Time

In recent posts I’ve discussed how the HCRP should address the problems of credibility, communication and organization. With this post I plan to begin wading into the issue of how to distill our principles into a message to coordinate with the campaigns of our candidates and elected officials.

In this first post on this issue I want to address what I believe must be a fundamental concept underlying our message: Time.

No, I’ve not fallen off my rocker and think that the GOP should now be in the wrist-watch or clock-making business; nor am I about to bloviate about the nature of the universe. Instead, I believe the GOP will not reconnect with the average voter, and rebuild our credibility, until we show how our principles and policy prescriptions are relevant to their daily lives. What issue could be more relevant to daily life, and to our agenda, than time management?

Think about it: if we Republicans believe that the answers to most of our problems lie in shifting control of money and decision-making away from government or an anointed elite, and back to the individual, we must realize that one of the most important tasks for American government at the local level is to secure the maximum amount of time for use by the individual to pursue his or her happiness, and the happiness of others. As you read the rest of this post, keep in mind all of the times you have talked with others about volunteering, or getting involved in local government or school issues, only to be told that people don't have time to get involved.

Regardless of what the environmentalists say, the only truly scarce, non-renewable resource is time. For Republican principles to work effectively to improve society, individuals need control of as much time as possible every day to spend in pursuit of their well-being, as well as the well-being of their families, their neighbors, and their communities. People need time to volunteer, and to devote to local government and schools. When we couple the amount of time most of us devote to earning an income, with just the amount of time we spend in traffic every day, it is easy to see why we have ceded so much control over our lives and our communities to others—especially to bureaucrats. This problem will only get worse here, and in surrounding counties, as Harris County’s population alone is projected to double over the next 10 to 15 years.

However, not all of us have the same problem with time. In certain neighborhoods, the problem is not too little time. Instead, the key problem is that too many people, including children who have dropped-out of school, and under-educated and unemployed men, have too much time on their hands, and they lack the ability or the inclination to control that time wisely. As a result, they use their abundance of time to tear, rather than mend, the fabric of their lives, the lives of their families, and the lives of their communities.

Therefore, to address the pressing issues facing our county now and over the next decade, the local GOP, working with its elected officials and candidates, needs to develop a message and a policy agenda that includes a focus on returning control of time to individuals, while re-channeling wasted time among some individuals toward their self-improvement and the improvement of their neighborhoods. Every issue we face should be looked at from many different angles, including in the context of time. Such issues include:

- the physical infrastructure of roads and transportation;
- community development and location;
- construction and operation of utilities, schools, hospitals and emergency services;
- incorporated versus unincorporated development and governance of new communities; and
- the community infrastructure of law enforcement and the judiciary, of schools, and of private organizations that care for the needs of citizens.

Some of our Republican elected officials already are thinking about these issues in a manner consistent with an emphasis on time. Our Republican county commissioners and county judge are looking at the future development of our physical infrastructure, and the location of medical clinics, in ways that would maximize efficient use of time and resources; our tax assessor is simplifying access to the many services his office provides by making access to these services available closer to where people live and work; and our Republican District Attorney and judges are looking at ways to preserve punishment for breaking laws while keeping young, non-violent offenders in school and preparing for effective citizenship, rather than wasting their time and futures behind bars.

These efforts can be enhanced by understanding—

- the important relationship between effective time management and every conscious or subconscious choice a citizen makes every day; and
- the daily frustration people suffer because of a desperate feeling that they lack control of their time and, therefore, lack control of their lives.

Obviously, it is too simplistic to say that promoting a new emphasis on the control of time will miraculously solve all of society’s problems—that would be ridiculous. However, because this issue is so important to making the rest of our agenda work, we Republicans have ignored it to our detriment.

By developing messages and policies designed to preserve this most precious commodity, and to promote its use for the well-being of the individual and all he or she cares about most, we could begin to address many of the daily frustrations in people’s lives and tap into a great reservoir of good will in this community. Once we make such a visceral connection with the average voter, we can use that connection to rebuild our credibility with voters by showing how our ideals are relevant to their daily lives.

Ultimately, recognizing the importance of time, and developing relevant policies to address its importance, will help us elect Republicans to office throughout all of the cities and communities that comprise Harris County.

Our Leadership Team: Fundraising

One of the promises I have made since I began running for HCRP Chair, is that I would run to lead an experienced and diverse team of local Republicans to rebuild the party quickly in order to win the 2010 elections. I know that there is too much to accomplish in too short of a period of time for one person to take-on all of the responsibility alone.

Over the last few months, I have been meeting with, and continue to meet with leaders of every faction, every age group and every community within the party. Many have already agreed to serve on the leadership team if we win, and I will be announcing several of them for key positions before the March primary. We will go into the election presenting ourselves as a team, and I will run as the leader of that team.

Consistent with my promise, I want to announce the first member of that team today.

Of the many issues facing the party, one issue that impacts every other issue is the financial condition of the HCRP. Last year, after deducting the money that flowed through the party between the state and the county party and from the incumbent judges’ campaign accounts for the joint judicial campaign, the party actually spent $416,427 on the operations of the party. Meanwhile, its independent fundraising base of 306 individuals, 13 entities and PACs and 4 local clubs, raised only $243,297 (in fact, $84,500 of that amount came from contributions from only two individuals). What kept the lights on at Richmond Avenue for the Republican Party in the most Republican-leaning metropolitan county in the country last year were continual infusions of cash from elected officials and candidates in a year when they needed the money for their own fall campaigns. That situation was pathetic.

But it’s gotten worse. As of June 30, 2009, after the party’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the party was left with a little over $11,000—not enough to continue paying its rent or its staff during May and June, and not enough to pay debts owed from the 2008 campaign cycle. Moreover, much of the money that was raised came from those same elected officials and candidates who desperately need the party to help them, not the other way around.

We plan to change this dynamic by creating a new fundraising initiative under the guidance of a new Vice Chair of Finance (who I will appoint as a Director until we amend the Bylaws). The Vice Chair will work with the Treasurer on creating and implementing the budget, and will supervise a fundraising team. We intend to simultaneously implement a Capital Campaign to raise funds to modernize the party to prepare for the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, while working to with the Vice Chair's team and the current finance committee of the Executive Committee to build on current ideas, and generate and implement additional ideas, for creating a sustaining contributor base.

To help me turn this around, I am proud to announce that long-time Republican activist and community volunteer, Robert “Bob” Shults, has agreed to serve as the Vice Chair of Finance. Professionally, Bob is a name shareholder with the law firm of McFall Breitbeil & Shults, P.C., is a former Assistant District Attorney for Harris County, a member of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel and Defense Research Institute, and was chair of a subcommittee on insurance coverage for environmental claims of the American Bar Association. His community work includes his service on the board of Child Advocates, Inc., and his appointment in May, 2008 by Governor Perry to serve on the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. Bob is a long-time member and former President of the Greater Houston Pachyderm Club, is the current President of United Republicans, and has campaigned and fundraised tirelessly for Republican candidates over the years.

I welcome Bob to our team.

Improving Communication Within Our Party

Last week, I addressed the credibility gap within the Republican Party in a post entitled, Matching the Message with the Messenger. In that post, I noted that we must realize that the gap is caused by a systemic problem within the party that must be addressed by focusing on communication, self-interest, competition, and culture. I promised then to elaborate on the communication issue, so I will do that now.

As I wrote last week, to improve communication we must begin to open a dialogue between our elected officials and our party leaders, activists and voters, in order to begin to harmonize the desires of our party with the issues faced by our elected officials on a daily basis in the process of administering their offices. The questions are “how do we open and sustain this dialogue”, and “what is the role of the HCRP in that process”. The answer is that the process must be layered throughout all of the groups and factions of the party (formally and informally), and the HCRP should be the primary facilitator of the dialogue. The goal must be to improve communication between our elected officials and the organization of the HCRP, and between our elected officials and our activists and voters.

There are several ways to start this process. First, I would quickly rebuild the relationship between the HCRP and our elected officials by creating a monthly meeting or luncheon to be attended by elected officials and the members of the HCRP Advisory Board. Each month, the meeting would include a different group of elected officials, e.g., judges, county commissioners, state legislators, state senators, Congressmen, etc. These meetings would focus on the concerns of both groups; how our elected officials are promoting, and/or can promote Republican policies; and how the HCRP can help our elected officials. The outcome of these meetings would be communicated through the secure intranet to the precinct chairs.

Second, our plan to reform the HCRP organization contemplates a high-level of interaction between the Campaign Support sub-organization from the Director/Vice-Chair down to the block captain, with candidates at all levels. The plan also contemplates interaction between the campaigns and the Communications sub-organization and the Outreach sub-organization. The divisions and groups within the proposed new HCRP organization are designed to support the campaigns of our candidates and elected officials by improving the process of identifying Republican voters, communicating with and mobilizing those voters, and getting those voters to the polls during the 13-day general election.

Third, we contemplate a greater use of the internet and radio to facilitate communication. The secure intranet will provide a means for candidates and elected officials to interactively communicate with everyone within the HCRP organization, to address concerns, to develop ideas, to mobilize help for campaigns, and to mobilize responses to the media. We also intend to take our coordinated messages to blogs, social-networking sites, and radio. We will use radio by creating 30 second to one-minute spots, narrated by our party leaders and elected officials, to tell the public about the work our elected officials are doing that is consistent with our principles, and to address important issues and policy initiatives with the public.

Fourth, I would continue the program of Townhall meetings and the plan for the “Roots” initiative started by the current team at Richmond Avenue, but I would revise their mission to focus primarily on rebuilding dialogue and relationships between our elected officials (and candidates) and the public. Instead of using the Townhall meetings to promote the current HCRP leadership team, I would use these meetings to promote the current work of our elected officials, by letting them discuss their offices and their ideas, and by giving them a forum to address the public’s concerns. Rather than promote the “Roots” program as a fundraising activity right now, I would first use the program to rebuild relationships between the party leaders and elected officials on the one hand, and activists at the grassroots on the other hand, by creating a process where these people interact at the precinct level with voters. Only after that relationship has been rebuilt, would I transition this program into a vehicle to create a new small-donor base for the party.

We can not begin to address the perception gap between the concerns of activists and our elected officials without taking concrete steps, like these, to improve communication. The HCRP can not continue to just criticize our Republican officials and widen this gap; it must take the lead in narrowing the gap by facilitating the communication.

A Time to Fight

A friend of mine sent me a copy of an email that is being circulated by Organizing For America (“OFA”), which already is the source of some chatter over Facebook and Twitter. As you may know, OFA is the affiliate of the Democratic National Committee that continues to control, communicate with, and mobilize Obama’s campaign foot soldiers. For the last several months, the focus of OFA has been on the Health Care issue.

The latest email told the recipient:

In my community in Indianapolis, OFA members like me are fighting hard to raise awareness and build support for health insurance reform. We're calling our neighbors, going door-to-door on the weekends, and even spreading the word through local barbershops. …

…I'm asking you join me in making sure Organizing for America has the resources to pull off this historic campaign. Can you join me in donating $1 per day until we enact health insurance reform?

My friend who received the email and forwarded it to me is a long-time Republican and McCain supporter, who somehow got on Obama’s email list during the campaign last year. In his email message, he asked me a simple question: where is our party organization at any level on this issue? As I pointed out in another recent post, the GOP should be developing and campaigning for a market-based alternative health-care system, but the question posed to me is more basic. Why is our party not matching OFA’s mobilization effort?

We complain amongst ourselves, discuss theory, and pass along complicated charts, but where is the mobilization? Where are the volunteers mobilized to call our neighbors, or go door-to-door, or talk in our local barbershops, or send text messages? These tasks should be the job of our Precinct Chairs and club members, and mobilization of those volunteers should be a fundamental task of a functioning party organization. Failure to mobilize the party organization to wage this fight is further evidence of a dysfunctional party apparatus.

I stress again, that we do need ideas and alternative policies, but we also need mobilization—and we needed it yesterday. Sending out 650-word essays on maintaining the status quo is not a plan for mobilization. We knew this issue was coming for over a year, and yet we have no plan for a concerted counter-attack. If we are to get this country, this state, and this county back on track for the GOP and our principles, this must change.

To make the necessary changes to combat and contain the explosion of government created by Obama and desired by Democrats here in Texas, the GOP must mobilize the growing millions of men and women who want sanity returned to the operation of our government. To start this mobilization, the GOP must understand what its goal must be: nothing short of rebuilding America consistent with its founding principles. To rebuild America, we must renew the Republican Party into a fighting machine for our ideals, which will require a modernization of our party organization into an apparatus capable of mobilizing our grassroots into action. Our fighting machine will need leaders: either those who already are in the party organization, or those from outside the party who share our principles and who are tired of the mess our political establishment in Washington has created and is expanding. We must look for leaders who will lead and work--in Congress, in our legislatures, and in our neighborhoods.

The plan we have proposed for the HCRP is designed to make these changes at the local level. The plan will only work, though, if our Precinct Chairs accept the mantle of leadership, work to mobilize the grassroots, and then lead them to act when we need action. If they won't do this, we must find those who will.

Unfortunately, we can not wait for the primary next March to start the needed transformation of the GOP, or the HCRP. Passively grumbling about the direction our country is taking, or emailing dissertations in favor of the status quo, won't stop the OFA, and it won't defeat the Democrats' plans for our state and country. The GOP, including the HCRP, must regroup now for the political battle it now faces, and then take the battle to the OFA for the hearts and minds of our neighbors. We need to join our Precinct Chairs and club members with the Tea Partiers and other activists into an immediate mobilization against the growth of the Obama government. If we do this, we will gain the trust and confidence of millions of disillusioned citizens yearning for leadership from the GOP, and we will lay the groundwork for victory in 2010. If we don't, we soon may not recognize the country we live in.

Compare Our Plan for the HCRP with Reagan’s Plan for a “New Republican Party”

As you can see on the revised menu on the right side of our home page, we now have posted excerpts from a speech Ronald Reagan gave in early 1977. The speech was one of a series of speeches he gave that year in which he outlined his vision for what he called the New Republican Party, in which social conservatives would join with economic conservatives and traditional Republicans to create a majority party. The plan focused on uniting and expanding the party into the middle class and minority communities based on shared principles, and envisioned a party of inclusion not exclusion.

Many people have asked me to explain the vision behind the plan we have proposed for the HCRP. It’s not new or revolutionary. Instead, it is grounded in this vision Ronald Reagan (along with Jack Kemp and others) first championed a generation ago.

Lots of people want to wear Reagan’s mantle, bask in the glow of his rhetoric, and claim to be Reaganesque in their approach to politics. Unfortunately, few people really remember all that he stood for, and all that he hoped to accomplish.

So, please take time to visit the posting of Reagan’s speech and read those excerpts. Once you do, I hope you will see the similarities between the times he faced and the plan he proposed, and the times we now face and the plan we now propose. In summary, what we want to accomplish is nothing short of finally implementing Reagan’s vision for a New Republican Party—and starting that process here in Harris County.

Culberson's SOS: We must respond!

If you were logged onto either Facebook or Twitter last night, you may have received a distress call like I did—like an SOS signal over a telegraph, a Mayday call from a ship or plane, or the an air-raid siren over London two generations ago. However, the source of this distress call came from an unusual victim: one of our local Republican Congressmen, John Culberson. As surprising as that source might be, if you care about liberty, free speech, and the future of our two-party system, the call was as dire as any you could imagine. You can read the series of message on Congressman Culberson's Twitter page.

As many of you know who have followed Representative Culberson’s exploits since the Democrats seized control of Congress in 2006, he has been a constant agitator for sunshine and disclosure in a chamber that increasingly is trying to cloak its work in secrecy. He has constantly challenged Speaker Pelosi’s strategy of burying legislators under reams of paper that no one could read and comprehend in a decade, let alone in the hours that House members are now given to absorb the content of what they are voting on—the content of policies that will change the nature of the federal governments reach and power for decades to come. Truly, Culberson’s has been a voice in the wilderness.

But no one could have imagined that Pelosi truly intended Culberson to be thrown into a wilderness where he could no longer be free to speak to his constituency. That, in essence, is what Culberson was trying to warn us about in those distress calls last night. The Speaker now is censoring everything he is trying to write to his constituents under the threat that he will no longer be able to use the mailing privileges of a House member if he continues to speak his mind in such writings. This is appalling, and it must not stand. We must answer this distress call with action.

At the very least, for now we must do what Congressman Culberson asked us to do in his last message: “Bombard Pelosi & House leadership; let the sun shine in; post all bills online for 72 hrs bf vote, open debate/amendments & end censorship!” To broadcast this message, I ask the current leadership team of the HCRP at Richmond Avenue to use the fruits from the new social-networking training programs, the new Rapid Response program, and the party email system, not to toot your own horn, but to alert Republicans to Culberson’s plight and how to respond. To Republican bloggers and talk-show hosts, flood the airwaves with Culberson’s distress call, and demand the Speaker to stop. To the Tea Partiers, 9/12 organizers and other grassroots conservatives, make your voices heard on this issue.

Above all else, let this be a wake-up call—as if we needed any more wake-up calls—to the realization that elections matter; that seeking change for the sake of change has consequences; and that ceding power to those who see no danger in the accumulation and exercise of power in a centralized authority will ultimately lead to the loss of the liberties we cherish. If a Congressman’s First Amendment right to political speech can be censored, whose speech, and whose liberty is safe? Republicans, we must unite, we must expand, we must organize, and we must win in the next elections—there is no alternative to taking back our country!

Listen to this distress call, and act!

Flattening the HCRP organization

The reality local Republicans face as we head into the 2010 election season is that, even if we have a perfect message and perfect candidates, if we don’t modernize the way the HCRP functions we will have a difficult time defeating the Democrats in Harris County. Much of the strategic plan I’ve proposed deals with this need to modernize the way we do business.

For the last half-century, successful organizations across the planet have changed the way they are structured in order to flatten their management, streamline their communications, and shorten the delivery time of their goods and services. Over the last decade, the Democratic Party at all levels implemented some of these ideas to be more effective at identifying Democratic voters, mobilizing them, and getting them to the polls. You could say that while the rest of the world has adopted the organization and leadership models of Drucker and Deming, the GOP has clung to the General Motors model—and we all know what happened to GM. It is time for the GOP to modernize, and we need to start here in Harris County.

Unfortunately, the plan the current team at Richmond Avenue has developed for the HCRP after seven years in office is not adequate. Regardless of many superficial similarities between the current HCRP plan being described at Townhall meetings and the plan posted on this website, there is a conflict of visions at the core of these plans, which will dramatically affect their implementation and effectiveness.

The incumbent’s plan continues to depend on the outdated, top-down, pyramidal organizational structure used in industry prior to 1960, which concentrates more responsibility in fewer hands, and which has been abandoned by virtually every other organization in the industrialized world. It depends on information and instructions flowing from the Chair and Senate District Chairs at the top of the pyramid down to the block captains, which means that action at the block and neighborhood level is completely dependent on action at each level of the pyramid. All along this type of process there are opportunities for bottlenecks that can impede the flow of information and instruction all the way down the chain of command. Bottlenecks eventually lead to inaction where it is needed—at the grassroots level. At the heart of this plan is a vision of our party that sees it comprised of a few shepherds and a lot of sheep—even among our Precinct Chairs, who themselves are elected officials. Besides being outdated and inadequate, the vision at the heart of this plan misreads the historic dynamic of the Republican Party.

Republicans are not, and never have been, sheep. We are a party of shepherds, not sheep. Appreciating this dynamic, the plan we have proposed creates a flexible structure that presses action and responsibility all the way down to the precinct and community levels, in order to capitalize on the remarkable creativity and energy of our activists. By building flexibility and autonomy into the organization, bottlenecks will be avoided. Avoiding bottlenecks will unleash the creativity and energy at our grassroots, which we will need in the upcoming election cycles to build the party and elect our candidates.

The structure we are proposing really involves a series of semi-autonomous and empowered structures. Each group will have a defined sphere of responsibility: the Director (or Vice Chair) for Campaign Support will have responsibility for the entire county, and will focus primarily on countywide races, countywide recruitment and training, and the coordination of volunteers from affiliate clubs; each Senate District Chair will have responsibility for the races in their respective Senate and legislative districts; each District Chair will have responsibility for the races and precincts in their legislative District; each precinct chair will have responsibility to mobilize the activists in their precincts; and each community representative will have responsibility to mobilize candidates and activists for the municipal, school board and utility district elections in their communities. While the Precinct Chairs are the lieutenants for mobilizing the partisan election turnout, the community representatives are the lieutenants in a separate branch of the party, who will work through the coordination of the Director (Vice Chair) for Campaign Support to focus on the non-partisan races and issues, and to help the Director (Vice Chair) for Outreach with outreach efforts.

At the center of each of these structures is its leader, who must listen to input from each member of the group, and then develop and communicate decisions to each member of the group. Policy and strategy will be set at the Director/Vice-Chair level with input from the Senate District Chairs and the HCRP officers, and the Director/Vice-Chair will directly manage the mobilization of the clubs and the community representatives. Each leader of the other groups will get input directly from one member of another sphere, and from the candidates with races in their sphere. Then the leader will manage the work of a group of activists.

Communications between and among leaders of each group and level, and with and among candidates, will be facilitated and encouraged through a secure intranet accessible by password from the HCRP’s website. A failure or bottleneck in one of these groups can be isolated and managed without threatening the effectiveness of the entire party or in an entire area of the county; as opposed to the pyramid structure, in which a bottleneck at any level above the grassroots could impede the effectiveness of the entire party, or in a large area of the county.

The Precinct Chair will mobilize and work with two groups of activists—the community representatives and the block captains—in order to identify Republican voters and get them to the polls. Coordination among the Precinct Chairs throughout the county will be maintained through the meetings of the Executive Committee, through communications on the secure intranet, and through periodic meetings and training sessions. By focusing the Precinct Chair role on mobilization, it frees each Precinct Chair to innovate, and gives each one more time to participate in the governance of the party through the Executive Committee.

This model, when implemented, will give each person in the organization a greater level of autonomy and ability to innovate, and provide them with greater access to information, while narrowing the focus of their positions to make their work more effective. In time, restructuring the organization to reward the creativity and leadership skills of our grassroots activists also will help the party recruit more Precinct Chairs.

This model will work only if we recognize and accept that everyone within the HCRP is a leader—a shepherd; and that with such leadership comes responsibility—ultimately, the responsibility to get our candidates elected.