Some Perspective about Electability and Consistency

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:

Well, we now are getting mercifully closer to the beginning of the voting in the Republican caucuses and primaries to choose our next Presidential Nominee. As I pointed out in a recent post about a focus-group we conducted at the last meeting of the Clear Lake Area Republicans, we Republicans share a lot of anxiety about this approaching election, because we sense that we are at a real tipping point in our history for many reasons. For this reason, we all are concerned about choosing the right candidate who will not only win in 2012, but who will lead a transformation of our political system based on conservative principles to fix the mess we face.

So, the concern of the moment, as Newt Gingrich sustains his improbable rise to the summit of the polls, is whether Newt can sustain the discipline he is showing, and whether he will be accepted by enough independent voters if he wins the GOP nomination to beat Obama and sweep other Republicans into Washington with him. With each passing day, we are being told that he can’t—by the media, by pollsters, by Democrats, and by virtually every Republican who considers themselves to be a leader within our party—while he keeps surging in the polls of GOP primary voters. Two recent images emerged from columns by Jonah Goldberg which aptly portray the anxiety many Republican leaders feel, when he described Newt as both a wild beast re-introduced to his natural habitat, and the re-incarnation of Godzilla (“Newtzilla”). It is this image of Newtzilla that is driving some pundits to start to encourage consideration of a third-party candidacy for Ron Paul, that is driving other pundits to beg voters to take a second look at Rick Perry and the rest of the field, and that is driving fundraisers to shovel money to Mitt Romney. “Newt hysteria” is the psychosis of the season for the Republican establishment.

With all this hyperventilation going on around us, it’s hard to maintain some perspective. But, with just a few weeks remaining before the voting begins, it’s time for all of us to take a deep breath for a moment, and then to remember that many of us have seen and heard all of this at least once before—and, when the dust settled that time, conservatism not only survived, it thrived for a generation.

As I wrote in my last post, it’s so hard now to objectively recall how Reagan was perceived at the end of 1979. When he gave the closing speech of the 1976 Republican Convention, most Republican leaders believed that they had finally vanquished the idea of a Reagan Presidency, and of a conservative ascendency within the party. Although Reagan’s ideas for a “New” Republican Party in 1977 were tolerated as they helped to mobilize conservatives for the mid-term elections, the party establishment believed he could be managed as an elder statesman. Even when he announced that he would seek the Presidency again in 1980, the party establishment did not take him seriously.

I encountered this attitude first-hand during my senior year of college in Rockford, Illinois. John Anderson was the local Congressman, and he had announced that he would run for the Republican nomination. At that time one of my mentors was the co-chair of John Anderson’s Presidential campaign, and he asked me to join the campaign to manage the national recruitment of college-student voters. I’ll never forget the reaction I got when, at the end of a meeting to discuss the offer, I told him and the others in attendance that I could not accept the position because I didn’t agree with Anderson and I was supporting Reagan. The incredulous, smug, and derisive reaction was something I will never forget, and not only my relationship with my mentor soon ended, but not long after that meeting I was asked to stop my work for Lynn Martin’s campaign to succeed Anderson in Congress (Martin later became Secretary of Labor under George H.W. Bush).

In the meantime, I recruited a handful of classmates to block-walk for Reagan, and to work for Reagan at polling places on the day of the Illinois primary in 1980. I’ll never forget one afternoon when I was at a grocery store wearing a Reagan pin, and one of the cashiers—a middle-aged woman—asked if I would wait a minute. She then gathered several of her co-workers and asked if I had more buttons, which I did, and I handed them out. She said her manager said it was “ok” to wear them, and they all put them on the lapels of their uniforms. As I left the store, she thanked me, and said they were praying that now was finally the time for Reagan. I knew that day that something extraordinary might happen that fall.

And, my gut was right—something extraordinary did happen that fall, as Reagan swept the nomination, swept the election, and swept in a Republican Senate for the first time since the Eisenhower years. But that process was not easy or pre-ordained. As much as no one wanted Carter re-elected—even Democrats—there was a lot of apprehension about Reagan until the very last week of the campaign when he debated Carter on national TV. It is hard to remember this now, but Ted Kennedy was leading all candidates of both parties in the polls at this time in 1979. The polls throughout 1980 would reflect a dissatisfaction with Carter, but a real apprehension of Reagan—which fueled Anderson’s ego enough to get him to run as an Independent. The following editorial cartoon reflects the mood and viewpoint of the country toward both Carter and Reagan as the election approached:

Look familiar? Today, in place of the Frankenstein image of Reagan from a generation ago, we are given the images of a wild beast and Godzilla from a fellow conservative to portray the current GOP frontrunner in an election cycle where most voters don’t want to re-elect the incumbent Democrat.

So, before we work ourselves into a frenzy of fear and anxiety, let’s step back. I don’t know if Newt will, or even should be, our nominee, but I don’t fear his candidacy. Nor will I allow myself to be torn with anxiety as the polls move all over the place next year. If he wins this nomination, he has a very realistic chance to win the race as the electorate evaluates his candidacy throughout the next year—even up to the eve of the election. I believe that we will not lose this election if Newt is nominated, but we will lose this election if we let the establishment’s concern over his electability pre-ordain the outcome. We didn’t let that happen in 1980, and we can’t let that happen now.

That reflection leads me to address my final point for this post—the current attack on Newt’s alleged failure to be a “consistent” conservative. The new label of “consistent conservative” is nothing more than a new version of the tired old label of “true conservative,” which typically is trotted out in a final, desperate attempt to differentiate a candidate from his or her opponent when all substantive arguments have failed, and to set the opponent up for the final Scarlett Letter of “RINO” or “moderate.” The use of the label is intended to foreclose serious thought and discussion, and to trigger a Pavlovian response of support for the candidate who invokes it to describe herself and of revulsion toward the opponent. Using labels like “consistent” or “true” underscores a triumph of ideology over principle in conservative debate.

As I tried to subtly point out in another recent post, the battle between libertarians and religious conservatives over the extreme ideological future of conservatism is really hurting this party. This battle focuses on the worst of both extremes—a misreading and misapplication of Adam Smith, and an over-application of the literal Word to secular politics. Russell Kirk, Bill Buckley, Whitaker Chambers, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan roll in their graves as this battle intensifies.

Framing the debate within the Republican field as being about who is the “consistent conservative” necessarily judges conservatism ideologically, which is the antithesis of Kirk's view that conservatism is based on principles, not ideology. It reminds me of Reagan’s favorite philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous discussion about the problem with “consistency” in his essay on self-reliance. In that essay, Emerson observed that the consistency that matters is that of character, and that character only reveals itself over time from the cumulative evaluation of actions and statements, not from a foolish adherence to rigidity of action and thought moment by moment, day by day:

• The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. …


• … A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. … To be great is to be misunderstood.


• I suppose no man can violate his nature. … A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; — read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing, contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. … Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.


• … The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on the advancing actor.

Are we going to continue to live in a time dominated by “foolish consistency”? Are we going to continue to vote for men and women who choose to be “little statesmen” in order to satisfy the test of consistency driven by the 24/7 news cycle, the “Meet the Press” gotcha quotes, and the Internet. In such a world nothing fades into the haze of memory in order to give us the breathing room to think deeply, evaluate our positions based on new facts and information, and apply our principles with imagination over time.

In such a world, men and women like Gingrich, who have served in the Arena over decades, and who have had to think about many issues and ideas over many years as data and circumstances have changed, would naturally be foreclosed from higher office because considerations they discussed 20 years ago no longer meet the test of consistency. If that is to be our world, then our politics will be dominated by those who either have never thought about or discussed the pressing issues of the day, have been too timid to ever deviate from orthodoxy in their consideration of what is the best course of action based on enduring principles, or have been in the Arena too short a time to ever have had to consider the impact of new data or circumstances on the application of conservative principles.

In thinking about this issue, I found the most revealing moment from last Saturday night’s debate on ABC to be when Rick Santorum—a very self-professed “consistent” conservative—said it was Newt’s GOPAC CDs on conservatism that attracted him to politics. Does Santorum really think that the Newt he admired no longer exists? Isn’t it more appropriate to reflect on how Newt has tried to think about and apply conservative principles to the issues he has faced over 40 years, and how he has matured through that process, than to judge him based on whether he said the same thing over and over again for 40 years no matter what the issue was or what experience had taught him?

Say what you will about Newt’s flaws, he’s closer to the Emerson ideal of a leader whose “[g]reatness appeals to the future” than most of the others up on that stage last Saturday night. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for a leader in 2012, not someone who is trapped by his or her own “foolish consistency”.

Reflections: What will we do the morning after?

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

Summer is over, another birthday has passed, and another of my daughters has struck-out on her own-in Austin. The Astros never really competed this summer-and said "good-bye" to some good veterans along the way-but they've ended the season showing signs of life for the future. My White Sox flirted with a pennant race long enough to make reading the morning box scores fun through Labor Day, and have since settled into their usual, second-place position. And the Cubs oh, well, there's always next year!

With fall upon us, politics is back.

I know for many of you it never left, but after the State Convention in June, I needed a break to re-charge my batteries after nearly 2 ½ years of campaigning: in September, 2007, I jumped head-long into what now seems like a continuous campaign that lasted more than 2 ½ years-first for a seat on a 10-county appellate bench; then to revitalize the local GOP; then to formally run for chairman of the Harris County Republican Party; and finally to help elect a new state chairman for the Republican Party of Texas. Even though I entered those campaigns with the support of my family and colleagues, and I believe my team, my supporters, and I made a positive long-term impact on our local party through these efforts, the shear length and depth of such a continuous commitment took a toll on my family and my work, because I hadn't structured and planned my life with an eye toward running for public office. As a result, I've needed to address this toll over the last few months with some long-needed vacation time and then a re-involvement in the practice of complex litigation. With the exception of giving a talk to a local club in August as a favor to fill-in for a speaker who had cancelled, and attending a few committee meetings, I've purposely stayed away from politics for a while to attend to family and work.

But, I haven't stopped thinking about politics completely. So, here are my reflections from a summer's rest...

First, we must finish the task at hand and win this election. There are only a little more than three weeks until the start of early voting, and six weeks until Election Day. While we still have a lot of work to do between now and November 2nd in order to win this election-locally and nationally-a momentum is behind the GOP and conservative candidates this year that I don't think there is time to derail. The biggest enemy now could be our own over-confidence (remember "President Dewey"?), so we need to complete the mission and get the vote out.

Then, when we wake-up on November 3rd, we must be prepared to lead, to govern, and to recruit strong candidates for the next election cycle. Let me give you my thoughts on each of these points:

We must be prepared to lead, with a vision that encompasses our cherished principles.

In my posts on this blog in May, June and July, I discussed an approach called "Renewing the American Community" with a focus on re-capturing a sense of Neighborhood and re-building our communities based on our conservative principles of limited and local government. I won't re-hash what I said in those posts, but I will recap this fundamental point: the original settlers from Europe established neighborhoods and congregations before they established governments. Successive waves of settlers governed their lives by being good and caring neighbors, and then later generations, culminating with the Founding Fathers, created governments to protect the society and culture the settlers had established. Were they perfect? No. Did they fail to apply their principles to all men and women? Yes. But, they built something unique in history, and the following generations fought amongst themselves to eventually apply those principles to all who lived here and came here. The story of the settler's creation, of the founder's vision, and of the following generations' struggles, is our heritage.

That heritage provides the vision we need to use to lead our communities, our state and our nation starting November 3rd. The men and women I've gotten to know over the last 2 ½ years in every corner of this region of the state, in every Tea Party group, and in every Republican organization, crave leaders who understand this heritage, who understand governments' proper role in preserving this heritage, and who are committed to work every day to preserve this heritage for our children and grandchildren. The men and women working hard to get conservatives elected this November need to hear of our party's commitment to this heritage, and of a plan for action consistent with our heritage. If we lead, these men and women will support us and work with us; if we don't, they will throw us out of office as soon as they can.

"The Pledge" that the Republican Congressional leadership presented last week is a good start, but doesn't go far enough. Republicans need a vision of action for not just the next two years, but for the next generation. To find it, we need to stop looking for new slogans, or trying to co-opt the slogans of the Tea Parties-we need to re-commitment to our heritage of Neighborhoods-of local action and limited government-and then fashion an agenda around that commitment. If we truly believe in the primacy of the individual and local government, that agenda must be built from the foundation of local government first. Continually focusing on the national agenda, though momentarily necessary because of the dire straits created by Obama's administration, is self-defeating to our cause in the long-run. Eventually, the national agenda must be drawn to complement and protect our local agendas.

We must turn from critics to problem-solvers and administrators, prepared to turn our principles into action and results.

In my last post on this blog on July 11th, I wrote about the "Tupelo Formula" for local action, which I broke down as follows:

•The community faced a problem that appeared intractable, and that had been confounded by multiple events-not unlike the confounding factors of under-education, under-employment, chronic crime and poverty, and the impulse to be "left alone", which exist in many of our neighborhoods today;

•One person, followed by a group of civic leaders, saw a strength within the community that created an opportunity that could be exploited to help the community address its problem;

•These citizens had the courage to take a risk with their own resources to take advantage of the opportunity and to share the gain with the community;

•These citizens involved businesses, private organizations, and local government in both the planning and the implementation of their plan; and

•The gains to the community were both short-term, and long-term, and were broadly shared-e.g., businesses were created and expanded, employment grew, per capita income grew, and schools improved.

I propose to our local conservative leaders on our school boards and city councils, and to our Republican officeholders at the county and state levels, that we sit-down after the election with other civic leaders, and begin to analyze and address our communities' needs through the prism of this formula. These needs should include at least the following:

•Our educational system, including the type of citizen we want to emerge from an elementary, secondary and college education in this state; the proper curriculum and delivery system needed to produce that citizen; and the most efficient and cost-effective mechanisms needed to pay for, account for, and administer that delivery system;

•Our transportation system and physical infrastructure, including a vision of where our citizens will live and work over the next 25 years; an understanding of how and where our goods and services will need to move; the maintenance cycle for all capital investments; an appreciation for the property rights of all Texans; and the most efficient and cost-effective mechanisms for paying for the needed infrastructure improvements; and

•Our criminal-justice and mental-health systems, including the effectiveness of such systems to protect victims, the public, and the person being held and/or treated within the systems; and alternatives that can reduce recidivism and improve the educational opportunities and long-term economic viability of the families and neighborhoods affected by the incarceration or mental-health treatment.

If we can address these issues, and create long-term strategies for addressing them at the most local level possible, we can begin to make government live by our principles while addressing urgent problems; and we can begin to address some of the most vexing structural pressures on our public budgets, which put upward pressure on our taxes and downward pressure on job growth.

Obviously, other problems, like the looming public-sector pension issue, will have to be addressed soon-but we need to start somewhere and show the public that our principles are relevant to modern life and modern problems.

To be the majority party, we must recruit and support strong conservatives to run for local, state and national offices over the next two years, who share our principles and are committed to use them to govern.

As I often said during my campaign for Chair of the HCRP, if we are the party that believes in local government, we must get involved in local government. This means fielding candidates now for the elections of 2011 and 2012. Remember, that in 2012 the local GOP will be the challenging party for countywide offices for the first time since 1996. Included among these offices will be between 30 and 40 local judgeships that will be open for Republican challengers, and we need to start finding competent, conservative members of the legal community to run for these offices.

But in 2011, many of the 416 local city council and school board seats will be up for election, including Houston's Mayor and Controller offices. Moreover, Utility and Emergency Services Districts hold elections each year. From just a rough review of the current holders of these offices, Republicans or Republican-voting independents hold already hold at least 40% of these offices. We need to talk with those officeholders, determine how we can help them keep their offices and how we can support them after they win. Most importantly, we need to determine who holds the other offices and recruit candidates who share our principles to run for those offices. Given the number of offices spread-out over 24 school districts, 34 cities, and many Utility and Emergency Services districts, this process must start now.

Finally, we need to continue the recruitment of new GOP precinct chairs-especially in communities where we need to re-introduce ourselves. For example, once this election cycle ends, those activists who have helped candidates like John Faulk, Fernando Herrera, Sarah Davis, Jim Murphy, and Steve Mueller, need to be actively recruited to stay involved by becoming precinct chairs.

If we can expand our presence in local offices and precincts before the 2012 election cycle starts in earnest, we will start that cycle with the army we will need to win that election and retake Harris County.

Although I have committed to my family that I will not run again for a public office myself, I am committed to the plan of attack I have outlined in this post, and will do all I can over the coming years to work with our party, our candidates and our elected officials to make the GOP the majority party in every part of this county and this state; and to not just cherish our conservative principles, but to use our conservative principles creatively to govern effectively. Will you help in this effort beginning November 3rd?

A July 4th Challenge: "What will you do?"

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

In response to my last post about re-establishing a sense of Neighborhood, one person’s comment included the following question:

My first thought was an overwhelming one of "where do we even start this?"

Although I will try to provide a more concrete answer to this question over the next few weeks, I want to give a more general answer to this question as we head into the July 4th weekend. You see, I believe the answer is to be found (as it always has in America) by each of us looking in the mirror and asking that person we see in the reflection: “what will you do?”

I firmly believe that one person, or one group of people, committed to positive ideas, can change the world for the better. Such positive change rarely comes through revolution, which destroys more than it changes. Instead, such positive change usually results from sustained effort to change one person, one family, and one neighborhood at a time. Soon momentum shifts, and the change spreads like a wildfire. Our civilization, at its best, is built on this notion.

Each of us is capable of being one of those people who ignites the wildfire--we have done that type of work all our lives with our family, our friends, our work, and our church or community activities. Remember that the founding generation of this nation, as remarkable a group as ever existed on the planet, came to the struggle of the late 18th Century with no more special background (except, maybe for Franklin) than any of us. They included farmers, surveyors, bankers, lawyers, doctors, ministers, silversmiths, printers, shopkeepers, and innkeepers, most of whom had never traveled beyond the hamlets of their birth, let alone seen the world. Their ranks were joined by ordinary men and women people who made extraordinary journeys across an ocean in wooden sailing ships to start a new life. Eventually, they each became committed to a cause greater than themselves, and that commitment created new opportunities and experiences for each of them individually, which they then used to their advantage to change the world together.

Indeed, it wasn’t that long ago that we still had leaders who understood the unique and exceptional challenge that lies at the heart of our civilization’s experience—and they led a victory over a world-wide tyranny. By way of example, I am going to quote at length from two speeches: Ronald Reagan’s speech at the end of the 1976 Republican Convention, given after a close and demoralizing loss of the Republican presidential nomination, and before he knew he would ever run for President again, in which he presented the challenge; and Pope John Paul II’s speech to the UN in 1995, reflecting on how the challenge had been met and victory had been achieved.

Reagan:

…I had an assignment the other day. Someone asked me to write a letter for a time capsule that is going to be opened in Los Angeles a hundred years from now, on our Tricentenial….Then I tried to write—let your own minds turn to that task. You are going to write for people a hundred years from now, who know all about us. We know nothing of them. We don’t know what kind of a world they will be living in…And suddenly it dawned on me, those who would read this letter a hundred years from now will know whether those missiles fired. They will know whether we met our challenge. Whether they have the freedoms that we have known up until now will depend on what we do here. Will they look back with appreciation and say, ‘Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom, who kept us now 100 years later free, who kept our world from nuclear destruction’[.] And, if we failed, they probably won’t get to read the letter at all because it spoke of individual freedom, and they won’t be allowed to talk of that or read of it. This is our challenge; and this is why here in this hall tonight, better than we have ever done before, we have got to quit talking to each other about each other and go out and communicate to the world that we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been, but we carry a message they are waiting for….There is no substitute for victory, Mr. President.

Pope John Paul II:

The revolutions of 1989 were made possible by the commitment of brave men and women inspired by a different, and ultimately more profound and powerful vision: the vision of man as a creature of intelligence and free will, immersed in a mystery which transcends his own being and endowed with the ability to reflect and the ability to choose—and thus capable of wisdom and virtue. A decisive factor in the success of those non-violent revolutions was the experience of social solidarity: In the face of regimes backed by the power of propaganda and terror, that solidarity was the moral code of the—power of the powerless, a beacon of hope and an enduring reminder that it is possible for man’s historical journey to follow a path which is true to the finest aspirations of the human spirit.

We all are “immersed in a mystery which transcends” our lives, just as were Reagan and the revolutionaries of 1989--we all want to do more than just exist, we want to be a part of something larger than ourselves. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we need to stop always looking for that “something larger” somewhere else, and realize that we must start to make a better world by making better families, better neighborhoods, and better schools.

Over the past 18 months, I have been blessed to know many people who have responded to this challenge by forming Tea Party groups, forming organizations to spread conservatism in new neighborhoods and mobilize neighbors to stand and fight for our principles. Each of these people, every day, is showing us how to meet the challenge to re-establish the sense of Neighborhood we need to unravel Obamaism and preserve the nation we love and the inalienable rights we have been blessed with—whether or not they fully appreciate the consequences of what they have started.

This moment in history has given us both a challenge and an opportunity. We must remember that “we may be fewer in numbers than we have ever been, but we carry a message they are waiting for...” If we succeed, we will have met our generation’s obligation to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”

"There is no substitute for victory".

Have a happy and safe July 4th.

It’s time to shift from the Circus to the Neighborhood

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

After the RPT’s State Convention in Dallas earlier this month, Dave asked me to give him my recap. Since that time, I’ve sat down on several occasions to try to write the recap—but no words seemed to come out.

In many ways, what happened in Dallas is a culmination of what many of us have worked for since late 2008, and it is hard to put into words the optimism I feel for the party at this point—even as I hear that the financial condition Steve Munisteri found when he took over the party was worse than anyone outside the organization had known. He has a big job ahead of him, and we all need to help.

I’ve decided to leave it to others to someday tell the story of how Steve engineered his victory. It is a story that needs to be told, and those closest to his effort deserve the credit and the opportunity to tell that story when they are ready. However, I can say this—driving home from work one night shortly after the convention, I heard a certain State Senator who hosts a radio show (and who gave a raucous, divisive speech just before the floor vote at the convention) spin how and why Steve was elected, and he was wrong about almost everything he said.

In fact, much of the challenge we face as a party, and will face as we move together into the future, is to stop taking the word of such self-anointed “ringmasters” as gospel, and to start thinking for ourselves. And these “ringmasters” need to be careful about over-use of circus analogies, because some in our party are tired of such clowns and midway acts anointing themselves to be the “ringmasters” of our party’s future.

Now, rather than get further side-tracked by circus metaphors and divisiveness, I want to follow the lead of Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, whose truly Reaganesque convention speech (which followed and eclipsed that State Senator’s speech) called on us to unite against the Democrats and to lead our country away from what the Democrats have done. Therefore, I want to continue to address a topic that I started to talk about in a post at the end of May—how will we lead if Republicans are again given control of government nationally, and are kept in office at the state and local levels? To answer this question, I want to return to that concept I discussed in that previous post: “Renewing the American Community”.

At the heart of this concept is a word that we don’t often use anymore: Neighborhood. We often talk of families, of churches, of organizations, of communities, of villages, of cities, etc.; but rarely do we talk about neighborhoods. If you’re like me, the word conjures up memories of friends and families that lived on the same block, who went to school with us, who played on the same teams with us, who served in the same scout troops with us, or who attended church with us. It brings back memories of our friend’s mothers and fathers, who looked out for us as we walked to school, or to the school bus; who kept an eye on us as we played in the street, or down at the park; who took us in when our parents had to go on a trip or out for an evening, or just gave us a safe “home away from home”; and who told our parents if anything went awry, but who could also give us a safe and confidential ear when we most needed it. More than a place, it was a shared experience, in which the members took responsibility for the other members—a civil congregation.

If we have lost anything over the last generation, we’ve lost this sense of neighborhood—this civil congregation that has been the heart of American Exceptionalism from its beginning. I believe the mission of American Conservatism and the GOP is not just to unravel Obamaism, but to re-establish this sense of neighborhood applicable to the 21st Century. To do that we must first remember how we got those neighborhoods in the first place.

It was the enterprise of spreading neighborhoods across a continent to which prior generations committed their hopes and dreams. When those dissident European Protestants first arrived and settled the Eastern seaboard, they started the process and created colonial and state governments to protect their settlements. Then, from the earliest actions of the first Congresses under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government promoted the creation and spread of neighborhoods. If you look at the Land Ordinance of 1785, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the founding generation was intent on devising a scheme for establishing the physical blueprint for future neighborhoods—surveys of townships to include schools and churches and post offices.

As new settlers migrated westward during the 19th Century, they often moved as whole communities or congregations; for example, settlers, and their offspring, who left Salem, Massachusetts together and started west eventually (over one or more generations) reached Salem, Oregon, and left Salems in many states along their journeys. As immigrants came to the cities, they created neighborhoods in city sections—“Little Italy”, “Chinatown”, “Brighton Beach”, “Hyde Park”, and many others. Neighborhoods were home to factory workers and bankers, to every social and economic strata of the community.

Neighborhoods furnished the primary support for those who needed help. In his ground-breaking book, The Tragedy of American Compassion, which helped lead to the welfare reform legislation in 1996, Marvin Olasky, a professor at the University of Texas, outlines the history of neighborhood-based efforts to provide help to those in need. The combination of local religious and private organizations, and of ad hoc volunteers, created a safety net of people who knew who needed help, who knew who they were helping, who knew the specific needs of those they were helping, and who could properly assess the type and amount of help needed. This familiarity with the person needing the help also provided an incentive for both people to succeed—to get the person to a state whereby they could help themselves; government help was reserved for those who truly could not help themselves. The volunteers were not professionals—they were neighbors. It was this volunteer spirit is one of the attributes that de Tocqueville found so exceptional in America.

Frederick Jackson Turner, the famous University of Wisconsin and Harvard University History Professor, gave a keynote speech at the Columbia Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, in which he noted that the frontier was gone. Almost thirty years later, Turner would note

Western democracy through the whole of its earlier period tended to the production of a society of which the most distinctive fact was the freedom of the individual to rise under conditions of social mobility, and whose ambition was the liberty and well-being of the masses. The conception has vitalized all American democracy, and has brought it into sharp contrasts with the democracies of history, and with those modern efforts of Europe to create an artificial democratic order by legislation. The problem of the United States is not to create democracy, but to conserve democratic institutions and ideals.

Between 1893 and 1920, when Turner wrote those words, the country began to cope with the problems created by the Industrial Revolution that Europe had been dealing with since the mid-19th Century. European movements had tried to change the social dynamic through laws designed to give the common man more direct say in their monarchical governments, while giving those governments more responsibility over the welfare of the common man. What Turner noted was that America already had created a system whereby citizens’ liberties were protected and they could participate in government—it didn’t need to legislate it into existence, but it did need to preserve it. Part of that American system was the neighborhood.

Throughout the 20th Century, we failed to heed Turner, and we followed Europe’s model for the “democratic welfare state”, and helped to slowly destroy our neighborhoods. First in the cities, and then in outlying suburbs and towns, the places remained but the sense of neighborhood disappeared. Some of the changes to the social dynamic were well-intentioned—even necessary, at least in the short-term. For instance,

* arguably, the Great Depression required some infusion of federal action to organize resources to get the country back to work, because the problem was national (even international) in its scale; and

* the extension of the recognition and protection of real liberty to minorities and women was long overdue.

However, each of these changes created consequences that destroyed neighborhoods:

* the change in the relationship of the individual with the national government; the national, programmatic approach to public welfare; and the professionalization of social work became a permanent fixture of American life, which the welfare reform legislation of 1996 did not fundamentally change;

* the extension of real liberty to minorities led to greater social mobility for middle-class minorities, which led to the separation of those persons from their traditional communities and led to a permanent underclass left to be cared for by the national and state governments; and

* the extension of real liberty to women took them out of their roles as the permanent sentinels of the neighborhoods—the mothers on watch for the care of the children, the volunteers to help those in need, the teachers and volunteers in the local schools—and placed them in the permanent workforce.

While each of these steps created positive benefits for individuals or groups, they left a fundamental void in our unique, American society.

We never have addressed the void that these actions left in our society—the loss of our neighborhoods—and the consequences of that void on our liberties. Today we live in gated “communities”, subdivisions with fancy names, fenced-in yards, large houses or high-rise flats with so many built-in conveniences that we never have to leave them except to go to work (that is--if you don’t work from home), and many of us now home-school our children. We have all these material benefits, but many people don’t know the people who live in the next house or apartment, or on the next street--let alone, know of their needs. Obamaism is a further extension of this model, that would limit our liberties and redistribute our wealth to bestow material benefits and safety directly to each of us, without calling on any of us to be good neighbors.

If we don’t begin to accept the responsibility that liberty expects of us, I fear we will ultimately become a “Place” where taxes are compelled from some to bestow benefits to others, rather than continue to be a “Nation” where we share an interdependence and a love of liberty.

How can the GOP begin to address these issues? The answers are at once simple and familiar—we need to promote those activities that build strong neighborhoods. Here are some examples:

* Promote policies that encourage small-business creation—small business creation is the easiest way to help people balance their need to make a living with our country’s need to rebuild neighborhoods. Businesses employ people, and employing people effects their lives. Every paycheck sets aside a retirement fund, pays for health care, provides for the sustenance of a family and (indirectly) for the support of the neighborhoods where employees live. Products or services generated by a business effects its customers, and those people touched by its customers. Wealth created by businesses increases the tax base and tax rolls, which in turn fund our schools—more wealth, creates better-funded schools. Programs that a business supports can enrich the lives of residents in the community where the business is located, as well as the lives of its employees. Each of us spends more time every day with our co-workers than with our family: the positive bonds you formed through this activity ripple out in every direction.

* Promote involvement in a traditional community-based service organization—between 1870 and 1920 many of the organizations that we remember as the backbones of our neighborhoods were created, and most still exist: Rotary, Kiwanis, the PTA, and many more. These organizations were designed to help serve the needs of their communities, and provide the social networks that build and maintain neighborhoods. Most of these organizations are crying for new members, but time and other commitments keep people from joining. The GOP at every level should be promoting policies that shorten commutes to work, offer tax breaks to companies who give employees paid time to work for schools and volunteer organizations, and offer tax breaks to individuals to donate time to charities (and faith-based organizations) as well as money or assets.

* Promote assimilation programs—To be a nation we must assimilate. Schools, churches, and childhood activities in the neighborhood were designed to assimilate children into our society as adults. Newcomers need the same help. Let’s not just argue about it, let’s act. Like the local GOP is now doing with its new Eastside Office, lets promote policies that give incentives to private organizations to create community centers and teach adults English and citizenship; that give children a safe place to meet, do their homework, and play; and that give families a safe place to interact and get to know and care for each other.

* Promote policies that keep families and neighborhoods intact and building wealth—Locally, our GOP Juvenile Court Judges worked to create a model program, funded with private dollars and partnered with neighborhood churches, that is keeping first-time, non-violent juvenile offenders in school and out of jail. These types of programs will fight the long-term problems of under-education, under-employment, and chronic poverty that fester in communities where too many young people drop out of school and get a criminal record. We need more of these innovative programs that help rebuild strong schools, strong families, and strong neighborhoods.

Some of you may think this agenda is too simple and too short—it is, but I must stop this post at some point. What I really want to do is to start you thinking about how we can build a positive agenda for running the government based on our ideals—based on that sense of Neighborhood that focused our liberty and built this country—and to re-build the nation we believe in. Give me your thoughts.

Some Thoughts about American Conservatism this Memorial Day

This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.

As I enter this Memorial Day weekend, I’ve been reflecting a lot on life and the last few years. As this Friday came and went, my emotions ran the gamut as:

• I remembered the tenth anniversary of the passing of my mother, whose principles and values formed the basis for how I would approach my life;

• I remembered my late father, who, though blind in one eye from birth, memorized the eye chart to pass his Army physical, and when caught at the end of basic training, had already proven himself to the point that, though he never went overseas, he spent the duration of his tour of duty during World War II training marksmen for the Army—and his quiet tenacity shaped how I would attack every challenge in my life;

• I received a letter from my oldest daughter, who moved to Los Angeles after graduating from college last year, telling me that she would be producing and starring in her first professional theatrical production this summer;

• I talked to my middle daughter about her plans to move to Austin by the end of the summer to strike-out on her own; and

• I saw my youngest daughter receive the highest academic awards from her school as she graduated from 5th Grade.

My reflections also turned to that small band of people, who starting in late 2008, I worked with as we began the struggle to re-awaken our local GOP to needs it has to address, and to how these friends have seized this last year and a half to make a difference with Tea Parties, with radio shows, with internet blogs, with national organizations in African-American and Latino communities, and with grass-roots efforts in our precincts. But, on Friday, I received a phone call from another of these friends who worked with me over this time, who told me of an extraordinary project he has now undertaken. Of all the many projects this group has undertaken, I think I may be the proudest of what he is now doing (and that is saying a lot). To explain my special pride in this effort, let me digress for a moment.

I’ve always believed that American Conservatism is more than a political movement. For it to work, American Conservatism must promote principles for individuals to live as neighbors in a community of free people, and our political principles and policies should flow from and compliment these “life” principles. I believe Goldwater was talking about this when he wrote in The Conscience of a Conservative:

Conservatism is not an economic theory, though it has economic implications. …It is Conservatism that puts material things in their proper place—that has a structured view of the human being and of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role.

…Conservatives take account of the whole man, while the Liberals tend to look only at the material side of man’s nature. The Conservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal creature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs and spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect the superior side of man’s nature, and thus take precedence over his economic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy. Liberals, on the other hand—in the name of a concern for “human beings”—regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant mission of society. They are, moreover, in a hurry. So that their characteristic approach is to harness the society’s political and economic forces into a collective effort to compel “progress.” In this approach, I believe they fight against Nature.

Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand the nature of man.

An American Conservative knows that this land was settled, and this nation was founded, by people who tried their whole lives to understand the nature of man in this temporal world, to reconcile it with man’s relationship to his Creator, and to forge a real society based on that understanding. Because we appreciate this basis for our unique society, many people of faith naturally are drawn to American Conservatism, though, as a political movement its principles are broader and more encompassing than the tenets of any one religion or sect. Newt Gingrich, tried to discuss this unique “American Civilization” in a college course he taught in the mid-1990s, and he was ridiculed at the time by the left for his effort.

In fact, Reagan, in the famous 1964 speech that launched his political career, conveyed the political dilemma every American Conservative faces when they try to debate public policy:

…[A]ny time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They say we're always "against" things -- we're never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

When I started to seriously consider how to fix the problems that confronted our local GOP and drafted a plan, I wanted to do more than just talk about the nuts-and-bolts of party building and management. I wanted to discuss this bigger challenge to re-orient the discussion among conservatives to how we re-engage in the debate about achieving society’s humanitarian goals by using and implementing our principles in creative and dynamic ways—of addressing urban issues and education; of addressing the need to revitalize our understanding of the responsibilities of being a neighbor and maintaining a neighborhood; of what Steve Parkhurst, Jill Fury and I called “Renewing the American Community”.

In “Renewing the American Community” we wanted to remind conservatives that the American Conservative movement is not just about life and liberty, but—to be true to itself—it must address the third inalienable right: the pursuit of happiness. Not the purely material happiness that so many of our fellow citizens dwell upon, and that the creed of the Democratic Party focuses upon, but the happiness of the whole man (of the economic and spiritual sides of man)—what the ancients called “a whole life well spent,” and the challenge that St. Paul describes in his letter to the Galatians:

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.’

Above all else, we wanted to remind our conservative friends that we will not succeed politically in the long-run if all we say is “no” to the Democrat’s schemes and plans—we must show and pursue an alternative course for addressing the needs of our society based on rebuilding our bonds as free people, as neighbors, and as fellow citizens, and on pursuing policies that use those bonds that De Tocqueville found so unique—rather than government—to address pressing needs. Our unique society can not work, and we can not limit the size and role of government in our lives, without these bonds. Neither liberty, nor “the pursuit of happiness” can long survive where free men and women isolate themselves from each other. In fact, de Tocqueville’s observation crystallizes this dilemma:

When no firm and lasting ties any longer unite men, it is impossible to obtain the cooperation of any great number of them unless you can persuade every man whose help is required that he serves his private interests by voluntarily uniting his efforts to those of all the others.

Without the bonds of relationships and interdependence—of family, of neighbor—action for the common good must be bribed or coerced, and the only entity with power to do that will be a government with the power to do great harm (as our parents learned throughout the last century).

Well, back to my friend’s new project. His plan is write a book and develop a seminar with a simple premise: to re-teach our neighbors that conservatism isn’t just a political movement, it is a way of life; and that if we re-adopt this way of life, we can lay the groundwork for taking back our government and society based on the political principles of American Conservatism. At his request, I look forward to mentoring him with this worthy project. If he succeeds, than so much of what we all set out to do in late 2008 will be set in motion.

Thanks to my family, and to everyone who I’ve had the pleasure of working with over these last 18 months, for making this a memorable holiday weekend.

To the Republican voters of Harris County:

Thank you for participating in the year-long debate over the state of our party organization and plans for its future. Although I sincerely congratulate Jared Woodfill for his victory in our primary race for the Chair of the Harris County Republican Party, this race was always about more than that office—it was about you and the future of our party. So, I hope you will be the ultimate winners from this race.

But, before I address that point further, let me congratulate a few others who deserve mention:

* My supporters, including leaders from many of the clubs and organizations from around the state and this county, leaders of the Tea Party movement, current and former elected officials and precinct chairs, and activists from every faction and demographic group that comprise our Grand Old Party—I was the just the vessel for your hopes and dreams for a revitalized, united and growing party; it is your spirit that really drove this campaign and will continue to work for a stronger party in the years to come;

* Bob Perry, who graciously helped finance both campaigns and allowed our respective messages to be heard by the voters during the last week of the run-off campaign; and

* Dan Patrick, Dr. Stephen Hotze, and their associates—your highly visible and active embrace of Jared’s campaign and record, and your spirited criticism of me and my supporters, now place the responsibility squarely on your shoulders for making sure Jared’s team actually follows through on its stated commitment to improve the operational and financial management of the party, and to be more inclusive, over the next two years; so, I challenge both of you to make it work.

To make it work, the current team must learn the right lesson from this election: our neighbors, who look to the Republican Party to represent their principles and convictions, want to be included in the operation of this party and its future. Simply put,

* they want their phone calls and emails returned;

* they want the party to produce a transparent strategic plan, budget and fundraising plan, and then implement it;

* they want their money managed properly and with transparency;

* they want to be welcomed to volunteer for the party;

* they want to be welcomed to participate as precinct chairs, or in other capacities, without having to submit to tests or inquisitions;

* they want the party to live by its timeless principles by taking its message into every precinct and neighborhood of this county, and then growing permanently into those communities; and,

* above all else, they want to help win elections and get Republicans in office at every level of government who will promote the principles and convictions we share.

Although I have promised my family and my colleagues that this would be my last campaign for an elective office, I also promise to continue to fight to revitalize this party. As I committed to Jared and the voters during the campaign, I and my supporters are ready to roll-up our sleeves and help unite this party and make the organization work by addressing the concerns that I listed above. In fact, I reiterated this promise to Jared privately yesterday before the polls had even opened. We now publicly extend our hand to Chairman Woodfill, Senator Patrick, Dr. Hotze, and their team of associates, to help address these concerns and elect Republicans. If our hand is accepted, we can re-build a strong party at precisely the time it is needed here and nationally.

If it is not accepted, we will pursue these goals parallel to the party organization, just as Senator Patrick is now doing by creating a parallel organization to the Republican Party itself. However, the proliferation of these hyphenated Republican groups is not healthy for the future of conservatism or the GOP, so I hope and pray that our hand of family, friendship, and alliance will be accepted so we can stand united in our fight for liberty.

If our hand is accepted, then you, the Republicans of Harris County, will be the ultimate winners of this primary season—and that was my goal all along.

Campaign Video - The Time Is Now

Reflections on the last full week of this Campaign

What a week! As early voting has ended, I look back on this week with amazement.

Financially, we started the week at a draw with the incumbent with money raised since the last TEC report filing, and we ended the week with a draw when counting money received and pledged. That second draw was due to the infusion of cash from Bob Perry into both campaigns. Mr. Perry is a great benefactor of our party, whose money has and will allow both sides to take their message to Republican voters through Election Day—allowing the best message and messenger to prevail. My thanks and admiration go to Mr. Perry for his underwriting of the final stage of this race for our party’s future.

Turnout-wise, the turnout so far is surpassing most pundit's expectations. As I stood out at the early-voting poll in Kingwood on Friday, I was impressed by the steady stream of voters and of the education they had gone through to prepare for their votes. We will probably exceed 30,000 voters when the votes are counted on Tuesday night, and that is a great statement about the interest in our party and its future.

Politically, I have seen the breathless support and criticism from friend and “foe” (though we are all family) alike in this race as the week has proceeded, and with continuing questions raised about my history, my beliefs, my judgment, and my commitment to the Republican Party. One of the bright spots was when an old friend of high school not only found me on Facebook, but came to my defense and posted about my conservative activism even as a high school student--thanks, Jim, and good to hear from you after all these years.

In response to the criticism, let’s just say that I have never claimed to be perfect (nor my judgment to be infallible), but my commitment to this party, and to its unity and growth, is total. As I have reiterated often during this campaign, I will support the party if this race ends with the incumbent’s victory, and I have already started that process by committing to the RNC that I would help—win or lose—with the creation and implementation of a pilot program here in Harris County to grow the party into Latino, Asian-American and African-American neighborhoods and precincts, and to recruit Republicans to run for city and school board races.

I also hear and see the last-minute rallying around the incumbent, and the statements that I, and my supporters, are dividing the party at the wrong time, and are distorting the record of the incumbent. With that final criticism in mind, here is the question I pose to you as we enter this last weekend of the race: if everything that the current team at Richmond Avenue has done is so great, why am I essentially running even in fundraising with the incumbent since the last reporting period, and why do I have the support of so many party leaders, civic leaders, and conservative organizations in this race against a 4-term incumbent? This level of support for a challenger in a Republican primary is unprecedented—and it is unprecedented for a reason: the current team has been organizationally and financially floundering for years, and all the insiders know it, and all the activists can see it. The Obama Wave simply unearthed this truth for all to see.

Therefore, let me leave you with a paraphrase of Reagan’s immortal question: Are you Harris County Republicans better off now than you were in 2002?

If your answer is “No”, my candidacy has, at long last, given you a choice on April 13th for a different future.

Coffee with the Candidate

On Friday morning, from 9am-10am, I'd like to invite you to stop by for "Coffee with the Candidate". We will be meeting at Blue Planet Cafe at 1330 Wirt Rd at Westview (a little north of I-10), in the Bell Tower Center. Stop by before work for a cup of coffee, a latte, a juice or a breakfast treat, and we can talk a little politics while we're at it. After our visit, you can proceed one block up Wirt Road to the Trini Mendenhall Sosa Community Center where you can cast your ballot in the Republican runoff election.

Blue Planet Cafe is a real source of pride in our community. They are an independent cafe, on April 15th they will be celebrating their first year in business. Once a month, Blue Planet Cafe features a local organization doing good work in the community. A portion of the tips they collect for that month goes to the organization. But beyond just a monetary contribution, Blue Planet Cafe allows the featured organization to leave their literature for the cafe customers to peruse and possibly get involved. We are glad to have found a cafe, which by the way has very good food and drinks, that is putting principles we believe in to work by supporting a community and seeking people who help people, rather than government doing this work.

You can learn more about Blue Planet Cafe at www.BluePlanetCafe.biz.

A Greeting for Easter and Passover

Let me take a break from preparing for early voting next week to wish happiness to all this weekend who are celebrating either Easter or Passover. There is one word that has come to mind as I’ve thought about both holidays this year: Liberty.

For Passover is, at its core, the celebration of the liberation of the Hebrews from Egypt and the journey to the Promised Land; while the Resurrection gives us the promise of liberation from sin and from the law of the Pharisees. As Paul tells us in Galatians:

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 with one word, even in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

I know that those of us who cherish Liberty, and who support the Promised Land of Israel, feel like we have not had a lot to celebrate recently. We’ve witnessed our government usurp powers it was never intended to have, and recently it needlessly strained relations with our closest ally in the Holy Lands—Israel. But with all this, we must recognize that we are entering a new season of Liberty, and we must fight for it, and pray for it. Therefore, this weekend let’s together recite and remember the concluding words of the traditional Passover prayer: Next year in Jerusalem.

It's Only Just Begun

In case you missed the news this morning, Speaker Pelosi has issued marching orders to members of Congress leaving Washington for their two week recess. Among the many lowlights of Speaker Pelosi's directives is the following:

"With the passage of health insurance reform, this District Work Period is a critical time to go on offense.” Pelosi continued, "Convey the immediate benefits of health reform to your constituents (such as better prescription drug benefits for seniors, tax credits for small businesses and prohibiting insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick).”

The Hill reported: "Democrats are bracing for significant losses in the House and Senate this fall, but believe they can at least mitigate expected mid-term losses by aggressively touting the healthcare bill and moving to other issues, such as financial regulatory reform, that they believe put Republicans on the defensive.

Obama kicked into campaign mode Thursday, saying he welcomed a fight with Republicans over healthcare. If the GOP wants to repeal the bill, it should “go for it,” the president said."

In a memo to his members, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday stressed that Republicans would work not only to repeal the healthcare law, but to “replace it with solutions that will protect jobs and lower Americans’ health costs.”

Boehner said his party would “repeal ObamaCare’s job-destroying tax hikes and mandates and replace them with common-sense, market-based solutions that cover Americans with existing conditions.”

Fellow Republicans, I don't need to tell you that when the one side goes on offense, the other side can only respond by going on defense. So, my advice to our side: Let's go on offense, FIRST. Whether it's in conversations with friends or family members, opportunities to speak with your local, state or congressional representatives, or online in forums or your private email blasts, go on offense, be armed with facts and truth, and be civil in your efforts to promote he conservative cause.

Minority Leader Boehner has given us some pointers and some direction. Congressman Paul Ryan provided a great number of ideas and details in a New York Times column Friday. Byron York wrote a column this week detailing the lack of support nationally for the health care bill the democrats forced through Congress last Sunday. All of this points to the obvious: The democrats are coming home to sell us on something we didn't want in the first place, they're now in the position of having to tell us after the fact that we really did want it after all.

Armed with the truth, the facts and with history; Americans across the country, let's go to work for our cause.

A Response to Terry Lowry: We Republicans have a Choice for Unity, and a Choice against the taint of Pay-for-Play politics

For most of the 33 years since Ronald Reagan first proposed to build a New Republican Party with a coalition of traditional Republicans, economic conservatives and social conservatives, the great moral issues of our time have involved abortion and the institution of the traditional family. As serious as these issues are, they should not be used as a weapon at this hour in our history to destroy fellow Republicans.

We Republicans have struggled within our family over these issues because of the teachings of our respective faiths, and because of our commitment to the inalienable rights of life and liberty. Even when some in our party might disagree on where lines should be drawn in the political and legal arena, however, we generally have agreed that abortion is wrong, and that the traditional family should be protected. That consensus led virtually all Republicans to support the appointment or election of conservative judges and justices to state and federal courts, including Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Unfortunately, there continue to be those among us who would rather pick and fight a civil war against our friends and allies in this party over these issues, rather than try to find common ground to advance our shared principles. I believe this approach is the wrong, and that it is self-defeating in the end. In fact, Reagan noted that this tension would exist within the “new” party he was proposing when he said:

"I want the record to show that I do not view the new re vitalized Republican Party as one based on a principle of exclusion. After all, you do not get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won't associate or work with. If we truly believe in our principles, we should sit down and talk. Talk with anyone, anywhere, at any time if it means talking about the principles of the Republican Party. Conservatism is not a narrow ideology nor is it the exclusive property of conservative activists."

For the last 15 months, I talked to our friends in this party about our principles, and about revitalizing our party to elect Republicans and promote Reagan’s agenda--but, I also listened. I heard so much about what we agree coming from people who had labeled themselves, or who had been labeled by others, as inhabiting separate factions within this party, that it gave me hope that we could stop fighting each other and focus on fighting the Democrats. I built on what I heard to form a coalition of supporters from every faction in this party, to run for HCRP Chair, and to successfully make the run-off election. At the core of what we built was the recognition that to elect Republicans we must grow, but to grow, we must first unite.

Unfortunately, earlier today, I saw the first salvo in this run-off election from those who would rather exclude fellow Republicans whom they have labeled as being in a different camp within this party—it was ugly, and it was a lie. It came through a Facebook post by Terry Lowry, a precinct chair, supporter of Jared Woodfill, radio host, and proprietor of the LinkLetter. I first met Terry in early 2008, and through discussions with him I know we agree on much: we support the platform of the Republican Party of Texas; we are pro-life; and we want to protect the traditional family from the political and legal assault promoted by Democratic-aligned interests groups. He knows that I am not an ally of pro-abortion politics or the “homosexual” political and legal agenda. And yet, he smears me by smearing some Republicans who have supported me—who want to unite all of the factions of the party like I do—because some of our friends in this party draw lines on these issues differently than I do, or Terry does. This politics of lies, smears, innuendos, and exclusion is beneath not only the Christianity that Terry and I share, but it also is beneath the principles of the party Reagan tried to build. To Terry, I simply ask: Have you no shame? To Jared, I simply ask: Do you condone this divisive conduct?

Why is Terry doing this? I don’t know, but maybe it has to do with the fact that last Thursday I dared to criticize his use of the LinkLetter (and similar mailers promoted by a few other individuals), to act as a self-anointed gatekeeper to the local Republican nominations. I dared to criticize his simultaneous promotion of endorsements and the sale of advertising in the same races, which has created the appearance to many that prospective candidates in our party have to pay Terry (and others) in order to have a chance of winning a local Republican primary. I dared to state that the whiff of Pay-for-Play should not exist in our party.

Ultimately, it is for you the Republican voter to choose which path to follow—Terry’s path of perpetual war with our friends and allies in this party, or the path I am offering. If you want to unite and grow around our shared principles and win elections, you have a choice to make between the politics of lies, smears, innuendos and exclusion that have divided us for too long, and the politics of unity against a common foe. If you want to rid our party of the whiff of Pay-for-Play tactics, and of self-anointed gatekeepers, and take your party back and make it the inclusive, welcoming majority party built on timeless conservative principles that Reagan dreamed of, you have a choice to make.

First Radio Commercial Released

Endorsements or Spin? You be the judge.

You can tell that we are getting closer to the start of early voting—endorsements are flying, as is the political spin that surrounds every campaign. Ever since the C Club of Houston (now joined by United Republicans of Harris County) announced its endorsement of me, the fur has been flying at Richmond Avenue. Now, Gary Polland has weighed in—as is his right. Welcome to the debate, Gary.

As endorsements go, the incumbent and I are now even as to the former Harris County Party Chairs who built the modern Republican majority in this county: I have Betsy Lake, under whose leadership the county first went Republican; and Jared now has Gary, who built a strong operation upon the foundation of Betsy’s success. I am sure that Jared would concur that we are both proud and appreciative of these respective endorsements.

What is odd about some of the recent endorsements Jared has received, including the most recent one from Gary Polland, is that they are not really typical endorsements. Instead, they appear to be nothing more than vehicles to create or support talking points for his campaign. First, they contain short accolades of Jared’s ability to talk about public-policy issues, and of his service to the party, without much discussion of his overall management of the party, which has allowed the organization Betsy and Gary built to wither over the last 8 years. Then, these accolades are coupled with criticisms of the rest of us who are running. These criticisms are then immediately seized by Bill Kneer and Richard Dillon—two men who are supposed to be working for the party, not Jared’s campaign—who then use them as the basis to spin more criticisms on their Facebook pages.

Do Jared’s supporters really think that their approach helps the party in the long run? Although I find the issue that was raised about me by Gary to be fair game to debate, I have addressed my experience for this job—both politically and organizationally—for months, in public meetings, in emails, and on my website. I will let the voters decide whether the party’s problems can be fixed from inside the current HCRP “cocoon” with the same group that has run it into the ground, or whether it needs fresh thinking and action. Obviously, members of the C Club, United Republicans, and many leaders of our affiliated clubs and organizations agree with me that the party can’t be fixed using the current approach.

But regardless of the arguments made against me, let's all remember that this race is not about the 1990s, it’s about the future.

If you check the endorsements that I have posted, you will not see criticism of the incumbent (or anyone else)—only a list of people making a statement of positive support for me. That is how it should be.

Reflections on a Democratic Meet-and-Greet

Yesterday, at the invitation of a fellow Republican, I attended a meet-and-greet for a Democratic candidate who is opposing Sheila Jackson Lee. For those of you who follow Big Jolly Politics, and who may have read my response to Dan Patrick’s comments about the CD-18 race, this is not inconsistent with my position in support of our efforts in this race. Instead, it was designed to enhance our growth into this community.

The reality is that we have over 200 precincts in CDs 18, 9, and 29 (Lee, Al Green and Gene Green, respectively), where we literally have no organizational presence, but where Ed Emmett and Pat Lykos had some success in the 2008 election. My goal is to talk to those people who supported Judge Emmett and District Attorney Lykos, and build on what they started in order to bring conservatives in these communities, who now vote primarily for Democrats, over to our party permanently. You can’t do that unless you actually interact with them where and when they gather.

So, here are a couple of reflections on my experience.

First, there were Republicans (and independents who vote Republican) at this event, and I was able to talk with them about our primary and supporting our candidates. There is a lot of support for Judge Emmett and other Republicans among these voters. They are energized about what we are trying to do to expand the party and include them, but they are still listening to what the Democrats have to offer—we are no where near closing the deal with these voters yet for their support for our entire ticket.

Second, I learned what issues are being discussed in this race by the Democrats with members of the Latino, African American, and Asian communities. The Democratic candidate presented a largely pro-growth, pro-education message, which resonated with the conservatives in these communities. However, I saw that he is vulnerable over charter schools and school choice—the people in these communities want someone who will be strong in their support of these initiatives and he waffled. He also is vulnerable over how much he wants to expand federal programs into these communities. If this candidate doesn't beat Sheila Jackson Lee in the Democratic primary, we can use these issues to connect with these voters, who are obviously disenchanted with the incumbent.

Last night, I shared my observation with one of our CD-18 candidates, and I will share them with the other two soon, so that who ever wins our primary will be prepared for the general election campaign and for competing for the votes in these neighborhoods.

I know that there will be some fellow Republicans who may criticize me for going to an event like this one. But think for a second—how do you expect to learn how to connect with voters who agree with us, but who are used to voting for Democrats, unless we actually observe this type of event? Sometimes you actually have to go to where the opposition is meeting and challenge them with your presence. Remember, we didn't grow as a party over the last generation by avoiding contact with Democrats who agreed with us. In fact, such contact and conversion is how President Reagan, Governors Connally and Perry, and Judge Pressler, ultimately joined our party after being life-long Democrats, and that is how our conservative coalition grew. In order to attract them, we actually had to interact with them where they congregated.

So, let’s be clear: I do not support any Democratic candidate, nor do I embrace Dan Patrick's idea about creating a "Republicans for Jarvis Johnson" movement. Nothing "rubbed off" on me by attending this meeting—I am immune to the Democratic philosophy. Instead, I'm hoping my presence made those in the room who might support us realize we care about them; we are unafraid of going to where they live, work and meet; and we are going to compete for their vote.

Massachusetts, the Supreme Court Ruling and Future of the HCRP

Two political earthquakes struck last week: Brown’s victory in Massachusetts; and the Supreme Court’s ruling on campaign finance. Both developments were the result of battles that conservatives have long fought, and our immediate reactions to them were pure joy. However, as euphoric as Brown’s win remains, the Supreme Court’s ruling presents both challenges and opportunities to the Harris County Republican Party.

A wholly new political environment was created. PACs and 527 organizations are now irrelevant--and will probably disappear. Any organization--corporations, unions, chambers of commerce, trade associations, and issue-advocacy groups--now can freely publish endorsements, ads, and documentaries for candidates and issues. Right now this is a mixed-blessing for the GOP, because the left has as many, if not more, groups who are ready to independently spend money to support the Democratic Party and its candidates.

In the meantime, limits on candidates and parties are still in place, including: contribution limits for candidates; allocation restrictions for party organizations; prohibitions on coordinated campaign activities between candidates (and parties) and outside organizations; and the threat of recusal of a judge in any case involving corporations and other entities, whose independent advocacy significantly benefits the judge’s campaign.

The next Chair of the HCRP must address this new reality immediately. If I am elected, I will convene the best political and legal minds to create a strategy to take maximum advantage of this new situation, while helping our candidates and elected officials navigate it. As part of this new strategy, I will re-establish direct relationships with the business community. As evidence of my ability to build this bridge, last week I received the endorsement of the C Club, which is the first time the club has ever made an endorsement in a race for party chair.

We will need to treat the business community, as well as other pro-conservative organizations, as constituents with whom we work to develop our political agenda and support our candidates. I will create a strategy that is legal and ethical, and I will do so while we rebuild our organization to mobilize Republicans to vote in 2010 and 2012.

Old strategies will not be effective in this new environment. For example, our approach to candidate promotion must be more sophisticated than sending an ad-based “Chairman’s Report” by mail on the eve of Election Day. Not only are such late mailings ineffective when 75% of voters now vote early, but the current approach has allowed at least one Democrat to buy ads and has been designed primarily to benefit the incumbent chair’s re-election campaign. This must end.

In fact, let’s stop this practice now. The incumbent has just mailed a solicitation to all candidates on the primary ballot to pay for ads in a new “Chairman’s Report” for the primary. Let’s tell the incumbent that this practice is ineffective and improper, and challenge him to produce a Voter Guide that is even-handed and promotes the party’s candidates—not his campaign.

Let's take control of the new reality and use it to win elections, rather than continue the same, ineffective practices of the past.

Ed Hubbard
Candidate for Chair of the Harris County Republican Party
www.HubbardForHCRP.com

A Message From Ed Hubbard About Recent Disinformation

My Fellow Republican,

Since late Friday afternoon you may have received an email from Kathy Haigler announcing her support for one of my opponents to be the next Chairman of the Harris County Republican Party. I respect Kathy's decision, as I do the decision of everyone within this party to choose a candidate in this race—that’s why we embrace competition.

However, in the email she also made incorrect assertions about the amount of money I had contributed to the party, and a false accusation that I gave a large contribution to a Democratic candidate in 2001. I could have ignored the former mistake, but the latter accusation was patently false and demeaning. I have never contributed to a Democrat, and the only candidate I ever gave that much money to was George W. Bush in 2000.

Within minutes of receiving this email, a review of the Texas Ethics Commission records indicated that, indeed, the contributor was another Ed Hubbard--one from Granbury, Texas. If I could find this information that quickly, so could Kathy. This was a sloppy and irresponsible accusation by Kathy, and I immediately asked Kathy to issue a retraction of her disinformation, which she had already forwarded widely within the party. As of the time of sending this email, I have not received any response—no apology, no promise of a retraction, nothing. This silence in the face of such a clear mistake is beneath the dignity of the office of Secretary of our state party, which she currently holds.

If you are not familiar with me, I have been incredibly open during the entire campaign process. I released what became known as "The Hubbard Plan", shortly after the election of 2008. No other candidate has put forward such a plan to detail how they would lead the party, including the current chairman. In the spirit of Ronald Reagan, I have been going from one end of the county to another, having conversations about the greatness of our party, the greatness of Texas and the greatness of America. I have been forthcoming on my website, on Facebook and on my blog, about my ideas and about my plans for the future of the Harris County Republican Party.

I thank you for taking the time to read this email. I have received the support of many great individuals in and around Harris County (you can view that list here), and these attempts to distribute disinformation not only offends them, but it offends those of us who have worked to build the party up by finding the best in people and working with them, not attempting to destroy those who disagree with us.

If I win this race, I will no longer tolerate such behavior among fellow Republicans in this county.

All my best,

Ed Hubbard
Candidate for Chairman of the Harris County Republican Party
www.HubbardForHCRP.com

**UPDATE**
Saturday morning 8:50am

Late last night Kathy Haigler sent out the following retraction/correction of her earlier email:

Republican Friends,

I made a huge mistake in not checking all my facts before I sent out the email this afternoon. Although I stand by my endorsement of Jared Woodfill, I wish to now correct my own misinformation: the people who gave $2,500 to John Sharp in 2001 were Edward and Gerry Hubbard of Granbury, TX, and that is not the same Ed Hubbard running for Harris County Chairman.

I am sending this note of retraction to everyone I sent the original message to, and I ask that if you forwarded my e-mail to anyone else, that you also forward them this correction.

I apologize to Ed Hubbard for any anxiety from my incorrect statement about that donation.

Kathy Haigler

Kathy and I also traded private emails at about midnight. With this correction, and based on our private conversation, I thank Kathy for her effort to correct her mistake, and I retain my respect for her as a leader of our party, and as a friend. We both now consider this issue over, and ask everyone else in our Republican family to consider it over as well.

Ed

First Endorsement List Released

I am proud to release the first round of endorsements for my campaign. This list, and the names to follow, demonstrates the broad, wide support I have received and I am very honored to have the idividuals behind our efforts.

Betsy Lake
Former Chair of the Harris County Republican Party;
Former President of the Bay Area Republican Women;
Former President of the Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women;
Founder of United Republicans

Robert Shults
Precinct Chair—258
President of United Republicans,
Former President of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club

Kay Waghorne
Precinct Chair—642
Former President of the Cy-Fair Republican Women

Larry Tobin
Current Precinct Chair—90
Former President of the Clear Lake Republican Club
Former City Councilman--Taylor Lake Village

Kay Shillock
Former and New Precinct Chair—513
Former President of the Northwest Forest Republican Women;
Former President of the Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women

Justin Jordan
Former Precinct Chair—630
New Precinct Chair—76
Former President of the Texas chapter of College Republicans

Atemio Muniz, Jr.
New Precinct Chair—591
Founder of Conservador Alliance;
Statewide director of the Latino National Republican Coalition

Barbara Buxton
Precinct Chair—668

Matt Hefferman
Precinct Chair—127

Eric Walligura
Current Precinct Chair—265
New Precinct Chair—439

Eric Smith
Precinct Chair—460

Joe Spence
Precinct Chair—732

Becky Flowers
Precinct Chair—771

Carmen Cuneo
New Precinct Chair—210

Tom Hodges
Former Precinct Chair—440

Rita Huggler
Former Precinct Chair

Lo Wallace
Former Precinct Chair
Former President of Village Republican Women;
Board member of the Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women;
Board member of United Republicans

Sandie Myers
Houston Community College Board member;
Immediate Past President of the Daughters of Liberty Republican Women

Susan Kellner
Immediate Past President of the Spring Branch ISD School Board

Theresa Kosmoski
Member of the Spring Branch ISD School Board;
Immediate Past President of the Memorial West Republican Women

Lilian Norman Keeney
Mayor Pro Tem of Taylor Lake Village;
Currently 2nd Vice President, Greater Houston Council
District Director for Senate District 11 for the Texas Federation of Republican Women;
Former President of the Bay Area Republican Women

John Faulk
Candidate for U.S. Congress, District 18

Jon Keeney
Former candidate for the state legislature

Bill Moore
Former candidate for the Criminal District Court

Toni Anne Dashiell
Immediate Past President of the Texas Federation of Republican Women

Rebecca Williamson
Current Vice President of Programs for the Texas Federation of Republican Women;
Immediate Past First Vice President of the Texas Federation of Republican Women

Jo Konen
Immediate Past Vice President of Bylaws for the Texas Federation of Republican Women;
Former President of the Northwest Forest Republican Women;
Former President of the Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women

Jan Ott
Currently 2nd Vice President of the Texas Federation of Republican Women;
Director Greater Houston Pachyderm;
Immediate Past Treasurer of the Texas Federation of Republican Women;
Immediate past First VP of the Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women;
Founding President of the Cy-Fair Republican Women

Carolyn Hodges
Current 1st Vice President of the Texas Federation of Republican Women;
Director Greater Houston Pachyderm;
Immediate Past Regional Deputy President, Region II, of the Texas Federation of Republican Women;
Former President of the Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women;
Former President of the Village Republican Women

Carol Prince
Immediate Past President of the Village Republican Women

Gaye Neeley Wylie
immediate past president of the Bay Area Republican Women

Gail Shubot
Immediate Past President of the Houston Professional Republican Women

Sue Ann Lurcott
Immediate Past President of the Northwest Forest Republican Women

Patricia McCall
Former President of the Magic Circle Republican Women;
Former President of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club

Sue Kikis
Former President of the Northwest Forest Republican Women;
Former President of the Greater Houston Council of Federated Republican Women

Claudette Martin
Former President of the Northwest Forest Republican Women

Deborah Guitian Roan
Former President of the Bay Area Republican Women

Ruby Cubley
Former President of the Bay Area Republican Women

Carole Ragland
Former President of the Bay Area Republican Women

Joan Buschor
Officer of the Magic Circle Republican Women

Cathie Nenninger
Current officer of the Clear Creek Republican Women;
Past officer of the Bay Area Republican Women

J.D. Joyce
President of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club;
Board member of United Republicans

Alex Montgomery
President of the Pachyderm Club of North Houston


Claver Kamau-Imani
Founder of Raging Elephants.org;
Host of "The Christian Politician" Radio Show and blog;
Former director of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club

Jackelyn Viera Iloff
Candidate for Precinct Chair—499;
Founder and President of “Magdalena’s Table”;
Former Chair of the HCRP Finance Committee;
Creator and Former Chair of the HCRP “First Friday” Program;
Former aide to the Repbulican National Committee;
Former aide to Governor George Allen of Virginia

Rajada Fleming
Former officer of the Village Republican Women;
Officer of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club

John Fedorko
Former officer of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club

Nelson Fisher
Former President of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club

Robert Stevenson
Officer of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club

David Norman
Former candidate for the state legislature

Barbara Jordan
Kingwood Republican Women

Joe Slovacek
Alvin Walker
Itze Soliz-Mathews
Don McFall
Lloyd Lake
Dr. Mark Fleming
Harold Wallace
Robyn Joyce
Hermann Buschor
Suzanne Testa
George Hrdlicka
Judy Hrdlicka
Kirk Whitehouse
John Manley
Larry Buxton
Bill Ott
Jim Prince
Steve Shaffer
Dr. Rekha Ramesh
Dr. G.S. Ramesh
Phillis Shults
Penny Uselton
Roxie Hefferman
Ilana M. Blomquist
John C. Blomquist
Mickie Comiskey
Charles Comiskey
Chuck Konen
Steve Liljeberg
Ed McCool
Debbie Lindeman
Brian Bayne
Cecil Bishop, Jr.
Tom Whitson
Vanessa Sudeth-Muse
Cindy Hemminger
David Hemminger
Joan Alford
Sally Stricklett
Roxanne Moore
Cindy Kueneke
David Kueneke
Gina Halle
Richard Halle
Kathleen Kearns
Phillip D. Sharp
Raymond G. Hofker
Fred Y. O. Ho
Joy Gregory
Ford Bankston
Patience Myers
Betty Howell
Lucy Forbes
Gienna Adovasio
Gianpaolo Garrone
Ruth Palmer
Robert Palmer
Karen Plante
Dawn Shull
Aaron Simpson
Terence Abrams
Donald K. Eckhardt
Debra Eldridge
Bonnie Norman
Liz Norman
Jeffrey Norman
Wallie Womack
Kevin Yankowsky

To be added to this list when we release future names, please click here, or emails us at HubbardForHCRP@gmail.com.