The future transition—an Audit and Inventory will be needed as we hit the ground running

Questions have been raised over the last few months about the accuracy of the reporting of contributions and expenditures by the HCRP; about the failure to timely or completely pay payroll, rent, and vendor bills; about payments made by the HCRP to a company owned by the current Executive Director; about the relationship between the incumbent’s campaign and other organizations and PACs; and about who has possession or access to the property and bank accounts of the party. If I am elected to be the next Chair of the HCRP, I will swiftly move to conduct an audit of the party, and an inventory of its property.

I do not plan to use this audit and inventory as a basis for recrimination or criticism of the outgoing team, nor am I committing to this course of action because I think there has been any malfeasance by the current team at Richmond Avenue. Instead, I am doing it so that the party and its contributors will have confidence in the new direction of the party: confidence that we know the actual baseline condition of the property at the time we take over; confidence that we have complete possession and control of the party’s assets; confidence that we understand all current obligations of the party; and confidence that our budget and fundraising needs are based on reality.

The minute my term begins, I will be ready to assume managerial control of the party:

* We will have the party management team in place.
* Based on discussions I am having now, we will have a new Executive Director ready to start work and a bookkeeper, as well as an accounting firm ready to help with the audit and inventory.
* We will have a team of volunteers ready to get the office functioning and be prepared for a special election for the Senate, if that is scheduled before November, 2010.
* We will have a preliminary budget plan and a fundraising plan ready to implement.
* We will have a team ready to implement a new design and function for the party on the Internet, and to create or update a modern, stand-alone database of Republican voters and contributors for the parties use.

In fact, we will be prepared to implement these under any condition we may inherit: if the party is handed over intact as it now exists; or, if we walk into an empty office on Richmond Avenue, as Betsy Lake found when she took over the party many years ago.

I intend to fully cooperate with the current leadership to have a smooth and fast transition. Although Section 171.028 of the Texas Election Code gives the current team up to 30 days to fully transfer the books and records, the incumbent is on notice now that there may be a change in administration, and so, for the good of the party and its ticket in 2010, I hope he and his team will be ready to hand-over the property of the party immediately after the election.

What I Intended to Say Last Tuesday Evening

Because a scheduled speaker had canceled on the Clear Lake Republican Club at the last minute, it attempted to invite each of the candidates for the Chair of the HCRP to speak to the club about the meaning of the November, 2009 elections. Paul Simpson and I responded and agreed to attend; the club’s program director was not aware that Don Large had entered the race, so he did not receive an invitation (though he did attend the meeting after he learned of the event); and the incumbent, as usual, did not respond.

Then, just hours before the meeting, and after emails had been sent to the members about the meeting, the Executive Director of the HCRP contacted the President of the CLRC and tried to get him to cancel the program. As a compromise, and to help the club (even though its bylaws did not prohibit the program that had been planned), Paul and I agreed to limit our remarks to avoid saying anything about the local Republican Party, or our race—and we honored that agreement.

However, I never agreed to remain silent about what happened.

There are two problems with what happened Tuesday: it is further evidence that the paid and volunteer staff of the HCRP, as well as its assets, are being used inappropriately to support of the incumbent’s campaign; and that the current team at Richmond Avenue will attempt to intimidate any opposition to its continued control of the party. I will not be so intimidated, and I will publicly disclose and fight any future attempt to apply such tactics in this campaign. These practices are antithetical to the legacy of Lincoln and Reagan that we say we embrace.

So, in addition to what I did say Tuesday night, here is what I was prepared to say about the HCRP, and the behavior of some of the people who are supporting the current team at Richmond Avenue—

Since late last year, when I, and others, began agitating for real reform of the local party, the incumbent and his team have generated a lot of noise and activity, but they have not figured out how to turn this activity into real results: they have not incorporated the clubs and newly energized citizens into the party; they have not embraced conservatives in communities of color; they still don’t understand that an election now takes place over two weeks, not just on the last day; and they are providing no value to the effort to elect Republicans.

The prime example of these failures can be found in the Voter’s Guide that the party mailed on the eve of the final Election Day. The party charged candidates from $5,000 to $12,500 to run ads in the Guide; it allowed Democrats to buy ads in the Guide for races in which they were running against a Republican; and the Guide was not received by voters until after more than a week of early voting had finished. The only effective result of this endeavor was to put the incumbent’s face, and his message about his re-election campaign, in the hands of 60,000 voters—free of charge to his campaign.

The incumbent’s self-promotion is not helping the party grow or win elections—nor are the words of his long-time associates.

The recent quoted comments about Annise Parker, which were made by long-time associates of the incumbent, are simply deplorable. They should not be embraced by our party. If they are embraced, we will drive people away from this party who otherwise share our principles.

I am not endorsing either Democrat left in the Mayoral run-off; but I believe that Ms. Parker, like any other candidate, should be judged by political leaders based on her competence to be Mayor, her political experience, and on the policy positions she is actually promoting—not on her sexual orientation. If some individuals feel a strong religious impulse to oppose a certain candidate, so be it—that is their right; but it is beneath the dignity of our party's heritage—as the party of Lincoln and Reagan—for the political leaders of our party, or their surrogates, to join and give support to such an impulse as the official, or de facto, position of our party. I know of no political leader in this county, no matter how good a person he or she may be, who is on the short list for canonization—we are all sinners. If the GOP starts to base its membership and support on the prerequisite of having a clean record with God, we will become the smallest political party in the world in record time.

The restraint I am advocating is not capitulation to ideas, agendas, or behaviors we do not condone—it is simply the right way to treat a fellow citizen and neighbor.

As we face the 2010 elections, we Republicans must focus positively and aggressively on the serious issues that confront this community now, and will confront it in the future. The evidence from the 2009 election cycle shows that the current team at Richmond Avenue still doesn’t understand how to do this.

Conservatism in America—What is it, and where does it go from here?

Since I started my campaign for the Chair of the HCRP, I have tried to focus on solutions to problems that are inhibiting our ability to elect Republican candidates locally: a perceived closed culture within our party, which inhibits assimilation of new people and ideas into our organization; a message that is confused and feeds a continuing lack of credibility with voters; a top-down, pyramidal organizational structure that inhibits action and innovation; a failure to grow by establishing permanent relationships in every community; and a lack of competent management.

However, after talking with many Republicans and disaffected conservatives over the last few months, I realize that it will be hard to focus on these issues without addressing the fundamental “Elephant in the Closet” for our party: as the conservative party in this country, how do we define conservatism today, and where do we take conservatism in America from here? Many people want answers to these questions before they will look at the organizational problems facing the GOP locally. To address these questions, I’ve incorporated an idea into our campaign—Renewing the American Community.

Over the next two weeks, I will try and address these issues in a two-part post. This first post will focus on what I believe it means to be a Conservative and Republican in America; and in my second post, I will try to present some ideas about where we take conservatism in America from here.

Part 1—What is American Conservatism, and what is a Republican?

We live in a remarkable, transitional moment, and many of us approach the gravity of this moment with some anxiety. We sense—I believe, correctly—that the cultural, economic, and political world that has developed since the stock-market crash of October, 1929, and that the United States has dominated almost totally, is finally coming to an end; but we have no idea what the new world will look like. The movement of world events seems to point toward a future in which international trade and communication will continue to pull the people of the world into a more cooperative, seamless relationship with each other, though with all the potential for tensions that close proximity creates. It is breaking down old allegiances of individuals to home and nation, just as it is creating new allegiances and localized needs and exacerbating old tribal and religious tensions.

Of course nothing so remarkable really happens in an instant. This process has been unfolding slowly for at least the last 40 years while we enjoyed the continued fruits of American dominance. Although, many of us noted and tried to prevent the worst consequences of this process on the collective character of our society, it is both alarming and frustrating to realize that the pace of the unraveling has accelerated over the last year to a point where it now feels out of our control.

In response to this moment, most of us in America are stuck in a political fight between two old orthodoxies unwilling to confront the future. On the left, the Democratic Party is using this moment not to craft a truly new approach to our future, but to finally implement its “transformative” statist, European-style social order, which it has championed since the 1930s. In fact, it is proceeding so well on this path that Europe has awarded its highest honor—the Nobel Peace Prize—to Obama in recognition of his efforts so far to align our country with the European approach to society.

Meanwhile, the GOP seems adrift in its response—continuing its rhetorical defense of cherished principles that have been the foundation of the American system, but without presenting any ideas of how to make those principles relevant to the future we now face.

Those of us watching this scrum day after day have finally had it, and we want our politicians to listen to us and our concerns, and to act as adults in facing this future. Whichever party breaks out of this old paradigm first will control how the future unfolds, and how this country and our citizens are guided into that future. As a conservative and a life-long Republican, I want the GOP to be that party.

But to be the party of the future, we must understand our mission in American politics—the GOP is the conservative party in America. We must understand what that means before we can create a positive agenda for the future.

I believe that to fully understand a concept, one must delve into, and understand its meaning. So, let’s start with some basic definitions for the words “society” and “conservatism”.

“Society” is defined generally in the American Heritage Dictionary as “the totality of social relationships among humans. A group of humans broadly distinguished from other groups by mutual interests, participation in characteristic relationships, shared institutions, and a common culture.” “Conservatism” is defined as “the inclination to maintain the existing or traditional order; a political philosophy or attitude emphasizing respect for traditional institutions, …and opposition to sudden change in the established order.”

Now let’s put these two definitions together to describe a conservative: a person who respects the traditional institutions and established order that maintain the totality of social relationships among a group of humans, and protects such institutions and order from sudden change.

Notice the emphasis on “sudden change”. The role of a conservative in guiding change in society was described eloquently by Indiana Senator Albert Beveridge just after the turn of the last century:

Conservatism does not mean doubt or indecision. It does not mean wise looks masking vacuity, nor pompous phrase as meaningless as it is solemn. Conservatism means clear common sense, which equally rejects the fanaticism of precedent and the fanaticism of change. It would not have midnight last just because it exists; and yet it knows that dawn comes not in a flash, but gradually…. So the conservative is the real statesman. He brings things to pass in a way that lasts and does good.

Let’s now take our definitions, and Beveridge’s description, and put them together to describe an American Conservative: a person who respects the traditional institutions and established order that maintain the totality of social relationships among Americans, and protects American institutions and order by guiding events and policies in a way that brings to pass positive and lasting change. I believe that the Republican Party always has been the natural home of this American Conservative.

Now that we have our definition of a Republican—an American Conservative—we must understand the “traditional institutions and established order” that are peculiar to America, and which a Republican is devoted to protect and guide. That’s where our story presents a paradox: Republicans are the custodians of the most liberating political ideas, institutions, and order man ever devised; so, our mission is to preserve an exceptional tradition for our posterity.

America may be the child of Europe, but those English and Dutch settlers who arrived here in the early 1600s began an experiment that separated us for all time from the European experience. They came to this continent to form a society based on an independence from a state, a church, or an anointed class of elites; but not on an independence from each other. Instead, they formed communities based on an interdependence with each other grounded on the most cherished principles of liberty and love of neighbor derived from the fundamental ideas of politics and faith they learned from Roman and Greek history, and from the New Testament. When it came time to form governments, they designed governments that would preserve the liberty and private relationships already thriving in these communities. So, while Europeans have shed much blood since 1789 to allow democratic participation in their existing governments, our mission has been to preserve our unique experiment in self-government, and guide it into the future.

It is this unique society, based on the private relationships formed in communities—families, neighborhoods, churches, clubs, etc.—upon which our founders formed state and federal governments “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” The Republican Party was formed when the future of this exceptional society was severely tested because of its failures to live-up to its principles. The GOP dedicated itself from its beginning to the preservation of the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence and embodied in the provisions of Constitution, and to the inclusion of all men and women into our unique society of private relationships and communities.

It is this unique society that Republicans are dedicated to preserve and guide into the future, and to protect from any effort to make it more like any other society—European or otherwise. With this as its mission, the GOP is truly the most exceptional political party in the world. To be true to this mission, the GOP at all levels must create a positive agenda of ideas and policies that will preserve our unique societal institutions and order as we enter this new era; and that will preserve the “exceptionalism” of our nation and society as we participate in the more seamless world that is emerging.

What will be the message that will guide the mission of the GOP and American Conservatism as we develop this positive agenda for the future? Basically, that message must be consistent with what it has always been: the promotion of individual empowerment, and of the private relationships that nourish it. This means:

1. We must seek to preserve, enrich and improve the institutions that have protected our liberties, including our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, our civic associations, and our local governments.

2. We must seek to protect the free-market/free trade economic system, which insulates our private decisions and relationships from the control of government.

3. We must seek to enforce the Constitution, its system of federalism, and its embrace of a limited (yet effective) role for government at all levels.

4. We must seek to maintain a strong military and diplomatic defense, for we will continue to be the defensive and moral arsenal for the West for the foreseeable future.

5. We must seek to maintain a proper balance between the isolation and chaos caused by promoting unbridled liberty, and the tyranny created by regimented conformity to one specific set of customs and traditions.

6. We must seek to promote the development of individual character and wisdom each person needs to truly enjoy freedom over the course of a lifetime.

7. We must always acknowledge that the inalienable rights listed in the Declaration of Independence apply to all people at every stage of life.

8. Finally, we must recognize that, if we are to maintain America's unique society, we must find a way to participate in the new emerging world as an equal member, but in a way that does not diminish or subjugate the exceptionalism of America.

In my next post, I will discuss some of the positive ideas that can turn this message into policies for the future.

A Proposed Educational Revolution for the GOP

The Problem

In Meredith Wilson's The Music Man, the con man, Harold Hill, convinces the residents of River City, Iowa, that he has developed a new method for learning music, called the "think system". Hill’s theory is that if a musician uses the "think system" properly, he or she does not need to rely on written music. Instead, the musician only needs to think about the song long enough and hard enough, and he or she will be able to play it flawlessly. By the end of the play, the townspeople know they have been conned because it is obvious that the "think system" doesn't work, but Hill is saved by the local music teacher. It's a delightful story, but real life doesn't end that way.

As the noted educator, E.D. Hirsch, Jr., has tried to tell us for a generation, the American people have been conned since the 1930s with a version of the "think system", but there has been no happy ending. Hirsch’s central premise is that the decline in educational performance in our schools is directly related to a conscious decision by professional educators to abandon the use of a content-based curriculum in our public schools. Instead of a content-based curriculum, the education establishment has promoted a “child-centered” method of teaching that leaves each child to discover knowledge on their own.

As Hirsch makes clear in his most recent work, The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, this trade-out has produced societal illiteracy, because it led to a systemic failure to pass on the basic knowledge of language, history, and culture every American needs in order to function as a productive member of our society.

The illiteracy has led to a social nightmare in many communities, where up to 50% of students who start school will never graduate from high school, and 87% will never graduate from college. We are under-educating too many people, thereby condemning them, their families and their neighborhoods to chronic crime, deviancy, underemployment and poverty. Merely giving parents the choice to move their children to other schools that use the same teaching methods, or raising school and teacher performance criteria without addressing classroom content, will not fix this problem. Instead, the source of the problem—the content of our schools’ curricula—must be squarely addressed.

Let’s look at a practical example of how this problem plays out in our classrooms. When children enter pre-school or kindergarten, at some point they realize that there is a clock on the wall, but they do no yet know what it means, why it is there, and what you do with it. This information has to be taught and reinforced so the student will process it in many diverse contexts over years. So, in these early classes when students are introduced to reading a clock, their science instruction should be coordinated to teach about the rotation of the earth; math instruction should give equations and story problems that introduce real problems related to calculating and managing time that are age-appropriate; vocabulary lessons should introduce time-related words (e.g., minute, hour, day, night, month, season, year, and annual); grammar lessons should use these words in context; and short stories should be read that discuss time and seasons in context. Provided with this foundation, the child can begin to manage and understand time, but also will possess some of the linguistic and conceptual tools needed to later understand: the stories of Nathanial Hawthorne and poems of Robert Frost in which the setting in a specific season is critical to the meaning of their works; the relationship of time to the cadence and meaning of a Poe story or poem; why Washington’s army had to camp at Valley Forge, and why his winter crossing of the Delaware River was so dramatic; the importance of annual floods along the Nile to the building of the Egyptian empire; and much more.

If contextual facts are not taught early and incrementally, the student will find it hard to progress in school. Simply learning critical-thinking skills and how to apply them, without being taught contextual facts (and then learning to build on them with more contextual facts in diverse contexts), will impair a student's ability to continue to learn. Take a child who has lived in a home and neighborhood in Houston where many adults don’t have regular jobs, or where adults don’t functionally interact with their children. In the context of the previous example, have those children seen the seasons change enough to comprehend it? Have they seen a rhythm to their parent's daily routine, or heard people discuss deadlines and time commitments, enough to understand the concept and importance of time? If not, how will they discover the facts needed to critically think about these ideas?

By not teaching incremental, age-appropriate, comprehensive factual content--or core knowledge--cognitive science tells us that these students, who have no where else to “discover” such factual content, will fail. And guess what...students from these neighborhoods have failed and dropped-out of school in alarming numbers, while never having discovered the knowledge of language, history and culture they actually needed to succeed. It's like we've been asking our children to hum a tune they've never heard, or play a song on an instrument without learning the notes of the song or how to play the instrument--we've asked them to do something that can't be done, except by pure accident. We should never have left something so important, and so expensive, for our society to pure accident.

As Hirsch points out, we know how to fix this problem—we need to address the content of what we are teaching our children. If we fix this problem, it will be much easier to fix the structural tax and spending issues related to delivering education. If we don't fix this problem, no amount of tinkering with salaries, standards, taxes or budgets will improve the education of our children.

The GOP Solution

The GOP at all levels must address this problem as part of our effort to reconnect with the American public. Remember that the only institution in American life, which has involved, at some time and in some way, every individual, every family, every neighborhood, and every level of government, is our local school, and its problems affect us all—now and into the future. Recently, I stated during a candidates’ forum that I believe a central mission of a revitalized GOP must be to rebuild not just our commitment to liberty, but also the obligations that come with liberty, in order to defeat the Democratic Party’s embrace of statism. I call this commitment an effort to “Renew the American Community.” As part of this renewal of our sense of community with our neighbors, we must fix our schools.

What has been lost from our education is an understanding and appreciation by our children of the “American Story”: the cumulative wisdom of Western thought, together with the core principles and contexts underlying the structure and operation of American society. While our politics—both liberal and conservative—has focused almost exclusively on improving the process of delivering education, it has ignored the loss of this content from our classrooms. As a result, as many as 87% of our children in certain neighborhoods in Harris County do not possess the tools they will need to succeed in today’s economic environment, and virtually no one is being educated to succeed as a citizen—unless by accident, or outside of the public school system.

This American Story should become the context in which the student’s exposure to every other academic discipline is processed, and in which he or she would then process a lifetime of learning after leaving school. This story, properly taught, should instill the student with the means of understanding not only the physical world they inhabit, and the political and economic system of our country, and of other countries; but also with the ethical means to make the right decisions as a member of the community. Once we decide on this course of action, textbooks must be developed in every discipline to mutually support this curriculum, and a modern and efficient delivery system must be developed at the state and local levels to provide this education.

The American Story should never be used to promote an ideology, religion or political party in any classroom or discipline. Instead, it refers to the contextual knowledge every child needs to possess in order to fully comprehend and use the language, mathematics, science, art, literature, history, economics, law, and culture of our society. The American Story provides a frame of reference to each child that is consistent with the great philosophical and political traditions championed by both the Republican and Democratic Parties, and with the theology of all the major religious traditions observed in this country, but without indoctrinating any child with a specific point of view. This story gives them the tools to function as adult citizens who will contribute positively to their families and neighborhoods.

As the party that prides itself on being the custodian of our society’s basic principles, and on preserving local control of our schools, the GOP must work to end the current social fraud caused by our educational "think system". The Republican Party at all levels must fight to improve the content of the education we provide to all our children, so that they, and their future families and neighborhoods, flourish. For if they flourish, they will be more inclined to embrace the individual obligations that come with the gift of liberty, which, in turn, will help us "Renew the American Community" without embracing an ever-growing government. As part of this fight, the HCRP should champion reform of the content of the curriculum in our local schools by supporting educators, school board candidates, and legislators who will address this issue.

We Saw the Opposition on September 3—Are We Ready for the Battle Ahead?

On the evening of Thursday, September 3rd, I put on a red T-shirt that said “Vote Republican” and joined the crowd outside City Hall in Downtown Houston.

The focus of the event was the health-care issue. Liberal interest groups held a “protest” rally for Obamacare, while others of us lodged a counter-protest off to one side of the steps and reflecting pool. I spent much of my time watching, listening, and talking to fellow counter-protesters. I want to share with you what I learned.

First, I want to congratulate John Faulk, Eric Story, Josh Parker and the Texas Tea Party Society of Houston, and the several “right to life” and religious organizations, who came together on short notice to coordinate the counter-protest. I also want to commend Roy Morales and Chris Daniel for coming and participating. Although we were out-numbered, the size and energy of the counter-protest successfully drained some of the time and attention of the speakers away from what they had planned to be a love-fest for Obamacare.

However, what I saw concerned me greatly, and underscored one of the many reasons why I am running for HCRP Chair: the GOP is still not ready to fight the ground battle against the Obama machine.

Although the polls show that public support for the Democratic takeover of the health-care industry is plummeting, only the Democratic Party and its close allies appear ready for this fight. The sponsors of the rally were Organizing for America (an official affiliate of the Democratic National Committee), ACORN, and several unions. Their participants were bused to the rally and signed-in, their signs were pre-printed and professional, and the media was pre-positioned to record the rally from a position that exaggerated the strength of their numbers.

Meanwhile, the courageous individuals who showed-up to form a counter-protest were denied a permit to use a microphone or bullhorn, and were physically relegated to one area off to the side opposite of where the media was stationed. Except for the Texas Tea Party Banner, and a few pre-printed signs and cards, the signs held by the counter-protesters were hand-made and hard to see from a distance. This ad hoc assembly was no match for the Democratic coordination.

The GOP needs a functioning party apparatus at all levels—local, state, and national—that is ready to go toe-to-toe with the Obama machine that the Democratic Party is operating. We won’t assemble this apparatus by co-opting the name and email lists of the Tea Party and other new organizations for use by our party leaders (nor will we get very far when our current chair sends an email out that correctly notifies the base about Al-Jazeera's inexplicable presence in our County Jail, but then threatens public safety by mistakenly asking people to call and clog an emergency phone line). A party takeover of these new organizations, especially by the Keystone Cops operation now in control of Richmond Avenue, is not the answer.

This is not a top-down war—it must be fought from the grassroots, by the grassroots. Rather than takeover or co-opt the new organizations, the party needs to invite these new activists—both the leaders and the members of these new separate organizations—into the party, invite them into empty precinct chairs and other positions, and invite them into our affiliated clubs and organizations (or encourage them to affiliate their new clubs with the GOP). Then, we need to support their energy and innovation by helping to mobilize them into a force to rival Organizing for America.

If we don’t take these steps this fall, and channel the energy of these individuals into our primary and to help elect our candidates in 2010, we may look back on this time as the greatest wasted opportunity the GOP ever had.

If we are brave enough to open the party to this new opportunity, and act boldly now, I am confident we will re-take what we lost in Harris County, preserve what we have in Austin, and eventually re-take Washington.

A Plan for Future Coordination: The HCRP and the TFRW clubs in Harris County

Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to the Bay Area Republican Women's Club ("BARWC"), an affiliated member of the Texas Federation of Republican Women ("TFRW"). As anyone who has ever been involved with the party knows, the secret to the GOP’s electoral success is the hard work and dedication of its women—as volunteers, as organizers, as fundraisers, and as candidates. The indispensable vehicle for mobilizing our women has been our Republican Women’s Clubs. Unfortunately, what I observed as a candidate during the last election cycle was a disconnection between many of the TFRW clubs in Harris County and the operation of the HCRP during the last election cycle.

The analogy I’ve used to describe this disconnection is to an old pocket watch. For a pocket watch to work, the gears must not only turn, they must engage each other. During the last election cycle, our clubs and party organization functioned like a watch in which the gears are all moving, but none of them engage each other. The outcome was predictable. Now, the gears need to be re-engaged for us to re-capture Harris County for the GOP.

Therefore, during my recent speech I outlined my proposal to restore the historic role of our women’s clubs in the operation of the HCRP as part of my strategic plan. To restore that role, I’ve specifically proposed the following:

*Inclusion in the governance of the HCRP. I intend to revise the structure of the HCRP’s Advisory Board to dedicate 4 of the 15 seats on the board to representatives of the TFRW Clubs located in Harris County. The proposal is that each of the four seats will be assigned to clubs located in each of the county commissioners’ precincts, and the seats themselves will rotate among the clubs in each precinct on an annual basis. Therefore, no club or region will be allowed to dominate involvement on the board, or be left out of involvement on the board. I promise that the final design of this plan will be decided after consultation with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW.

*Providing the core of our volunteer staff. As part of the effort to get local chapters of all of the affiliated clubs working with the HCRP again, I will ask the TFRW clubs to establish a volunteer staff to provide for continuous, open operation of the headquarters office, and any and all satellite offices in the county, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week throughout the year. During the 60 days leading up to and including the early vote and Election Day, the operation of these offices should be staffed at least 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. As part of this effort, I will ask the TFRW to work with the HCRP to design and implement local programs, like after-school activities, adult education classes and citizenship classes, which can be conducted in future satellite offices.

*Direct involvement in the GOTV effort. In consultation with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW, and the presidents of the TFRW clubs throughout Harris County, the new Vice Chair (Director) of Campaign Support will work with the clubs to coordinate volunteer participation with campaigns and the party’s mobilization and get-out-the-vote efforts.

*Inclusion in the communication loop within the party organization. As affiliated organizations develop online, the HCRP will link the TFRW club websites and social networking sites into the secure intranet to be developed for the party, in order to facilitate communication and coordination among campaigns, precinct chairs and club members in preparation for, and during the 13-day get-out-the-vote effort. These links will create “virtual” satellite offices that are linked into the full menu of online party communications and organizations.

*Cooperation to expand our outreach through electronic technology. The HCRP will work with our affiliated clubs, including the TFRW clubs, to promote the creation of new online “virtual” clubs as part of an effort to embrace younger voters. Many people under 35 years of age spend hours socializing and networking with others online in ways that mimic the ways we and our parents used our Republican clubs and community service organizations. We need to try and harness this energy and socialization to our advantage by learning to incorporate these new networking methods into the culture of our historic club-based organizational structure.

*Inclusion in the training process. The HCRP will develop and implement a Candidate Training Seminar and a Consultant Training Seminar, with the help of affiliated clubs, including the TFRW clubs. These seminars should provide consistent training in campaign technology, marketing and get-out-the-vote activities to all prospective candidates and their consultants. Access to this seminar should then be provided on a quarterly basis in the future.

*Coordination of candidate forums. The HCRP will include the TFRW clubs in the scheduling of formal candidate forums during the primary season.

*Involvement in the creation of a sustaining-donor fundraising campaign. The HCRP will ask the clubs to coordinate an annual fundraising drive for the party during the spring of each year to augment our development of a sustaining base of small and medium-size contributors for the party.

*Providing staff for our "war room" to respond to media stories. The HCRP will develop an online virtual “war-room” through the new interactive website. The purpose of the war-room will be to serve as a fast-paced clearinghouse of information that would provide precinct chairs and activists with quick responses to negative stories about Republican candidates and policies after the stories appear in local media and on liberal blogs. Our activists can then use this information to rebut these stories when talking with our voters, and to send rebuttals to the media and blogs. We will ask members of our TFRW clubs to help staff this war room, and to mentor young, computer-savvy volunteers who we also will recruit.

*Involvement in the public promotion of the party and its principles. The HCRP will develop a media plan to re-educate voters about our principles and to promote our message. This plan will include the creation of short spots on local media and the Internet, including radio and TV stations that service our Target Outreach Communities, in which noted spokespersons and party officials discuss the application of our principles to real issues. We will ask our TFRW clubs to provide volunteers to help prepare, produce and participate in these spots.

*Involvement in the process of meeting and registering new voters. When schools start in August of each year, the HCRP needs to have representatives on those campuses talking to the new incoming students. When new housing developments start to sell homes, or when occupancy permits are issued, we should be there with a welcome basket of sorts (including voter-registration forms). When a new business opens, we should greet the new entrepreneur with our message and our best wishes. I will work with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW clubs, and the presidents of the local TFRW clubs in Harris County to provide volunteers to staff this project.

*Support for GOTV in cross-county races. Finally, as part of a new coordination effort with adjacent counties with which we share overlapping congressional, legislative and judicial districts, the new Vice Chair (Director) of Campaign Support will work with the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW clubs, and the presidents of the local TFRW clubs in those affected districts, to help with joint, cross-county mobilization and get-out-the-vote efforts.

In addition to these proposed steps, I and the members of the new leadership team will include the President of the Greater Houston Council of the TFRW in our consultations as we develop and implement our reform agenda for the HCRP. I am confident that if we work together, we will restore the prominence of the GOP in Harris County. I look forward to that effort.

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.