printed this cartoon.
Did the editors not understand the impact that image would have, not just on the individuals involved and their families, but on Evangelical Christians in our community who care deeply about the issues being discussed in this campaign, and on our African-American neighbors for whom images of bondage and submission carry profoundly dark collective memories? Obviously, decency, let alone shame and restraint, were absent from the decision-making process that led to the approval of that cartoon for publication.
However, the real point of this post is not to dwell on the Chronicle’s action, but to challenge my fellow Republicans and independent conservatives about how we will react and move forward into 2010. The lesson we must learn from this entire episode is the lesson I have been promoting for the last year: we must grow this party on the positive message of our shared principles; and to grow, we must first unite. We are stronger together than we are separately, and if we unite we can defeat the forces who find the Chronicle cartoon acceptable.
During most of 2009, I have been both heartened and concerned by the forces emerging on our side of the political spectrum. While those who want to strengthen the social-conservative core of our party by purging any dissent or dissenters, and those who have started various non-partisan conservative organizations, have created great energy for us, if we don’t use that energy to bring all who share our principles together and fight together, the GOP will break apart and there will be no effective political force to combat the Democrats.
Now is not the time for one faction or another of conservatism to try to take over exclusive control of our party, or walk-away to create a third-party—such an effort will assure our defeat by shrinking our movement. Then, the policies we all abhor will become law, and those who promote them will become our elected leaders, for the foreseeable future.
Instead, let’s use this episode to look in the mirror—to understand who we are, what we stand for, and who our allies are. Then, with that awareness, let’s unite. If we unite all of our allies behind our shared principles, we will form the strong foundation we need to grow. Then, 2010 truly will be the watershed year for conservatism and the GOP that we all want.
After we cut the skin with that issue, the Houston Chronicle tore off the scab and infected the community with an indefensible editorial cartoon depicting Dr. Steven Hotze and Gene Locke. For the record, I am not a fan of “political correctness,” and I support raucous debate of the issues in print and electronic editorials and cartoons. Moreover, I know that one rarely wins in a war of words with a newspaper. But the Chronicle really lost all perspective when it printed this cartoon.
Did the editors not understand the impact that image would have, not just on the individuals involved and their families, but on Evangelical Christians in our community who care deeply about the issues being discussed in this campaign, and on our African-American neighbors for whom images of bondage and submission carry profoundly dark collective memories? Obviously, decency, let alone shame and restraint, were absent from the decision-making process that led to the approval of that cartoon for publication.
However, the real point of this post is not to dwell on the Chronicle’s action, but to challenge my fellow Republicans and independent conservatives about how we will react and move forward into 2010. The lesson we must learn from this entire episode is the lesson I have been promoting for the last year: we must grow this party on the positive message of our shared principles; and to grow, we must first unite. We are stronger together than we are separately, and if we unite we can defeat the forces who find the Chronicle cartoon acceptable.
During most of 2009, I have been both heartened and concerned by the forces emerging on our side of the political spectrum. While those who want to strengthen the social-conservative core of our party by purging any dissent or dissenters, and those who have started various non-partisan conservative organizations, have created great energy for us, if we don’t use that energy to bring all who share our principles together and fight together, the GOP will break apart and there will be no effective political force to combat the Democrats.
Now is not the time for one faction or another of conservatism to try to take over exclusive control of our party, or walk-away to create a third-party—such an effort will assure our defeat by shrinking our movement. Then, the policies we all abhor will become law, and those who promote them will become our elected leaders, for the foreseeable future.
Instead, let’s use this episode to look in the mirror—to understand who we are, what we stand for, and who our allies are. Then, with that awareness, let’s unite. If we unite all of our allies behind our shared principles, we will form the strong foundation we need to grow. Then, 2010 truly will be the watershed year for conservatism and the GOP that we all want.
Friday, December 11, 2009
I Hate To Say I Told You So...
Well, we all knew this was going to happen at some point. As I have been pointing all for quite a while now, the financial problems of the Harris County Republican Party have finally come to light in the media. Today, Texas Watchdog broke the story wide open, you can read the story here. I first raised this issue in September at a forum with the Chairman and Mr. Simpson, hosted by the Memorial West Republican Women, a recap of the event can be found here. I even asked about the very donors who are identified in this article, because their names appeared as sponsors on the program for the Annual Dinner, but there was no record of any contribution having been received by the party in its June 30th Report.
You might recall that just last month, I wrote this blog where I promised, once elected I would conduct a full audit of the HCRP financial situation right away as we are also preparing to hit the ground running into the November general election in 2010.
Together, we must solve this problem and move toward the future. We have important elections to win in November 2010 and November 2012. I'm asking for you to join our efforts today. Please go here and get involved with my campaign to reunite our party around the conservative principles that we share, and let us follow President Reagan's example, join the revolution today.
You might recall that just last month, I wrote this blog where I promised, once elected I would conduct a full audit of the HCRP financial situation right away as we are also preparing to hit the ground running into the November general election in 2010.
Together, we must solve this problem and move toward the future. We have important elections to win in November 2010 and November 2012. I'm asking for you to join our efforts today. Please go here and get involved with my campaign to reunite our party around the conservative principles that we share, and let us follow President Reagan's example, join the revolution today.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Press Release Announcement
REPUBLICAN ED HUBBARD OFFICIALLY FILES FOR
CHAIR OF THE HARRIS COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY
HOUSTON - Today, Ed Hubbard officially filed to place his name on the March 2010 Republican Primary ballot as a candidate for the office of Chair of the Harris County Republican Party. The Taylor Lake Village resident and life-long Republican defeated a two-term incumbent (and former Houston Police Chief) in a 10-county race to become the party’s nominee for a place on a local appellate court in 2008. He now will be challenging the 8-year incumbent party chair, who is seeking a fifth term in the wake of the defeat suffered by the local GOP in the 2008 elections, and amid lingering questions about the recent management of the county party.
“The local GOP needs more than a cheerleader—it needs a leader,” Hubbard declared. “It needs a leader who will listen to local Republicans, respond to their concerns, and, ultimately, make the party competitive in this growing metropolitan county. I have run a law firm; managed people and budgets; raised money for scholarships, non-profit entities, and political campaigns; and served on the boards of a non-profit entity and a church foundation, and as an officer of a school board. I also ran a successful 10-county primary race in the last election cycle, and learned what is working and what is not working within our party. Based on these varied experiences, I believe I understand what needs to be fixed and have developed the skills needed to fix it.”
“To win elections in the future, we need to unite, grow, modernize, and better manage the party. To do this we need to re-commit ourselves to Reagan’s vision for the Republican Party: we need to apply our shared principles to issues that are relevant to people’s lives; and we need to include not just all local Republicans in this mission, but also all people who share our principles,” said Hubbard. “This is why, over the past year, I have nurtured new leaders and supported new organizations that are building relationships for the GOP in our African-American and Latino communities, and why I prepared and promoted a strategic plan for the future of the HCRP.”
Uniting and growing the party by being more inclusive is a key element of Hubbard’s plan for the party. Hubbard stated that he intends to re-involve long-time activists and clubs in the party organization and activities, while including new people and neighborhoods in the party by “permanently expanding the grassroots into every precinct, community, and school district.”
Hubbard offered this challenge to local Republicans: “if you are ready to seize the future of our party with the courage to look beyond the arguments and resumes of the past, then I ask you to join our effort as a volunteer or contributor, and to vote for me in the March primary.”
Hubbard has three daughters: Joanna, 22 (now of Los Angeles, California); Becca, 20, and Meredith, 10. Becca served last year as a delegate to the Republican Senate District Convention for Senate District 11. Hubbard is married to Johnnie Hill Hubbard, a native Texan who grew-up in Pasadena, Texas.
Visit www.HubbardForHCRP.com for more information.
CHAIR OF THE HARRIS COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY
HOUSTON - Today, Ed Hubbard officially filed to place his name on the March 2010 Republican Primary ballot as a candidate for the office of Chair of the Harris County Republican Party. The Taylor Lake Village resident and life-long Republican defeated a two-term incumbent (and former Houston Police Chief) in a 10-county race to become the party’s nominee for a place on a local appellate court in 2008. He now will be challenging the 8-year incumbent party chair, who is seeking a fifth term in the wake of the defeat suffered by the local GOP in the 2008 elections, and amid lingering questions about the recent management of the county party.
“The local GOP needs more than a cheerleader—it needs a leader,” Hubbard declared. “It needs a leader who will listen to local Republicans, respond to their concerns, and, ultimately, make the party competitive in this growing metropolitan county. I have run a law firm; managed people and budgets; raised money for scholarships, non-profit entities, and political campaigns; and served on the boards of a non-profit entity and a church foundation, and as an officer of a school board. I also ran a successful 10-county primary race in the last election cycle, and learned what is working and what is not working within our party. Based on these varied experiences, I believe I understand what needs to be fixed and have developed the skills needed to fix it.”
“To win elections in the future, we need to unite, grow, modernize, and better manage the party. To do this we need to re-commit ourselves to Reagan’s vision for the Republican Party: we need to apply our shared principles to issues that are relevant to people’s lives; and we need to include not just all local Republicans in this mission, but also all people who share our principles,” said Hubbard. “This is why, over the past year, I have nurtured new leaders and supported new organizations that are building relationships for the GOP in our African-American and Latino communities, and why I prepared and promoted a strategic plan for the future of the HCRP.”
Uniting and growing the party by being more inclusive is a key element of Hubbard’s plan for the party. Hubbard stated that he intends to re-involve long-time activists and clubs in the party organization and activities, while including new people and neighborhoods in the party by “permanently expanding the grassroots into every precinct, community, and school district.”
Hubbard offered this challenge to local Republicans: “if you are ready to seize the future of our party with the courage to look beyond the arguments and resumes of the past, then I ask you to join our effort as a volunteer or contributor, and to vote for me in the March primary.”
Hubbard has three daughters: Joanna, 22 (now of Los Angeles, California); Becca, 20, and Meredith, 10. Becca served last year as a delegate to the Republican Senate District Convention for Senate District 11. Hubbard is married to Johnnie Hill Hubbard, a native Texan who grew-up in Pasadena, Texas.
Visit www.HubbardForHCRP.com for more information.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The future transition—an Audit and Inventory will be needed as we hit the ground running
Questions have been raised over the last few months about the accuracy of the reporting of contributions and expenditures by the HCRP; about the failure to timely or completely pay payroll, rent, and vendor bills; about payments made by the HCRP to a company owned by the current Executive Director; about the relationship between the incumbent’s campaign and other organizations and PACs; and about who has possession or access to the property and bank accounts of the party. If I am elected to be the next Chair of the HCRP, I will swiftly move to conduct an audit of the party, and an inventory of its property.
I do not plan to use this audit and inventory as a basis for recrimination or criticism of the outgoing team, nor am I committing to this course of action because I think there has been any malfeasance by the current team at Richmond Avenue. Instead, I am doing it so that the party and its contributors will have confidence in the new direction of the party: confidence that we know the actual baseline condition of the property at the time we take over; confidence that we have complete possession and control of the party’s assets; confidence that we understand all current obligations of the party; and confidence that our budget and fundraising needs are based on reality.
The minute my term begins, I will be ready to assume managerial control of the party:
* We will have the party management team in place.
* Based on discussions I am having now, we will have a new Executive Director ready to start work and a bookkeeper, as well as an accounting firm ready to help with the audit and inventory.
* We will have a team of volunteers ready to get the office functioning and be prepared for a special election for the Senate, if that is scheduled before November, 2010.
* We will have a preliminary budget plan and a fundraising plan ready to implement.
* We will have a team ready to implement a new design and function for the party on the Internet, and to create or update a modern, stand-alone database of Republican voters and contributors for the parties use.
In fact, we will be prepared to implement these under any condition we may inherit: if the party is handed over intact as it now exists; or, if we walk into an empty office on Richmond Avenue, as Betsy Lake found when she took over the party many years ago.
I intend to fully cooperate with the current leadership to have a smooth and fast transition. Although Section 171.028 of the Texas Election Code gives the current team up to 30 days to fully transfer the books and records, the incumbent is on notice now that there may be a change in administration, and so, for the good of the party and its ticket in 2010, I hope he and his team will be ready to hand-over the property of the party immediately after the election.
I do not plan to use this audit and inventory as a basis for recrimination or criticism of the outgoing team, nor am I committing to this course of action because I think there has been any malfeasance by the current team at Richmond Avenue. Instead, I am doing it so that the party and its contributors will have confidence in the new direction of the party: confidence that we know the actual baseline condition of the property at the time we take over; confidence that we have complete possession and control of the party’s assets; confidence that we understand all current obligations of the party; and confidence that our budget and fundraising needs are based on reality.
The minute my term begins, I will be ready to assume managerial control of the party:
* We will have the party management team in place.
* Based on discussions I am having now, we will have a new Executive Director ready to start work and a bookkeeper, as well as an accounting firm ready to help with the audit and inventory.
* We will have a team of volunteers ready to get the office functioning and be prepared for a special election for the Senate, if that is scheduled before November, 2010.
* We will have a preliminary budget plan and a fundraising plan ready to implement.
* We will have a team ready to implement a new design and function for the party on the Internet, and to create or update a modern, stand-alone database of Republican voters and contributors for the parties use.
In fact, we will be prepared to implement these under any condition we may inherit: if the party is handed over intact as it now exists; or, if we walk into an empty office on Richmond Avenue, as Betsy Lake found when she took over the party many years ago.
I intend to fully cooperate with the current leadership to have a smooth and fast transition. Although Section 171.028 of the Texas Election Code gives the current team up to 30 days to fully transfer the books and records, the incumbent is on notice now that there may be a change in administration, and so, for the good of the party and its ticket in 2010, I hope he and his team will be ready to hand-over the property of the party immediately after the election.
Monday, November 23, 2009
What I Intended to Say Last Tuesday Evening
Because a scheduled speaker had canceled on the Clear Lake Republican Club at the last minute, it attempted to invite each of the candidates for the Chair of the HCRP to speak to the club about the meaning of the November, 2009 elections. Paul Simpson and I responded and agreed to attend; the club’s program director was not aware that Don Large had entered the race, so he did not receive an invitation (though he did attend the meeting after he learned of the event); and the incumbent, as usual, did not respond.
The recent quoted comments about Annise Parker, which were made by long-time associates of the incumbent, are simply deplorable. They should not be embraced by our party. If they are embraced, we will drive people away from this party who otherwise share our principles.
I am not endorsing either Democrat left in the Mayoral run-off; but I believe that Ms. Parker, like any other candidate, should be judged by political leaders based on her competence to be Mayor, her political experience, and on the policy positions she is actually promoting—not on her sexual orientation. If some individuals feel a strong religious impulse to oppose a certain candidate, so be it—that is their right; but it is beneath the dignity of our party's heritage—as the party of Lincoln and Reagan—for the political leaders of our party, or their surrogates, to join and give support to such an impulse as the official, or de facto, position of our party. I know of no political leader in this county, no matter how good a person he or she may be, who is on the short list for canonization—we are all sinners. If the GOP starts to base its membership and support on the prerequisite of having a clean record with God, we will become the smallest political party in the world in record time.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Conservatism in America—What is it, and where does it go from here?
Since I started my campaign for the Chair of the HCRP, I have tried to focus on solutions to problems that are inhibiting our ability to elect Republican candidates locally: a perceived closed culture within our party, which inhibits assimilation of new people and ideas into our organization; a message that is confused and feeds a continuing lack of credibility with voters; a top-down, pyramidal organizational structure that inhibits action and innovation; a failure to grow by establishing permanent relationships in every community; and a lack of competent management.
However, after talking with many Republicans and disaffected conservatives over the last few months, I realize that it will be hard to focus on these issues without addressing the fundamental “Elephant in the Closet” for our party: as the conservative party in this country, how do we define conservatism today, and where do we take conservatism in America from here? Many people want answers to these questions before they will look at the organizational problems facing the GOP locally. To address these questions, I’ve incorporated an idea into our campaign—Renewing the American Community.
Over the next two weeks, I will try and address these issues in a two-part post. This first post will focus on what I believe it means to be a Conservative and Republican in America; and in my second post, I will try to present some ideas about where we take conservatism in America from here.
Part 1—What is American Conservatism, and what is a Republican?
We live in a remarkable, transitional moment, and many of us approach the gravity of this moment with some anxiety. We sense—I believe, correctly—that the cultural, economic, and political world that has developed since the stock-market crash of October, 1929, and that the United States has dominated almost totally, is finally coming to an end; but we have no idea what the new world will look like. The movement of world events seems to point toward a future in which international trade and communication will continue to pull the people of the world into a more cooperative, seamless relationship with each other, though with all the potential for tensions that close proximity creates. It is breaking down old allegiances of individuals to home and nation, just as it is creating new allegiances and localized needs and exacerbating old tribal and religious tensions.
Of course nothing so remarkable really happens in an instant. This process has been unfolding slowly for at least the last 40 years while we enjoyed the continued fruits of American dominance. Although, many of us noted and tried to prevent the worst consequences of this process on the collective character of our society, it is both alarming and frustrating to realize that the pace of the unraveling has accelerated over the last year to a point where it now feels out of our control.
In response to this moment, most of us in America are stuck in a political fight between two old orthodoxies unwilling to confront the future. On the left, the Democratic Party is using this moment not to craft a truly new approach to our future, but to finally implement its “transformative” statist, European-style social order, which it has championed since the 1930s. In fact, it is proceeding so well on this path that Europe has awarded its highest honor—the Nobel Peace Prize—to Obama in recognition of his efforts so far to align our country with the European approach to society.
Meanwhile, the GOP seems adrift in its response—continuing its rhetorical defense of cherished principles that have been the foundation of the American system, but without presenting any ideas of how to make those principles relevant to the future we now face.
Those of us watching this scrum day after day have finally had it, and we want our politicians to listen to us and our concerns, and to act as adults in facing this future. Whichever party breaks out of this old paradigm first will control how the future unfolds, and how this country and our citizens are guided into that future. As a conservative and a life-long Republican, I want the GOP to be that party.
But to be the party of the future, we must understand our mission in American politics—the GOP is the conservative party in America. We must understand what that means before we can create a positive agenda for the future.
I believe that to fully understand a concept, one must delve into, and understand its meaning. So, let’s start with some basic definitions for the words “society” and “conservatism”.
“Society” is defined generally in the American Heritage Dictionary as “the totality of social relationships among humans. A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.” “Conservatism” is defined as “the inclination to maintain the existing or traditional order; a political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, …and opposition to sudden change in the established order.”
Now let’s put these two definitions together to describe a conservative: a person who respects the traditional institutions and established order that maintain the totality of social relationships among a group of humans, and protects such institutions and order from sudden change.
Notice the emphasis on “sudden change”. The role of a conservative in guiding change in society was described eloquently by Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge just after the turn of the last century:
Now that we have our definition of a Republican—an American Conservative—we must understand the “traditional institutions and established order” that are peculiar to America, and which a Republican is devoted to protect and guide. That’s where our story presents a paradox: Republicans are the custodians of the most liberating political ideas, institutions, and order man ever devised; so, our mission is to preserve an exceptional tradition for our posterity.
America may be the child of Europe, but those English and Dutch settlers who arrived here in the early 1600s began an experiment that separated us for all time from the European experience. They came to this continent to form a society based on an independence from a state, a church, or an anointed class of elites; but not on an independence from each other. Instead, they formed communities based on an interdependence with each other grounded on the most cherished principles of liberty and love of neighbor derived from the fundamental ideas of politics and faith they learned from Roman and Greek history, and from the New Testament. When it came time to form governments, they designed governments that would preserve the liberty and private relationships already thriving in these communities. So, while Europeans have shed much blood since 1789 to allow democratic participation in their existing governments, our mission has been to preserve our unique experiment in self-government, and guide it into the future.
It is this unique society, based on the private relationships formed in communities—families, neighborhoods, churches, clubs, etc.—upon which our founders formed state and federal governments “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The Republican Party was formed when the future of this exceptional society was severely tested because of its failures to live-up to its principles. The GOP dedicated itself from its beginning to the preservation of the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the provisions of Constitution, and to the inclusion of all men and women into our unique society of private relationships and communities.
It is this unique society that Republicans are dedicated to preserve and guide into the future, and to protect from any effort to make it more like any other society—European or otherwise. With this as its mission, the GOP is truly the most exceptional political party in the world. To be true to this mission, the GOP at all levels must create a positive agenda of ideas and policies that will preserve our unique societal institutions and order as we enter this new era; and that will preserve the “exceptionalism” of our nation and society as we participate in the more seamless world that is emerging.
What will be the message that will guide the mission of the GOP and American Conservatism as we develop this positive agenda for the future? Basically, that message must be consistent with what it has always been: the promotion of individual empowerment, and of the private relationships that nourish it. This means:
1. We must seek to preserve, enrich and improve the institutions that have protected our liberties, including our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our civic associations, and our local governments.
2. We must seek to protect the free-market/free trade economic system, which insulates our private decisions and relationships from the control of government.
3. We must seek to enforce the Constitution, its system of federalism, and its embrace of a limited (yet effective) role for government at all levels.
4. We must seek to maintain a strong military and diplomatic defense, for we will continue to be the defensive and moral arsenal for the West for the foreseeable future.
5. We must seek to maintain a proper balance between the isolation and chaos caused by promoting unbridled liberty, and the tyranny created by regimented conformity to one specific set of customs and traditions.
6. We must seek to promote the development of individual character and wisdom each person needs to truly enjoy freedom over the course of a lifetime.
7. We must always acknowledge that the inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence apply to all people at every stage of life.
8. Finally, we must recognize that, if we are to maintain America's unique society, we must find a way to participate in the new emerging world as an equal member, but in a way that does not diminish or subjugate the exceptionalism of America.
In my next post, I will discuss some of the positive ideas that can turn this message into policies for the future.
However, after talking with many Republicans and disaffected conservatives over the last few months, I realize that it will be hard to focus on these issues without addressing the fundamental “Elephant in the Closet” for our party: as the conservative party in this country, how do we define conservatism today, and where do we take conservatism in America from here? Many people want answers to these questions before they will look at the organizational problems facing the GOP locally. To address these questions, I’ve incorporated an idea into our campaign—Renewing the American Community.
Over the next two weeks, I will try and address these issues in a two-part post. This first post will focus on what I believe it means to be a Conservative and Republican in America; and in my second post, I will try to present some ideas about where we take conservatism in America from here.
Part 1—What is American Conservatism, and what is a Republican?
We live in a remarkable, transitional moment, and many of us approach the gravity of this moment with some anxiety. We sense—I believe, correctly—that the cultural, economic, and political world that has developed since the stock-market crash of October, 1929, and that the United States has dominated almost totally, is finally coming to an end; but we have no idea what the new world will look like. The movement of world events seems to point toward a future in which international trade and communication will continue to pull the people of the world into a more cooperative, seamless relationship with each other, though with all the potential for tensions that close proximity creates. It is breaking down old allegiances of individuals to home and nation, just as it is creating new allegiances and localized needs and exacerbating old tribal and religious tensions.
Of course nothing so remarkable really happens in an instant. This process has been unfolding slowly for at least the last 40 years while we enjoyed the continued fruits of American dominance. Although, many of us noted and tried to prevent the worst consequences of this process on the collective character of our society, it is both alarming and frustrating to realize that the pace of the unraveling has accelerated over the last year to a point where it now feels out of our control.
In response to this moment, most of us in America are stuck in a political fight between two old orthodoxies unwilling to confront the future. On the left, the Democratic Party is using this moment not to craft a truly new approach to our future, but to finally implement its “transformative” statist, European-style social order, which it has championed since the 1930s. In fact, it is proceeding so well on this path that Europe has awarded its highest honor—the Nobel Peace Prize—to Obama in recognition of his efforts so far to align our country with the European approach to society.
Meanwhile, the GOP seems adrift in its response—continuing its rhetorical defense of cherished principles that have been the foundation of the American system, but without presenting any ideas of how to make those principles relevant to the future we now face.
Those of us watching this scrum day after day have finally had it, and we want our politicians to listen to us and our concerns, and to act as adults in facing this future. Whichever party breaks out of this old paradigm first will control how the future unfolds, and how this country and our citizens are guided into that future. As a conservative and a life-long Republican, I want the GOP to be that party.
But to be the party of the future, we must understand our mission in American politics—the GOP is the conservative party in America. We must understand what that means before we can create a positive agenda for the future.
I believe that to fully understand a concept, one must delve into, and understand its meaning. So, let’s start with some basic definitions for the words “society” and “conservatism”.
“Society” is defined generally in the American Heritage Dictionary as “the totality of social relationships among humans. A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.” “Conservatism” is defined as “the inclination to maintain the existing or traditional order; a political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, …and opposition to sudden change in the established order.”
Now let’s put these two definitions together to describe a conservative: a person who respects the traditional institutions and established order that maintain the totality of social relationships among a group of humans, and protects such institutions and order from sudden change.
Notice the emphasis on “sudden change”. The role of a conservative in guiding change in society was described eloquently by Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge just after the turn of the last century:
Let’s now take our definitions, and Beveridge’s description, and put them together to describe an American Conservative: a person who respects the traditional institutions and established order that maintain the totality of social relationships among Americans, and protects American institutions and order by guiding events and policies in a way that brings to pass positive and lasting change. I believe that the Republican Party always has been the natural home of this American Conservative.Conservatism does not mean doubt or indecision. It does not mean wise looks masking vacuity, nor pompous phrase as meaningless as it is solemn. Conservatism means clear common sense, which equally rejects the fanaticism of precedent and the fanaticism of change. It would not have midnight last just because it exists; and yet it knows that dawn comes not in a flash, but gradually…. So the conservative is the real statesman. He brings things to pass in a way that lasts and does good.
Now that we have our definition of a Republican—an American Conservative—we must understand the “traditional institutions and established order” that are peculiar to America, and which a Republican is devoted to protect and guide. That’s where our story presents a paradox: Republicans are the custodians of the most liberating political ideas, institutions, and order man ever devised; so, our mission is to preserve an exceptional tradition for our posterity.
America may be the child of Europe, but those English and Dutch settlers who arrived here in the early 1600s began an experiment that separated us for all time from the European experience. They came to this continent to form a society based on an independence from a state, a church, or an anointed class of elites; but not on an independence from each other. Instead, they formed communities based on an interdependence with each other grounded on the most cherished principles of liberty and love of neighbor derived from the fundamental ideas of politics and faith they learned from Roman and Greek history, and from the New Testament. When it came time to form governments, they designed governments that would preserve the liberty and private relationships already thriving in these communities. So, while Europeans have shed much blood since 1789 to allow democratic participation in their existing governments, our mission has been to preserve our unique experiment in self-government, and guide it into the future.
It is this unique society, based on the private relationships formed in communities—families, neighborhoods, churches, clubs, etc.—upon which our founders formed state and federal governments “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The Republican Party was formed when the future of this exceptional society was severely tested because of its failures to live-up to its principles. The GOP dedicated itself from its beginning to the preservation of the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the provisions of Constitution, and to the inclusion of all men and women into our unique society of private relationships and communities.
It is this unique society that Republicans are dedicated to preserve and guide into the future, and to protect from any effort to make it more like any other society—European or otherwise. With this as its mission, the GOP is truly the most exceptional political party in the world. To be true to this mission, the GOP at all levels must create a positive agenda of ideas and policies that will preserve our unique societal institutions and order as we enter this new era; and that will preserve the “exceptionalism” of our nation and society as we participate in the more seamless world that is emerging.
What will be the message that will guide the mission of the GOP and American Conservatism as we develop this positive agenda for the future? Basically, that message must be consistent with what it has always been: the promotion of individual empowerment, and of the private relationships that nourish it. This means:
1. We must seek to preserve, enrich and improve the institutions that have protected our liberties, including our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our civic associations, and our local governments.
2. We must seek to protect the free-market/free trade economic system, which insulates our private decisions and relationships from the control of government.
3. We must seek to enforce the Constitution, its system of federalism, and its embrace of a limited (yet effective) role for government at all levels.
4. We must seek to maintain a strong military and diplomatic defense, for we will continue to be the defensive and moral arsenal for the West for the foreseeable future.
5. We must seek to maintain a proper balance between the isolation and chaos caused by promoting unbridled liberty, and the tyranny created by regimented conformity to one specific set of customs and traditions.
6. We must seek to promote the development of individual character and wisdom each person needs to truly enjoy freedom over the course of a lifetime.
7. We must always acknowledge that the inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence apply to all people at every stage of life.
8. Finally, we must recognize that, if we are to maintain America's unique society, we must find a way to participate in the new emerging world as an equal member, but in a way that does not diminish or subjugate the exceptionalism of America.
In my next post, I will discuss some of the positive ideas that can turn this message into policies for the future.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
A Proposed Educational Revolution for the GOP
The Problem
In Meredith Wilson's The Music Man, the con man, Harold Hill, convinces the residents of River City, Iowa, that he has developed a new method for learning music, called the "think system". Hill’s theory is that if a musician uses the "think system" properly, he or she does not need to rely on written music. Instead, the musician only needs to think about the song long enough and hard enough, and he or she will be able to play it flawlessly. By the end of the play, the townspeople know they have been conned because it is obvious that the "think system" doesn't work, but Hill is saved by the local music teacher. It's a delightful story, but real life doesn't end that way.
As the noted educator, E.D. Hirsch, Jr., has tried to tell us for a generation, the American people have been conned since the 1930s with a version of the "think system", but there has been no happy ending. Hirsch’s central premise is that the decline in educational performance in our schools is directly related to a conscious decision by professional educators to abandon the use of a content-based curriculum in our public schools. Instead of a content-based curriculum, the education establishment has promoted a “child-centered” method of teaching that leaves each child to discover knowledge on their own.
As Hirsch makes clear in his most recent work, The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, this trade-out has produced societal illiteracy, because it led to a systemic failure to pass on the basic knowledge of language, history, and culture every American needs in order to function as a productive member of our society.
The illiteracy has led to a social nightmare in many communities, where up to 50% of students who start school will never graduate from high school, and 87% will never graduate from college. We are under-educating too many people, thereby condemning them, their families and their neighborhoods to chronic crime, deviancy, underemployment and poverty. Merely giving parents the choice to move their children to other schools that use the same teaching methods, or raising school and teacher performance criteria without addressing classroom content, will not fix this problem. Instead, the source of the problem—the content of our schools’ curricula—must be squarely addressed.
Let’s look at a practical example of how this problem plays out in our classrooms. When children enter pre-school or kindergarten, at some point they realize that there is a clock on the wall, but they do no yet know what it means, why it is there, and what you do with it. This information has to be taught and reinforced so the student will process it in many diverse contexts over years. So, in these early classes when students are introduced to reading a clock, their science instruction should be coordinated to teach about the rotation of the earth; math instruction should give equations and story problems that introduce real problems related to calculating and managing time that are age-appropriate; vocabulary lessons should introduce time-related words (e.g., minute, hour, day, night, month, season, year, and annual); grammar lessons should use these words in context; and short stories should be read that discuss time and seasons in context. Provided with this foundation, the child can begin to manage and understand time, but also will possess some of the linguistic and conceptual tools needed to later understand: the stories of Nathanial Hawthorne and poems of Robert Frost in which the setting in a specific season is critical to the meaning of their works; the relationship of time to the cadence and meaning of a Poe story or poem; why Washington’s army had to camp at Valley Forge, and why his winter crossing of the Delaware River was so dramatic; the importance of annual floods along the Nile to the building of the Egyptian empire; and much more.
If contextual facts are not taught early and incrementally, the student will find it hard to progress in school. Simply learning critical-thinking skills and how to apply them, without being taught contextual facts (and then learning to build on them with more contextual facts in diverse contexts), will impair a student's ability to continue to learn. Take a child who has lived in a home and neighborhood in Houston where many adults don’t have regular jobs, or where adults don’t functionally interact with their children. In the context of the previous example, have those children seen the seasons change enough to comprehend it? Have they seen a rhythm to their parent's daily routine, or heard people discuss deadlines and time commitments, enough to understand the concept and importance of time? If not, how will they discover the facts needed to critically think about these ideas?
By not teaching incremental, age-appropriate, comprehensive factual content--or core knowledge--cognitive science tells us that these students, who have no where else to “discover” such factual content, will fail. And guess what...students from these neighborhoods have failed and dropped-out of school in alarming numbers, while never having discovered the knowledge of language, history and culture they actually needed to succeed. It's like we've been asking our children to hum a tune they've never heard, or play a song on an instrument without learning the notes of the song or how to play the instrument--we've asked them to do something that can't be done, except by pure accident. We should never have left something so important, and so expensive, for our society to pure accident.
As Hirsch points out, we know how to fix this problem—we need to address the content of what we are teaching our children. If we fix this problem, it will be much easier to fix the structural tax and spending issues related to delivering education. If we don't fix this problem, no amount of tinkering with salaries, standards, taxes or budgets will improve the education of our children.
The GOP Solution
The GOP at all levels must address this problem as part of our effort to reconnect with the American public. Remember that the only institution in American life, which has involved, at some time and in some way, every individual, every family, every neighborhood, and every level of government, is our local school, and its problems affect us all—now and into the future. Recently, I stated during a candidates’ forum that I believe a central mission of a revitalized GOP must be to rebuild not just our commitment to liberty, but also the obligations that come with liberty, in order to defeat the Democratic Party’s embrace of statism. I call this commitment an effort to “Renew the American Community.” As part of this renewal of our sense of community with our neighbors, we must fix our schools.
What has been lost from our education is an understanding and appreciation by our children of the “American Story”: the cumulative wisdom of Western thought, together with the core principles and contexts underlying the structure and operation of American society. While our politics—both liberal and conservative—has focused almost exclusively on improving the process of delivering education, it has ignored the loss of this content from our classrooms. As a result, as many as 87% of our children in certain neighborhoods in Harris County do not possess the tools they will need to succeed in today’s economic environment, and virtually no one is being educated to succeed as a citizen—unless by accident, or outside of the public school system.
This American Story should become the context in which the student’s exposure to every other academic discipline is processed, and in which he or she would then process a lifetime of learning after leaving school. This story, properly taught, should instill the student with the means of understanding not only the physical world they inhabit, and the political and economic system of our country, and of other countries; but also with the ethical means to make the right decisions as a member of the community. Once we decide on this course of action, textbooks must be developed in every discipline to mutually support this curriculum, and a modern and efficient delivery system must be developed at the state and local levels to provide this education.
The American Story should never be used to promote an ideology, religion or political party in any classroom or discipline. Instead, it refers to the contextual knowledge every child needs to possess in order to fully comprehend and use the language, mathematics, science, art, literature, history, economics, law, and culture of our society. The American Story provides a frame of reference to each child that is consistent with the great philosophical and political traditions championed by both the Republican and Democratic Parties, and with the theology of all the major religious traditions observed in this country, but without indoctrinating any child with a specific point of view. This story gives them the tools to function as adult citizens who will contribute positively to their families and neighborhoods.
As the party that prides itself on being the custodian of our society’s basic principles, and on preserving local control of our schools, the GOP must work to end the current social fraud caused by our educational "think system". The Republican Party at all levels must fight to improve the content of the education we provide to all our children, so that they, and their future families and neighborhoods, flourish. For if they flourish, they will be more inclined to embrace the individual obligations that come with the gift of liberty, which, in turn, will help us "Renew the American Community" without embracing an ever-growing government. As part of this fight, the HCRP should champion reform of the content of the curriculum in our local schools by supporting educators, school board candidates, and legislators who will address this issue.
In Meredith Wilson's The Music Man, the con man, Harold Hill, convinces the residents of River City, Iowa, that he has developed a new method for learning music, called the "think system". Hill’s theory is that if a musician uses the "think system" properly, he or she does not need to rely on written music. Instead, the musician only needs to think about the song long enough and hard enough, and he or she will be able to play it flawlessly. By the end of the play, the townspeople know they have been conned because it is obvious that the "think system" doesn't work, but Hill is saved by the local music teacher. It's a delightful story, but real life doesn't end that way.
As the noted educator, E.D. Hirsch, Jr., has tried to tell us for a generation, the American people have been conned since the 1930s with a version of the "think system", but there has been no happy ending. Hirsch’s central premise is that the decline in educational performance in our schools is directly related to a conscious decision by professional educators to abandon the use of a content-based curriculum in our public schools. Instead of a content-based curriculum, the education establishment has promoted a “child-centered” method of teaching that leaves each child to discover knowledge on their own.
As Hirsch makes clear in his most recent work, The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, this trade-out has produced societal illiteracy, because it led to a systemic failure to pass on the basic knowledge of language, history, and culture every American needs in order to function as a productive member of our society.
The illiteracy has led to a social nightmare in many communities, where up to 50% of students who start school will never graduate from high school, and 87% will never graduate from college. We are under-educating too many people, thereby condemning them, their families and their neighborhoods to chronic crime, deviancy, underemployment and poverty. Merely giving parents the choice to move their children to other schools that use the same teaching methods, or raising school and teacher performance criteria without addressing classroom content, will not fix this problem. Instead, the source of the problem—the content of our schools’ curricula—must be squarely addressed.
Let’s look at a practical example of how this problem plays out in our classrooms. When children enter pre-school or kindergarten, at some point they realize that there is a clock on the wall, but they do no yet know what it means, why it is there, and what you do with it. This information has to be taught and reinforced so the student will process it in many diverse contexts over years. So, in these early classes when students are introduced to reading a clock, their science instruction should be coordinated to teach about the rotation of the earth; math instruction should give equations and story problems that introduce real problems related to calculating and managing time that are age-appropriate; vocabulary lessons should introduce time-related words (e.g., minute, hour, day, night, month, season, year, and annual); grammar lessons should use these words in context; and short stories should be read that discuss time and seasons in context. Provided with this foundation, the child can begin to manage and understand time, but also will possess some of the linguistic and conceptual tools needed to later understand: the stories of Nathanial Hawthorne and poems of Robert Frost in which the setting in a specific season is critical to the meaning of their works; the relationship of time to the cadence and meaning of a Poe story or poem; why Washington’s army had to camp at Valley Forge, and why his winter crossing of the Delaware River was so dramatic; the importance of annual floods along the Nile to the building of the Egyptian empire; and much more.
If contextual facts are not taught early and incrementally, the student will find it hard to progress in school. Simply learning critical-thinking skills and how to apply them, without being taught contextual facts (and then learning to build on them with more contextual facts in diverse contexts), will impair a student's ability to continue to learn. Take a child who has lived in a home and neighborhood in Houston where many adults don’t have regular jobs, or where adults don’t functionally interact with their children. In the context of the previous example, have those children seen the seasons change enough to comprehend it? Have they seen a rhythm to their parent's daily routine, or heard people discuss deadlines and time commitments, enough to understand the concept and importance of time? If not, how will they discover the facts needed to critically think about these ideas?
By not teaching incremental, age-appropriate, comprehensive factual content--or core knowledge--cognitive science tells us that these students, who have no where else to “discover” such factual content, will fail. And guess what...students from these neighborhoods have failed and dropped-out of school in alarming numbers, while never having discovered the knowledge of language, history and culture they actually needed to succeed. It's like we've been asking our children to hum a tune they've never heard, or play a song on an instrument without learning the notes of the song or how to play the instrument--we've asked them to do something that can't be done, except by pure accident. We should never have left something so important, and so expensive, for our society to pure accident.
As Hirsch points out, we know how to fix this problem—we need to address the content of what we are teaching our children. If we fix this problem, it will be much easier to fix the structural tax and spending issues related to delivering education. If we don't fix this problem, no amount of tinkering with salaries, standards, taxes or budgets will improve the education of our children.
The GOP Solution
The GOP at all levels must address this problem as part of our effort to reconnect with the American public. Remember that the only institution in American life, which has involved, at some time and in some way, every individual, every family, every neighborhood, and every level of government, is our local school, and its problems affect us all—now and into the future. Recently, I stated during a candidates’ forum that I believe a central mission of a revitalized GOP must be to rebuild not just our commitment to liberty, but also the obligations that come with liberty, in order to defeat the Democratic Party’s embrace of statism. I call this commitment an effort to “Renew the American Community.” As part of this renewal of our sense of community with our neighbors, we must fix our schools.
What has been lost from our education is an understanding and appreciation by our children of the “American Story”: the cumulative wisdom of Western thought, together with the core principles and contexts underlying the structure and operation of American society. While our politics—both liberal and conservative—has focused almost exclusively on improving the process of delivering education, it has ignored the loss of this content from our classrooms. As a result, as many as 87% of our children in certain neighborhoods in Harris County do not possess the tools they will need to succeed in today’s economic environment, and virtually no one is being educated to succeed as a citizen—unless by accident, or outside of the public school system.
This American Story should become the context in which the student’s exposure to every other academic discipline is processed, and in which he or she would then process a lifetime of learning after leaving school. This story, properly taught, should instill the student with the means of understanding not only the physical world they inhabit, and the political and economic system of our country, and of other countries; but also with the ethical means to make the right decisions as a member of the community. Once we decide on this course of action, textbooks must be developed in every discipline to mutually support this curriculum, and a modern and efficient delivery system must be developed at the state and local levels to provide this education.
The American Story should never be used to promote an ideology, religion or political party in any classroom or discipline. Instead, it refers to the contextual knowledge every child needs to possess in order to fully comprehend and use the language, mathematics, science, art, literature, history, economics, law, and culture of our society. The American Story provides a frame of reference to each child that is consistent with the great philosophical and political traditions championed by both the Republican and Democratic Parties, and with the theology of all the major religious traditions observed in this country, but without indoctrinating any child with a specific point of view. This story gives them the tools to function as adult citizens who will contribute positively to their families and neighborhoods.
As the party that prides itself on being the custodian of our society’s basic principles, and on preserving local control of our schools, the GOP must work to end the current social fraud caused by our educational "think system". The Republican Party at all levels must fight to improve the content of the education we provide to all our children, so that they, and their future families and neighborhoods, flourish. For if they flourish, they will be more inclined to embrace the individual obligations that come with the gift of liberty, which, in turn, will help us "Renew the American Community" without embracing an ever-growing government. As part of this fight, the HCRP should champion reform of the content of the curriculum in our local schools by supporting educators, school board candidates, and legislators who will address this issue.
Monday, September 14, 2009
We Saw the Opposition on September 3—Are We Ready for the Battle Ahead?
On the evening of Thursday, September 3rd, I put on a red T-shirt that said “Vote Republican” and joined the crowd outside City Hall in Downtown Houston.
The focus of the event was the health-care issue. Liberal interest groups held a “protest” rally for Obamacare, while others of us lodged a counter-protest off to one side of the steps and reflecting pool. I spent much of my time watching, listening, and talking to fellow counter-protesters. I want to share with you what I learned.
First, I want to congratulate John Faulk, Eric Story, Josh Parker and the Texas Tea Party Society of Houston, and the several “right to life” and religious organizations, who came together on short notice to coordinate the counter-protest. I also want to commend Roy Morales and Chris Daniel for coming and participating. Although we were out-numbered, the size and energy of the counter-protest successfully drained some of the time and attention of the speakers away from what they had planned to be a love-fest for Obamacare.
However, what I saw concerned me greatly, and underscored one of the many reasons why I am running for HCRP Chair: the GOP is still not ready to fight the ground battle against the Obama machine.
Although the polls show that public support for the Democratic takeover of the health-care industry is plummeting, only the Democratic Party and its close allies appear ready for this fight. The sponsors of the rally were Organizing for America (an official affiliate of the Democratic National Committee), ACORN, and several unions. Their participants were bused to the rally and signed-in, their signs were pre-printed and professional, and the media was pre-positioned to record the rally from a position that exaggerated the strength of their numbers.
Meanwhile, the courageous individuals who showed-up to form a counter-protest were denied a permit to use a microphone or bullhorn, and were physically relegated to one area off to the side opposite of where the media was stationed. Except for the Texas Tea Party Banner, and a few pre-printed signs and cards, the signs held by the counter-protesters were hand-made and hard to see from a distance. This ad hoc assembly was no match for the Democratic coordination.
The GOP needs a functioning party apparatus at all levels—local, state, and national—that is ready to go toe-to-toe with the Obama machine that the Democratic Party is operating. We won’t assemble this apparatus by co-opting the name and email lists of the Tea Party and other new organizations for use by our party leaders (nor will we get very far when our current chair sends an email out that correctly notifies the base about Al-Jazeera's inexplicable presence in our County Jail, but then threatens public safety by mistakenly asking people to call and clog an emergency phone line). A party takeover of these new organizations, especially by the Keystone Cops operation now in control of Richmond Avenue, is not the answer.
This is not a top-down war—it must be fought from the grassroots, by the grassroots. Rather than takeover or co-opt the new organizations, the party needs to invite these new activists—both the leaders and the members of these new separate organizations—into the party, invite them into empty precinct chairs and other positions, and invite them into our affiliated clubs and organizations (or encourage them to affiliate their new clubs with the GOP). Then, we need to support their energy and innovation by helping to mobilize them into a force to rival Organizing for America.
If we don’t take these steps this fall, and channel the energy of these individuals into our primary and to help elect our candidates in 2010, we may look back on this time as the greatest wasted opportunity the GOP ever had.
If we are brave enough to open the party to this new opportunity, and act boldly now, I am confident we will re-take what we lost in Harris County, preserve what we have in Austin, and eventually re-take Washington.
The focus of the event was the health-care issue. Liberal interest groups held a “protest” rally for Obamacare, while others of us lodged a counter-protest off to one side of the steps and reflecting pool. I spent much of my time watching, listening, and talking to fellow counter-protesters. I want to share with you what I learned.
First, I want to congratulate John Faulk, Eric Story, Josh Parker and the Texas Tea Party Society of Houston, and the several “right to life” and religious organizations, who came together on short notice to coordinate the counter-protest. I also want to commend Roy Morales and Chris Daniel for coming and participating. Although we were out-numbered, the size and energy of the counter-protest successfully drained some of the time and attention of the speakers away from what they had planned to be a love-fest for Obamacare.
However, what I saw concerned me greatly, and underscored one of the many reasons why I am running for HCRP Chair: the GOP is still not ready to fight the ground battle against the Obama machine.
Although the polls show that public support for the Democratic takeover of the health-care industry is plummeting, only the Democratic Party and its close allies appear ready for this fight. The sponsors of the rally were Organizing for America (an official affiliate of the Democratic National Committee), ACORN, and several unions. Their participants were bused to the rally and signed-in, their signs were pre-printed and professional, and the media was pre-positioned to record the rally from a position that exaggerated the strength of their numbers.
Meanwhile, the courageous individuals who showed-up to form a counter-protest were denied a permit to use a microphone or bullhorn, and were physically relegated to one area off to the side opposite of where the media was stationed. Except for the Texas Tea Party Banner, and a few pre-printed signs and cards, the signs held by the counter-protesters were hand-made and hard to see from a distance. This ad hoc assembly was no match for the Democratic coordination.
The GOP needs a functioning party apparatus at all levels—local, state, and national—that is ready to go toe-to-toe with the Obama machine that the Democratic Party is operating. We won’t assemble this apparatus by co-opting the name and email lists of the Tea Party and other new organizations for use by our party leaders (nor will we get very far when our current chair sends an email out that correctly notifies the base about Al-Jazeera's inexplicable presence in our County Jail, but then threatens public safety by mistakenly asking people to call and clog an emergency phone line). A party takeover of these new organizations, especially by the Keystone Cops operation now in control of Richmond Avenue, is not the answer.
This is not a top-down war—it must be fought from the grassroots, by the grassroots. Rather than takeover or co-opt the new organizations, the party needs to invite these new activists—both the leaders and the members of these new separate organizations—into the party, invite them into empty precinct chairs and other positions, and invite them into our affiliated clubs and organizations (or encourage them to affiliate their new clubs with the GOP). Then, we need to support their energy and innovation by helping to mobilize them into a force to rival Organizing for America.
If we don’t take these steps this fall, and channel the energy of these individuals into our primary and to help elect our candidates in 2010, we may look back on this time as the greatest wasted opportunity the GOP ever had.
If we are brave enough to open the party to this new opportunity, and act boldly now, I am confident we will re-take what we lost in Harris County, preserve what we have in Austin, and eventually re-take Washington.
A Plan for Future Coordination: The HCRP and the TFRW clubs in Harris County
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to the Bay Area Republican Women's Club ("BARWC"), an affiliated member of the Texas Federation of Republican Women ("TFRW"). As anyone who has ever been involved with the party knows, the secret to the GOP’s electoral success is the hard work and dedication of its women—as volunteers, as organizers, as fundraisers, and as candidates. The indispensable vehicle for mobilizing our women has been our Republican Women’s Clubs. Unfortunately, what I observed as a candidate during the last election cycle was a disconnection between many of the TFRW clubs in Harris County and the operation of the HCRP during the last election cycle.
The analogy I’ve used to describe this disconnection is to an old pocket watch. For a pocket watch to work, the gears must not only turn, they must engage each other. During the last election cycle, our clubs and party organization functioned like a watch in which the gears are all moving, but none of them engage each other. The outcome was predictable. Now, the gears need to be re-engaged for us to re-capture Harris County for the GOP.
Therefore, during my recent speech I outlined my proposal to restore the historic role of our women’s clubs in the operation of the HCRP as part of my strategic plan. To restore that role, I’ve specifically proposed the following:
*Inclusion in the governance of the HCRP. I intend to revise the structure of the HCRP’s Advisory Board to dedicate 4 of the 15 seats on the board to representatives of the TFRW Clubs located in Harris County. The proposal is that each of the four seats will be assigned to clubs located in each of the county commissioners’ precincts, and the seats themselves will rotate among the clubs in each precinct on an annual basis. Therefore, no club or region will be allowed to dominate involvement on the board, or be left out of involvement on the board. I promise that the final design of this plan will be decided after consultation with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW.
*Providing the core of our volunteer staff. As part of the effort to get local chapters of all of the affiliated clubs working with the HCRP again, I will ask the TFRW clubs to establish a volunteer staff to provide for continuous, open operation of the headquarters office, and any and all satellite offices in the county, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week throughout the year. During the 60 days leading up to and including the early vote and Election Day, the operation of these offices should be staffed at least 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. As part of this effort, I will ask the TFRW to work with the HCRP to design and implement local programs, like after-school activities, adult education classes and citizenship classes, which can be conducted in future satellite offices.
*Direct involvement in the GOTV effort. In consultation with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW, and the presidents of the TFRW clubs throughout Harris County, the new Vice Chair (Director) of Campaign Support will work with the clubs to coordinate volunteer participation with campaigns and the party’s mobilization and get-out-the-vote efforts.
*Inclusion in the communication loop within the party organization. As affiliated organizations develop online, the HCRP will link the TFRW club websites and social networking sites into the secure intranet to be developed for the party, in order to facilitate communication and coordination among campaigns, precinct chairs and club members in preparation for, and during the 13-day get-out-the-vote effort. These links will create “virtual” satellite offices that are linked into the full menu of online party communications and organizations.
*Cooperation to expand our outreach through electronic technology. The HCRP will work with our affiliated clubs, including the TFRW clubs, to promote the creation of new online “virtual” clubs as part of an effort to embrace younger voters. Many people under 35 years of age spend hours socializing and networking with others online in ways that mimic the ways we and our parents used our Republican clubs and community service organizations. We need to try and harness this energy and socialization to our advantage by learning to incorporate these new networking methods into the culture of our historic club-based organizational structure.
*Inclusion in the training process. The HCRP will develop and implement a Candidate Training Seminar and a Consultant Training Seminar, with the help of affiliated clubs, including the TFRW clubs. These seminars should provide consistent training in campaign technology, marketing and get-out-the-vote activities to all prospective candidates and their consultants. Access to this seminar should then be provided on a quarterly basis in the future.
*Coordination of candidate forums. The HCRP will include the TFRW clubs in the scheduling of formal candidate forums during the primary season.
*Involvement in the creation of a sustaining-donor fundraising campaign. The HCRP will ask the clubs to coordinate an annual fundraising drive for the party during the spring of each year to augment our development of a sustaining base of small and medium-size contributors for the party.
*Providing staff for our "war room" to respond to media stories. The HCRP will develop an online virtual “war-room” through the new interactive website. The purpose of the war-room will be to serve as a fast-paced clearinghouse of information that would provide precinct chairs and activists with quick responses to negative stories about Republican candidates and policies after the stories appear in local media and on liberal blogs. Our activists can then use this information to rebut these stories when talking with our voters, and to send rebuttals to the media and blogs. We will ask members of our TFRW clubs to help staff this war room, and to mentor young, computer-savvy volunteers who we also will recruit.
*Involvement in the public promotion of the party and its principles. The HCRP will develop a media plan to re-educate voters about our principles and to promote our message. This plan will include the creation of short spots on local media and the Internet, including radio and TV stations that service our Target Outreach Communities, in which noted spokespersons and party officials discuss the application of our principles to real issues. We will ask our TFRW clubs to provide volunteers to help prepare, produce and participate in these spots.
*Involvement in the process of meeting and registering new voters. When schools start in August of each year, the HCRP needs to have representatives on those campuses talking to the new incoming students. When new housing developments start to sell homes, or when occupancy permits are issued, we should be there with a welcome basket of sorts (including voter-registration forms). When a new business opens, we should greet the new entrepreneur with our message and our best wishes. I will work with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW clubs, and the presidents of the local TFRW clubs in Harris County to provide volunteers to staff this project.
*Support for GOTV in cross-county races. Finally, as part of a new coordination effort with adjacent counties with which we share overlapping congressional, legislative and judicial districts, the new Vice Chair (Director) of Campaign Support will work with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW clubs, and the presidents of the local TFRW clubs in those affected districts, to help with joint, cross-county mobilization and get-out-the-vote efforts.
In addition to these proposed steps, I and the members of the new leadership team will include the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW in our consultations as we develop and implement our reform agenda for the HCRP. I am confident that if we work together, we will restore the prominence of the GOP in Harris County. I look forward to that effort.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Time
In recent posts I’ve discussed how the HCRP should address the problems of credibility, communication and organization. With this post I plan to begin wading into the issue of how to distill our principles into a message to coordinate with the campaigns of our candidates and elected officials.
In this first post on this issue I want to address what I believe must be a fundamental concept underlying our message: Time.
No, I’ve not fallen off my rocker and think that the GOP should now be in the wrist-watch or clock-making business; nor am I about to bloviate about the nature of the universe. Instead, I believe the GOP will not reconnect with the average voter, and rebuild our credibility, until we show how our principles and policy prescriptions are relevant to their daily lives. What issue could be more relevant to daily life, and to our agenda, than time management?
Think about it: if we Republicans believe that the answers to most of our problems lie in shifting control of money and decision-making away from government or an anointed elite, and back to the individual, we must realize that one of the most important tasks for American government at the local level is to secure the maximum amount of time for use by the individual to pursue his or her happiness, and the happiness of others. As you read the rest of this post, keep in mind all of the times you have talked with others about volunteering, or getting involved in local government or school issues, only to be told that people don't have time to get involved.
Regardless of what the environmentalists say, the only truly scarce, non-renewable resource is time. For Republican principles to work effectively to improve society, individuals need control of as much time as possible every day to spend in pursuit of their well-being, as well as the well-being of their families, their neighbors, and their communities. People need time to volunteer, and to devote to local government and schools. When we couple the amount of time most of us devote to earning an income, with just the amount of time we spend in traffic every day, it is easy to see why we have ceded so much control over our lives and our communities to others—especially to bureaucrats. This problem will only get worse here, and in surrounding counties, as Harris County’s population alone is projected to double over the next 10 to 15 years.
However, not all of us have the same problem with time. In certain neighborhoods, the problem is not too little time. Instead, the key problem is that too many people, including children who have dropped-out of school, and under-educated and unemployed men, have too much time on their hands, and they lack the ability or the inclination to control that time wisely. As a result, they use their abundance of time to tear, rather than mend, the fabric of their lives, the lives of their families, and the lives of their communities.
Therefore, to address the pressing issues facing our county now and over the next decade, the local GOP, working with its elected officials and candidates, needs to develop a message and a policy agenda that includes a focus on returning control of time to individuals, while re-channeling wasted time among some individuals toward their self-improvement and the improvement of their neighborhoods. Every issue we face should be looked at from many different angles, including in the context of time. Such issues include:
These efforts can be enhanced by understanding—
By developing messages and policies designed to preserve this most precious commodity, and to promote its use for the well-being of the individual and all he or she cares about most, we could begin to address many of the daily frustrations in people’s lives and tap into a great reservoir of good will in this community. Once we make such a visceral connection with the average voter, we can use that connection to rebuild our credibility with voters by showing how our ideals are relevant to their daily lives.
Ultimately, recognizing the importance of time, and developing relevant policies to address its importance, will help us elect Republicans to office throughout all of the cities and communities that comprise Harris County.
In this first post on this issue I want to address what I believe must be a fundamental concept underlying our message: Time.
No, I’ve not fallen off my rocker and think that the GOP should now be in the wrist-watch or clock-making business; nor am I about to bloviate about the nature of the universe. Instead, I believe the GOP will not reconnect with the average voter, and rebuild our credibility, until we show how our principles and policy prescriptions are relevant to their daily lives. What issue could be more relevant to daily life, and to our agenda, than time management?
Think about it: if we Republicans believe that the answers to most of our problems lie in shifting control of money and decision-making away from government or an anointed elite, and back to the individual, we must realize that one of the most important tasks for American government at the local level is to secure the maximum amount of time for use by the individual to pursue his or her happiness, and the happiness of others. As you read the rest of this post, keep in mind all of the times you have talked with others about volunteering, or getting involved in local government or school issues, only to be told that people don't have time to get involved.
Regardless of what the environmentalists say, the only truly scarce, non-renewable resource is time. For Republican principles to work effectively to improve society, individuals need control of as much time as possible every day to spend in pursuit of their well-being, as well as the well-being of their families, their neighbors, and their communities. People need time to volunteer, and to devote to local government and schools. When we couple the amount of time most of us devote to earning an income, with just the amount of time we spend in traffic every day, it is easy to see why we have ceded so much control over our lives and our communities to others—especially to bureaucrats. This problem will only get worse here, and in surrounding counties, as Harris County’s population alone is projected to double over the next 10 to 15 years.
However, not all of us have the same problem with time. In certain neighborhoods, the problem is not too little time. Instead, the key problem is that too many people, including children who have dropped-out of school, and under-educated and unemployed men, have too much time on their hands, and they lack the ability or the inclination to control that time wisely. As a result, they use their abundance of time to tear, rather than mend, the fabric of their lives, the lives of their families, and the lives of their communities.
Therefore, to address the pressing issues facing our county now and over the next decade, the local GOP, working with its elected officials and candidates, needs to develop a message and a policy agenda that includes a focus on returning control of time to individuals, while re-channeling wasted time among some individuals toward their self-improvement and the improvement of their neighborhoods. Every issue we face should be looked at from many different angles, including in the context of time. Such issues include:
- the physical infrastructure of roads and transportation;Some of our Republican elected officials already are thinking about these issues in a manner consistent with an emphasis on time. Our Republican county commissioners and county judge are looking at the future development of our physical infrastructure, and the location of medical clinics, in ways that would maximize efficient use of time and resources; our tax assessor is simplifying access to the many services his office provides by making access to these services available closer to where people live and work; and our Republican District Attorney and judges are looking at ways to preserve punishment for breaking laws while keeping young, non-violent offenders in school and preparing for effective citizenship, rather than wasting their time and futures behind bars.
- community development and location;
- construction and operation of utilities, schools, hospitals and emergency services;
- incorporated versus unincorporated development and governance of new communities; and
- the community infrastructure of law enforcement and the judiciary, of schools, and of private organizations that care for the needs of citizens.
These efforts can be enhanced by understanding—
- the important relationship between effective time management and every conscious or subconscious choice a citizen makes every day; andObviously, it is too simplistic to say that promoting a new emphasis on the control of time will miraculously solve all of society’s problems—that would be ridiculous. However, because this issue is so important to making the rest of our agenda work, we Republicans have ignored it to our detriment.
- the daily frustration people suffer because of a desperate feeling that they lack control of their time and, therefore, lack control of their lives.
By developing messages and policies designed to preserve this most precious commodity, and to promote its use for the well-being of the individual and all he or she cares about most, we could begin to address many of the daily frustrations in people’s lives and tap into a great reservoir of good will in this community. Once we make such a visceral connection with the average voter, we can use that connection to rebuild our credibility with voters by showing how our ideals are relevant to their daily lives.
Ultimately, recognizing the importance of time, and developing relevant policies to address its importance, will help us elect Republicans to office throughout all of the cities and communities that comprise Harris County.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Our Leadership Team: Fundraising
One of the promises I have made since I began running for HCRP Chair, is that I would run to lead an experienced and diverse team of local Republicans to rebuild the party quickly in order to win the 2010 elections. I know that there is too much to accomplish in too short of a period of time for one person to take-on all of the responsibility alone.
Over the last few months, I have been meeting with, and continue to meet with leaders of every faction, every age group and every community within the party. Many have already agreed to serve on the leadership team if we win, and I will be announcing several of them for key positions before the March primary. We will go into the election presenting ourselves as a team, and I will run as the leader of that team.
Consistent with my promise, I want to announce the first member of that team today.
Of the many issues facing the party, one issue that impacts every other issue is the financial condition of the HCRP. Last year, after deducting the money that flowed through the party between the state and the county party and from the incumbent judges’ campaign accounts for the joint judicial campaign, the party actually spent $416,427 on the operations of the party. Meanwhile, its independent fundraising base of 306 individuals, 13 entities and PACs and 4 local clubs, raised only $243,297 (in fact, $84,500 of that amount came from contributions from only two individuals). What kept the lights on at Richmond Avenue for the Republican Party in the most Republican-leaning metropolitan county in the country last year were continual infusions of cash from elected officials and candidates in a year when they needed the money for their own fall campaigns. That situation was pathetic.
But it’s gotten worse. As of June 30, 2009, after the party’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the party was left with a little over $11,000—not enough to continue paying its rent or its staff during May and June, and not enough to pay debts owed from the 2008 campaign cycle. Moreover, much of the money that was raised came from those same elected officials and candidates who desperately need the party to help them, not the other way around.
We plan to change this dynamic by creating a new fundraising initiative under the guidance of a new Vice Chair of Finance (who I will appoint as a Director until we amend the Bylaws). The Vice Chair will work with the Treasurer on creating and implementing the budget, and will supervise a fundraising team. We intend to simultaneously implement a Capital Campaign to raise funds to modernize the party to prepare for the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, while working to with the Vice Chair's team and the current finance committee of the Executive Committee to build on current ideas, and generate and implement additional ideas, for creating a sustaining contributor base.
To help me turn this around, I am proud to announce that long-time Republican activist and community volunteer, Robert “Bob” Shults, has agreed to serve as the Vice Chair of Finance. Professionally, Bob is a name shareholder with the law firm of McFall Breitbeil & Shults, P.C., is a former Assistant District Attorney for Harris County, a member of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel and Defense Research Institute, and was chair of a subcommittee on insurance coverage for environmental claims of the American Bar Association. His community work includes his service on the board of Child Advocates, Inc., and his appointment in May, 2008 by Governor Perry to serve on the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. Bob is a long-time member and former President of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club, is the current President of United Republicans, and has campaigned and fundraised tirelessly for Republican candidates over the years.
I welcome Bob to our team.
Over the last few months, I have been meeting with, and continue to meet with leaders of every faction, every age group and every community within the party. Many have already agreed to serve on the leadership team if we win, and I will be announcing several of them for key positions before the March primary. We will go into the election presenting ourselves as a team, and I will run as the leader of that team.
Consistent with my promise, I want to announce the first member of that team today.
Of the many issues facing the party, one issue that impacts every other issue is the financial condition of the HCRP. Last year, after deducting the money that flowed through the party between the state and the county party and from the incumbent judges’ campaign accounts for the joint judicial campaign, the party actually spent $416,427 on the operations of the party. Meanwhile, its independent fundraising base of 306 individuals, 13 entities and PACs and 4 local clubs, raised only $243,297 (in fact, $84,500 of that amount came from contributions from only two individuals). What kept the lights on at Richmond Avenue for the Republican Party in the most Republican-leaning metropolitan county in the country last year were continual infusions of cash from elected officials and candidates in a year when they needed the money for their own fall campaigns. That situation was pathetic.
But it’s gotten worse. As of June 30, 2009, after the party’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the party was left with a little over $11,000—not enough to continue paying its rent or its staff during May and June, and not enough to pay debts owed from the 2008 campaign cycle. Moreover, much of the money that was raised came from those same elected officials and candidates who desperately need the party to help them, not the other way around.
We plan to change this dynamic by creating a new fundraising initiative under the guidance of a new Vice Chair of Finance (who I will appoint as a Director until we amend the Bylaws). The Vice Chair will work with the Treasurer on creating and implementing the budget, and will supervise a fundraising team. We intend to simultaneously implement a Capital Campaign to raise funds to modernize the party to prepare for the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, while working to with the Vice Chair's team and the current finance committee of the Executive Committee to build on current ideas, and generate and implement additional ideas, for creating a sustaining contributor base.
To help me turn this around, I am proud to announce that long-time Republican activist and community volunteer, Robert “Bob” Shults, has agreed to serve as the Vice Chair of Finance. Professionally, Bob is a name shareholder with the law firm of McFall Breitbeil & Shults, P.C., is a former Assistant District Attorney for Harris County, a member of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel and Defense Research Institute, and was chair of a subcommittee on insurance coverage for environmental claims of the American Bar Association. His community work includes his service on the board of Child Advocates, Inc., and his appointment in May, 2008 by Governor Perry to serve on the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. Bob is a long-time member and former President of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club, is the current President of United Republicans, and has campaigned and fundraised tirelessly for Republican candidates over the years.
I welcome Bob to our team.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Improving Communication Within Our Party
Last week, I addressed the credibility gap within the Republican Party in a post entitled, Matching the Message with the Messenger. In that post, I noted that we must realize that the gap is caused by a systemic problem within the party that must be addressed by focusing on communication, self-interest, competition, and culture. I promised then to elaborate on the communication issue, so I will do that now.
As I wrote last week, to improve communication we must begin to open a dialogue between our elected officials and our party leaders, activists and voters, in order to begin to harmonize the desires of our party with the issues faced by our elected officials on a daily basis in the process of administering their offices. The questions are “how do we open and sustain this dialogue”, and “what is the role of the HCRP in that process”. The answer is that the process must be layered throughout all of the groups and factions of the party (formally and informally), and the HCRP should be the primary facilitator of the dialogue. The goal must be to improve communication between our elected officials and the organization of the HCRP, and between our elected officials and our activists and voters.
There are several ways to start this process. First, I would quickly rebuild the relationship between the HCRP and our elected officials by creating a monthly meeting or luncheon to be attended by elected officials and the members of the HCRP Advisory Board. Each month, the meeting would include a different group of elected officials, e.g., judges, county commissioners, state legislators, state senators, Congressmen, etc. These meetings would focus on the concerns of both groups; how our elected officials are promoting, and/or can promote Republican policies; and how the HCRP can help our elected officials. The outcome of these meetings would be communicated through the secure intranet to the precinct chairs.
Second, our plan to reform the HCRP organization contemplates a high-level of interaction between the Campaign Support sub-organization from the Director/Vice-Chair down to the block captain, with candidates at all levels. The plan also contemplates interaction between the campaigns and the Communications sub-organization and the Outreach sub-organization. The divisions and groups within the proposed new HCRP organization are designed to support the campaigns of our candidates and elected officials by improving the process of identifying Republican voters, communicating with and mobilizing those voters, and getting those voters to the polls during the 13-day general election.
Third, we contemplate a greater use of the internet and radio to facilitate communication. The secure intranet will provide a means for candidates and elected officials to interactively communicate with everyone within the HCRP organization, to address concerns, to develop ideas, to mobilize help for campaigns, and to mobilize responses to the media. We also intend to take our coordinated messages to blogs, social-networking sites, and radio. We will use radio by creating 30 second to one-minute spots, narrated by our party leaders and elected officials, to tell the public about the work our elected officials are doing that is consistent with our principles, and to address important issues and policy initiatives with the public.
Fourth, I would continue the program of Townhall meetings and the plan for the “Roots” initiative started by the current team at Richmond Avenue, but I would revise their mission to focus primarily on rebuilding dialogue and relationships between our elected officials (and candidates) and the public. Instead of using the Townhall meetings to promote the current HCRP leadership team, I would use these meetings to promote the current work of our elected officials, by letting them discuss their offices and their ideas, and by giving them a forum to address the public’s concerns. Rather than promote the “Roots” program as a fundraising activity right now, I would first use the program to rebuild relationships between the party leaders and elected officials on the one hand, and activists at the grassroots on the other hand, by creating a process where these people interact at the precinct level with voters. Only after that relationship has been rebuilt, would I transition this program into a vehicle to create a new small-donor base for the party.
We can not begin to address the perception gap between the concerns of activists and our elected officials without taking concrete steps, like these, to improve communication. The HCRP can not continue to just criticize our Republican officials and widen this gap; it must take the lead in narrowing the gap by facilitating the communication.
As I wrote last week, to improve communication we must begin to open a dialogue between our elected officials and our party leaders, activists and voters, in order to begin to harmonize the desires of our party with the issues faced by our elected officials on a daily basis in the process of administering their offices. The questions are “how do we open and sustain this dialogue”, and “what is the role of the HCRP in that process”. The answer is that the process must be layered throughout all of the groups and factions of the party (formally and informally), and the HCRP should be the primary facilitator of the dialogue. The goal must be to improve communication between our elected officials and the organization of the HCRP, and between our elected officials and our activists and voters.
There are several ways to start this process. First, I would quickly rebuild the relationship between the HCRP and our elected officials by creating a monthly meeting or luncheon to be attended by elected officials and the members of the HCRP Advisory Board. Each month, the meeting would include a different group of elected officials, e.g., judges, county commissioners, state legislators, state senators, Congressmen, etc. These meetings would focus on the concerns of both groups; how our elected officials are promoting, and/or can promote Republican policies; and how the HCRP can help our elected officials. The outcome of these meetings would be communicated through the secure intranet to the precinct chairs.
Second, our plan to reform the HCRP organization contemplates a high-level of interaction between the Campaign Support sub-organization from the Director/Vice-Chair down to the block captain, with candidates at all levels. The plan also contemplates interaction between the campaigns and the Communications sub-organization and the Outreach sub-organization. The divisions and groups within the proposed new HCRP organization are designed to support the campaigns of our candidates and elected officials by improving the process of identifying Republican voters, communicating with and mobilizing those voters, and getting those voters to the polls during the 13-day general election.
Third, we contemplate a greater use of the internet and radio to facilitate communication. The secure intranet will provide a means for candidates and elected officials to interactively communicate with everyone within the HCRP organization, to address concerns, to develop ideas, to mobilize help for campaigns, and to mobilize responses to the media. We also intend to take our coordinated messages to blogs, social-networking sites, and radio. We will use radio by creating 30 second to one-minute spots, narrated by our party leaders and elected officials, to tell the public about the work our elected officials are doing that is consistent with our principles, and to address important issues and policy initiatives with the public.
Fourth, I would continue the program of Townhall meetings and the plan for the “Roots” initiative started by the current team at Richmond Avenue, but I would revise their mission to focus primarily on rebuilding dialogue and relationships between our elected officials (and candidates) and the public. Instead of using the Townhall meetings to promote the current HCRP leadership team, I would use these meetings to promote the current work of our elected officials, by letting them discuss their offices and their ideas, and by giving them a forum to address the public’s concerns. Rather than promote the “Roots” program as a fundraising activity right now, I would first use the program to rebuild relationships between the party leaders and elected officials on the one hand, and activists at the grassroots on the other hand, by creating a process where these people interact at the precinct level with voters. Only after that relationship has been rebuilt, would I transition this program into a vehicle to create a new small-donor base for the party.
We can not begin to address the perception gap between the concerns of activists and our elected officials without taking concrete steps, like these, to improve communication. The HCRP can not continue to just criticize our Republican officials and widen this gap; it must take the lead in narrowing the gap by facilitating the communication.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
A Time to Fight
A friend of mine sent me a copy of an email that is being circulated by Organizing For America (“OFA”), which already is the source of some chatter over Facebook and Twitter. As you may know, OFA is the affiliate of the Democratic National Committee that continues to control, communicate with, and mobilize Obama’s campaign foot soldiers. For the last several months, the focus of OFA has been on the Health Care issue.
The latest email told the recipient:
In my community in Indianapolis, OFA members like me are fighting hard to raise awareness and build support for health insurance reform. We're calling our neighbors, going door-to-door on the weekends, and even spreading the word through local barbershops. …
…I'm asking you join me in making sure Organizing for America has the resources to pull off this historic campaign. Can you join me in donating $1 per day until we enact health insurance reform?
My friend who received the email and forwarded it to me is a long-time Republican and McCain supporter, who somehow got on Obama’s email list during the campaign last year. In his email message, he asked me a simple question: where is our party organization at any level on this issue? As I pointed out in another recent post, the GOP should be developing and campaigning for a market-based alternative health-care system, but the question posed to me is more basic. Why is our party not matching OFA’s mobilization effort?
We complain amongst ourselves, discuss theory, and pass along complicated charts, but where is the mobilization? Where are the volunteers mobilized to call our neighbors, or go door-to-door, or talk in our local barbershops, or send text messages? These tasks should be the job of our Precinct Chairs and club members, and mobilization of those volunteers should be a fundamental task of a functioning party organization. Failure to mobilize the party organization to wage this fight is further evidence of a dysfunctional party apparatus.
I stress again, that we do need ideas and alternative policies, but we also need mobilization—and we needed it yesterday. Sending out 650-word essays on maintaining the status quo is not a plan for mobilization. We knew this issue was coming for over a year, and yet we have no plan for a concerted counter-attack. If we are to get this country, this state, and this county back on track for the GOP and our principles, this must change.
To make the necessary changes to combat and contain the explosion of government created by Obama and desired by Democrats here in Texas, the GOP must mobilize the growing millions of men and women who want sanity returned to the operation of our government. To start this mobilization, the GOP must understand what its goal must be: nothing short of rebuilding America consistent with its founding principles. To rebuild America, we must renew the Republican Party into a fighting machine for our ideals, which will require a modernization of our party organization into an apparatus capable of mobilizing our grassroots into action. Our fighting machine will need leaders: either those who already are in the party organization, or those from outside the party who share our principles and who are tired of the mess our political establishment in Washington has created and is expanding. We must look for leaders who will lead and work--in Congress, in our legislatures, and in our neighborhoods.
The plan we have proposed for the HCRP is designed to make these changes at the local level. The plan will only work, though, if our Precinct Chairs accept the mantle of leadership, work to mobilize the grassroots, and then lead them to act when we need action. If they won't do this, we must find those who will.
Unfortunately, we can not wait for the primary next March to start the needed transformation of the GOP, or the HCRP. Passively grumbling about the direction our country is taking, or emailing dissertations in favor of the status quo, won't stop the OFA, and it won't defeat the Democrats' plans for our state and country. The GOP, including the HCRP, must regroup now for the political battle it now faces, and then take the battle to the OFA for the hearts and minds of our neighbors. We need to join our Precinct Chairs and club members with the Tea Partiers and other activists into an immediate mobilization against the growth of the Obama government. If we do this, we will gain the trust and confidence of millions of disillusioned citizens yearning for leadership from the GOP, and we will lay the groundwork for victory in 2010. If we don't, we soon may not recognize the country we live in.
The latest email told the recipient:
In my community in Indianapolis, OFA members like me are fighting hard to raise awareness and build support for health insurance reform. We're calling our neighbors, going door-to-door on the weekends, and even spreading the word through local barbershops. …
…I'm asking you join me in making sure Organizing for America has the resources to pull off this historic campaign. Can you join me in donating $1 per day until we enact health insurance reform?
My friend who received the email and forwarded it to me is a long-time Republican and McCain supporter, who somehow got on Obama’s email list during the campaign last year. In his email message, he asked me a simple question: where is our party organization at any level on this issue? As I pointed out in another recent post, the GOP should be developing and campaigning for a market-based alternative health-care system, but the question posed to me is more basic. Why is our party not matching OFA’s mobilization effort?
We complain amongst ourselves, discuss theory, and pass along complicated charts, but where is the mobilization? Where are the volunteers mobilized to call our neighbors, or go door-to-door, or talk in our local barbershops, or send text messages? These tasks should be the job of our Precinct Chairs and club members, and mobilization of those volunteers should be a fundamental task of a functioning party organization. Failure to mobilize the party organization to wage this fight is further evidence of a dysfunctional party apparatus.
I stress again, that we do need ideas and alternative policies, but we also need mobilization—and we needed it yesterday. Sending out 650-word essays on maintaining the status quo is not a plan for mobilization. We knew this issue was coming for over a year, and yet we have no plan for a concerted counter-attack. If we are to get this country, this state, and this county back on track for the GOP and our principles, this must change.
To make the necessary changes to combat and contain the explosion of government created by Obama and desired by Democrats here in Texas, the GOP must mobilize the growing millions of men and women who want sanity returned to the operation of our government. To start this mobilization, the GOP must understand what its goal must be: nothing short of rebuilding America consistent with its founding principles. To rebuild America, we must renew the Republican Party into a fighting machine for our ideals, which will require a modernization of our party organization into an apparatus capable of mobilizing our grassroots into action. Our fighting machine will need leaders: either those who already are in the party organization, or those from outside the party who share our principles and who are tired of the mess our political establishment in Washington has created and is expanding. We must look for leaders who will lead and work--in Congress, in our legislatures, and in our neighborhoods.
The plan we have proposed for the HCRP is designed to make these changes at the local level. The plan will only work, though, if our Precinct Chairs accept the mantle of leadership, work to mobilize the grassroots, and then lead them to act when we need action. If they won't do this, we must find those who will.
Unfortunately, we can not wait for the primary next March to start the needed transformation of the GOP, or the HCRP. Passively grumbling about the direction our country is taking, or emailing dissertations in favor of the status quo, won't stop the OFA, and it won't defeat the Democrats' plans for our state and country. The GOP, including the HCRP, must regroup now for the political battle it now faces, and then take the battle to the OFA for the hearts and minds of our neighbors. We need to join our Precinct Chairs and club members with the Tea Partiers and other activists into an immediate mobilization against the growth of the Obama government. If we do this, we will gain the trust and confidence of millions of disillusioned citizens yearning for leadership from the GOP, and we will lay the groundwork for victory in 2010. If we don't, we soon may not recognize the country we live in.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Compare Our Plan for the HCRP with Reagan’s Plan for a “New Republican Party”
As you can see on the revised menu on the right side of our home page, we now have posted excerpts from a speech Ronald Reagan gave in early 1977. The speech was one of a series of speeches he gave that year in which he outlined his vision for what he called the New Republican Party, in which social conservatives would join with economic conservatives and traditional Republicans to create a majority party. The plan focused on uniting and expanding the party into the middle class and minority communities based on shared principles, and envisioned a party of inclusion not exclusion.
Many people have asked me to explain the vision behind the plan we have proposed for the HCRP. It’s not new or revolutionary. Instead, it is grounded in this vision Ronald Reagan (along with Jack Kemp and others) first championed a generation ago.
Lots of people want to wear Reagan’s mantle, bask in the glow of his rhetoric, and claim to be Reaganesque in their approach to politics. Unfortunately, few people really remember all that he stood for, and all that he hoped to accomplish.
So, please take time to visit the posting of Reagan’s speech and read those excerpts. Once you do, I hope you will see the similarities between the times he faced and the plan he proposed, and the times we now face and the plan we now propose. In summary, what we want to accomplish is nothing short of finally implementing Reagan’s vision for a New Republican Party—and starting that process here in Harris County.
Many people have asked me to explain the vision behind the plan we have proposed for the HCRP. It’s not new or revolutionary. Instead, it is grounded in this vision Ronald Reagan (along with Jack Kemp and others) first championed a generation ago.
Lots of people want to wear Reagan’s mantle, bask in the glow of his rhetoric, and claim to be Reaganesque in their approach to politics. Unfortunately, few people really remember all that he stood for, and all that he hoped to accomplish.
So, please take time to visit the posting of Reagan’s speech and read those excerpts. Once you do, I hope you will see the similarities between the times he faced and the plan he proposed, and the times we now face and the plan we now propose. In summary, what we want to accomplish is nothing short of finally implementing Reagan’s vision for a New Republican Party—and starting that process here in Harris County.
Culberson's SOS: We must respond!
If you were logged onto either Facebook or Twitter last night, you may have received a distress call like I did—like an SOS signal over a telegraph, a Mayday call from a ship or plane, or the an air-raid siren over London two generations ago. However, the source of this distress call came from an unusual victim: one of our local Republican Congressmen, John Culberson. As surprising as that source might be, if you care about liberty, free speech, and the future of our two-party system, the call was as dire as any you could imagine. You can read the series of message on Congressman Culberson's Twitter page.
As many of you know who have followed Representative Culberson’s exploits since the Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006, he has been a constant agitator for sunshine and disclosure in a chamber that increasingly is trying to cloak its work in secrecy. He has constantly challenged Speaker Pelosi’s strategy of burying legislators under reams of paper that no one could read and comprehend in a decade, let alone in the hours that House members are now given to absorb the content of what they are voting on—the content of policies that will change the nature of the federal governments reach and power for decades to come. Truly, Culberson’s has been a voice in the wilderness.
But no one could have imagined that Pelosi truly intended Culberson to be thrown into a wilderness where he could no longer be free to speak to his constituency. That, in essence, is what Culberson was trying to warn us about in those distress calls last night. The Speaker now is censoring everything he is trying to write to his constituents under the threat that he will no longer be able to use the mailing privileges of a House member if he continues to speak his mind in such writings. This is appalling, and it must not stand. We must answer this distress call with action.
At the very least, for now we must do what Congressman Culberson asked us to do in his last message: “Bombard Pelosi & House leadership; let the sun shine in; post all bills online for 72 hrs bf vote, open debate/amendments & end censorship!” To broadcast this message, I ask the current leadership team of the HCRP at Richmond Avenue to use the fruits from the new social-networking training programs, the new Rapid Response program, and the party email system, not to toot your own horn, but to alert Republicans to Culberson’s plight and how to respond. To Republican bloggers and talk-show hosts, flood the airwaves with Culberson’s distress call, and demand the Speaker to stop. To the Tea Partiers, 9/12 organizers and other grassroots conservatives, make your voices heard on this issue.
Above all else, let this be a wake-up call—as if we needed any more wake-up calls—to the realization that elections matter; that seeking change for the sake of change has consequences; and that ceding power to those who see no danger in the accumulation and exercise of power in a centralized authority will ultimately lead to the loss of the liberties we cherish. If a Congressman’s First Amendment right to political speech can be censored, whose speech, and whose liberty is safe? Republicans, we must unite, we must expand, we must organize, and we must win in the next elections—there is no alternative to taking back our country!
Listen to this distress call, and act!
As many of you know who have followed Representative Culberson’s exploits since the Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006, he has been a constant agitator for sunshine and disclosure in a chamber that increasingly is trying to cloak its work in secrecy. He has constantly challenged Speaker Pelosi’s strategy of burying legislators under reams of paper that no one could read and comprehend in a decade, let alone in the hours that House members are now given to absorb the content of what they are voting on—the content of policies that will change the nature of the federal governments reach and power for decades to come. Truly, Culberson’s has been a voice in the wilderness.
But no one could have imagined that Pelosi truly intended Culberson to be thrown into a wilderness where he could no longer be free to speak to his constituency. That, in essence, is what Culberson was trying to warn us about in those distress calls last night. The Speaker now is censoring everything he is trying to write to his constituents under the threat that he will no longer be able to use the mailing privileges of a House member if he continues to speak his mind in such writings. This is appalling, and it must not stand. We must answer this distress call with action.
At the very least, for now we must do what Congressman Culberson asked us to do in his last message: “Bombard Pelosi & House leadership; let the sun shine in; post all bills online for 72 hrs bf vote, open debate/amendments & end censorship!” To broadcast this message, I ask the current leadership team of the HCRP at Richmond Avenue to use the fruits from the new social-networking training programs, the new Rapid Response program, and the party email system, not to toot your own horn, but to alert Republicans to Culberson’s plight and how to respond. To Republican bloggers and talk-show hosts, flood the airwaves with Culberson’s distress call, and demand the Speaker to stop. To the Tea Partiers, 9/12 organizers and other grassroots conservatives, make your voices heard on this issue.
Above all else, let this be a wake-up call—as if we needed any more wake-up calls—to the realization that elections matter; that seeking change for the sake of change has consequences; and that ceding power to those who see no danger in the accumulation and exercise of power in a centralized authority will ultimately lead to the loss of the liberties we cherish. If a Congressman’s First Amendment right to political speech can be censored, whose speech, and whose liberty is safe? Republicans, we must unite, we must expand, we must organize, and we must win in the next elections—there is no alternative to taking back our country!
Listen to this distress call, and act!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Flattening the HCRP organization
The reality local Republicans face as we head into the 2010 election season is that, even if we have a perfect message and perfect candidates, if we don’t modernize the way the HCRP functions we will have a difficult time defeating the Democrats in Harris County. Much of the strategic plan I’ve proposed deals with this need to modernize the way we do business.
For the last half-century, successful organizations across the planet have changed the way they are structured in order to flatten their management, streamline their communications, and shorten the delivery time of their goods and services. Over the last decade, the Democratic Party at all levels implemented some of these ideas to be more effective at identifying Democratic voters, mobilizing them, and getting them to the polls. You could say that while the rest of the world has adopted the organization and leadership models of Drucker and Deming, the GOP has clung to the General Motors model—and we all know what happened to GM. It is time for the GOP to modernize, and we need to start here in Harris County.
Unfortunately, the plan the current team at Richmond Avenue has developed for the HCRP after seven years in office is not adequate. Regardless of many superficial similarities between the current HCRP plan being described at Townhall meetings and the plan posted on this website, there is a conflict of visions at the core of these plans, which will dramatically affect their implementation and effectiveness.
The incumbent’s plan continues to depend on the outdated, top-down, pyramidal organizational structure used in industry prior to 1960, which concentrates more responsibility in fewer hands, and which has been abandoned by virtually every other organization in the industrialized world. It depends on information and instructions flowing from the Chair and Senate District Chairs at the top of the pyramid down to the block captains, which means that action at the block and neighborhood level is completely dependent on action at each level of the pyramid. All along this type of process there are opportunities for bottlenecks that can impede the flow of information and instruction all the way down the chain of command. Bottlenecks eventually lead to inaction where it is needed—at the grassroots level. At the heart of this plan is a vision of our party that sees it comprised of a few shepherds and a lot of sheep—even among our Precinct Chairs, who themselves are elected officials. Besides being outdated and inadequate, the vision at the heart of this plan misreads the historic dynamic of the Republican Party.
Republicans are not, and never have been, sheep. We are a party of shepherds, not sheep. Appreciating this dynamic, the plan we have proposed creates a flexible structure that presses action and responsibility all the way down to the precinct and community levels, in order to capitalize on the remarkable creativity and energy of our activists. By building flexibility and autonomy into the organization, bottlenecks will be avoided. Avoiding bottlenecks will unleash the creativity and energy at our grassroots, which we will need in the upcoming election cycles to build the party and elect our candidates.
The structure we are proposing really involves a series of semi-autonomous and empowered structures. Each group will have a defined sphere of responsibility: the Director (or Vice Chair) for Campaign Support will have responsibility for the entire county, and will focus primarily on countywide races, countywide recruitment and training, and the coordination of volunteers from affiliate clubs; each Senate District Chair will have responsibility for the races in their respective Senate and legislative districts; each District Chair will have responsibility for the races and precincts in their legislative District; each precinct chair will have responsibility to mobilize the activists in their precincts; and each community representative will have responsibility to mobilize candidates and activists for the municipal, school board and utility district elections in their communities. While the Precinct Chairs are the lieutenants for mobilizing the partisan election turnout, the community representatives are the lieutenants in a separate branch of the party, who will work through the coordination of the Director (Vice Chair) for Campaign Support to focus on the non-partisan races and issues, and to help the Director (Vice Chair) for Outreach with outreach efforts.
At the center of each of these structures is its leader, who must listen to input from each member of the group, and then develop and communicate decisions to each member of the group. Policy and strategy will be set at the Director/Vice-Chair level with input from the Senate District Chairs and the HCRP officers, and the Director/Vice-Chair will directly manage the mobilization of the clubs and the community representatives. Each leader of the other groups will get input directly from one member of another sphere, and from the candidates with races in their sphere. Then the leader will manage the work of a group of activists.
Communications between and among leaders of each group and level, and with and among candidates, will be facilitated and encouraged through a secure intranet accessible by password from the HCRP’s website. A failure or bottleneck in one of these groups can be isolated and managed without threatening the effectiveness of the entire party or in an entire area of the county; as opposed to the pyramid structure, in which a bottleneck at any level above the grassroots could impede the effectiveness of the entire party, or in a large area of the county.
The Precinct Chair will mobilize and work with two groups of activists—the community representatives and the block captains—in order to identify Republican voters and get them to the polls. Coordination among the Precinct Chairs throughout the county will be maintained through the meetings of the Executive Committee, through communications on the secure intranet, and through periodic meetings and training sessions. By focusing the Precinct Chair role on mobilization, it frees each Precinct Chair to innovate, and gives each one more time to participate in the governance of the party through the Executive Committee.
This model, when implemented, will give each person in the organization a greater level of autonomy and ability to innovate, and provide them with greater access to information, while narrowing the focus of their positions to make their work more effective. In time, restructuring the organization to reward the creativity and leadership skills of our grassroots activists also will help the party recruit more Precinct Chairs.
This model will work only if we recognize and accept that everyone within the HCRP is a leader—a shepherd; and that with such leadership comes responsibility—ultimately, the responsibility to get our candidates elected.
For the last half-century, successful organizations across the planet have changed the way they are structured in order to flatten their management, streamline their communications, and shorten the delivery time of their goods and services. Over the last decade, the Democratic Party at all levels implemented some of these ideas to be more effective at identifying Democratic voters, mobilizing them, and getting them to the polls. You could say that while the rest of the world has adopted the organization and leadership models of Drucker and Deming, the GOP has clung to the General Motors model—and we all know what happened to GM. It is time for the GOP to modernize, and we need to start here in Harris County.
Unfortunately, the plan the current team at Richmond Avenue has developed for the HCRP after seven years in office is not adequate. Regardless of many superficial similarities between the current HCRP plan being described at Townhall meetings and the plan posted on this website, there is a conflict of visions at the core of these plans, which will dramatically affect their implementation and effectiveness.
The incumbent’s plan continues to depend on the outdated, top-down, pyramidal organizational structure used in industry prior to 1960, which concentrates more responsibility in fewer hands, and which has been abandoned by virtually every other organization in the industrialized world. It depends on information and instructions flowing from the Chair and Senate District Chairs at the top of the pyramid down to the block captains, which means that action at the block and neighborhood level is completely dependent on action at each level of the pyramid. All along this type of process there are opportunities for bottlenecks that can impede the flow of information and instruction all the way down the chain of command. Bottlenecks eventually lead to inaction where it is needed—at the grassroots level. At the heart of this plan is a vision of our party that sees it comprised of a few shepherds and a lot of sheep—even among our Precinct Chairs, who themselves are elected officials. Besides being outdated and inadequate, the vision at the heart of this plan misreads the historic dynamic of the Republican Party.
Republicans are not, and never have been, sheep. We are a party of shepherds, not sheep. Appreciating this dynamic, the plan we have proposed creates a flexible structure that presses action and responsibility all the way down to the precinct and community levels, in order to capitalize on the remarkable creativity and energy of our activists. By building flexibility and autonomy into the organization, bottlenecks will be avoided. Avoiding bottlenecks will unleash the creativity and energy at our grassroots, which we will need in the upcoming election cycles to build the party and elect our candidates.
The structure we are proposing really involves a series of semi-autonomous and empowered structures. Each group will have a defined sphere of responsibility: the Director (or Vice Chair) for Campaign Support will have responsibility for the entire county, and will focus primarily on countywide races, countywide recruitment and training, and the coordination of volunteers from affiliate clubs; each Senate District Chair will have responsibility for the races in their respective Senate and legislative districts; each District Chair will have responsibility for the races and precincts in their legislative District; each precinct chair will have responsibility to mobilize the activists in their precincts; and each community representative will have responsibility to mobilize candidates and activists for the municipal, school board and utility district elections in their communities. While the Precinct Chairs are the lieutenants for mobilizing the partisan election turnout, the community representatives are the lieutenants in a separate branch of the party, who will work through the coordination of the Director (Vice Chair) for Campaign Support to focus on the non-partisan races and issues, and to help the Director (Vice Chair) for Outreach with outreach efforts.
At the center of each of these structures is its leader, who must listen to input from each member of the group, and then develop and communicate decisions to each member of the group. Policy and strategy will be set at the Director/Vice-Chair level with input from the Senate District Chairs and the HCRP officers, and the Director/Vice-Chair will directly manage the mobilization of the clubs and the community representatives. Each leader of the other groups will get input directly from one member of another sphere, and from the candidates with races in their sphere. Then the leader will manage the work of a group of activists.
Communications between and among leaders of each group and level, and with and among candidates, will be facilitated and encouraged through a secure intranet accessible by password from the HCRP’s website. A failure or bottleneck in one of these groups can be isolated and managed without threatening the effectiveness of the entire party or in an entire area of the county; as opposed to the pyramid structure, in which a bottleneck at any level above the grassroots could impede the effectiveness of the entire party, or in a large area of the county.
The Precinct Chair will mobilize and work with two groups of activists—the community representatives and the block captains—in order to identify Republican voters and get them to the polls. Coordination among the Precinct Chairs throughout the county will be maintained through the meetings of the Executive Committee, through communications on the secure intranet, and through periodic meetings and training sessions. By focusing the Precinct Chair role on mobilization, it frees each Precinct Chair to innovate, and gives each one more time to participate in the governance of the party through the Executive Committee.
This model, when implemented, will give each person in the organization a greater level of autonomy and ability to innovate, and provide them with greater access to information, while narrowing the focus of their positions to make their work more effective. In time, restructuring the organization to reward the creativity and leadership skills of our grassroots activists also will help the party recruit more Precinct Chairs.
This model will work only if we recognize and accept that everyone within the HCRP is a leader—a shepherd; and that with such leadership comes responsibility—ultimately, the responsibility to get our candidates elected.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
