New Thoughts From an Old Hand

Richard Viguerie writing for Reason on line
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http://www.reason.com/news/show/130562.html
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Viguerie’s quote.
When talking about the Religious Right, or as he calls them the “value voters” says the following.
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so. It’s the only part of the Republican Party where there really are ground troops. The Left has different minority groups, unions, any number of groups that serve as ground troops and Republicans don’t, other than the religious right leaders, [who are] the only ones with any troops out there. Economic conservatives don’t have troops on the ground and are not organized in the way values voters are.
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Viguerie calls the religious right value voters probably to help break up the stereotypes. Whatever he calls them I agree with the above assessment of the power of “troops on the ground”. During the last election it was quite apparent that what the Republicans lacked was a base of volunteers on the ground.
Last night at our County Executive Committee meeting Holly Hughes spoke a long time about why we lost the election. How it was a lot of complicated things that all got together and caused our defeat. She is right. The reasons why people lose election or win them for that matter are many and complicated. But let us not obfuscate the obvious.

Our loss was NOT a fluke.

In his insightful answerers to the interviewer from Reason, Viguerie reasons that we as Republicans need to form our own self financed autonomous power groups, such as the Left has; ie Unions, Minority groups of all kinds from Black to Hispanic thru Gay. They have in the past and now used many others. Viguerie talks of a need for Conservative groups to form independently outside of the Republican structure. Be more narrow in their scope and aid the Republican Party in it’s need with their specific expertise on issues and troops on the ground when elections roll around.
I draw from the conclusion that with enough of these groups, each focusing on a particular issue, when combined with the continuous drumbeat from ten different drums, a more or less cohesive picture or brand for our Party will emerge. It is our job to keep that message within the parameters of a Republican platform.
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It’s critical for conservatives to also operate independently of the GOP and launch thousands of new organizations at the national, state, and local level, dealing with narrowly focused issues, public education, or maybe in your local community it might be property rights, it could be taxes, whatever the issue might be, work on those issues wherever your abilities and talents lead you to. In my lifetime the most successful public policy issue has been the state of Israel. It’s so successful it’s off the table: Everyone supports Israel. The issue did not get tied to a political party, and any time you tie an issue to a party, your grandchildren will be fighting that issue.
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Viguerie has within his construct planks that include limited government, fiscal restraint, and the Religious or values voter.

Today I need to figure out how to transpose that to the local or County and Township and precinct level. So often Republicans get carried off into the big picture when talking about local stuff. One of our local group is trying to do that with a local issue about a parking garage. The difficulty Republicans have with issues is that we start trying to look 20 years down the road. That is our “responsibility” talking and that is a good thing.

We need however to try to also focus on how this issue will effect the everyday person. We have to also make it personal. Along with the facts and figures we have to continually make the effort to transpose those facts and figures into the effects they will have upon the individual people.

As with most things a two sided approach seems needed. The big and little pictures if you will. I don’t pretend to know the answer, but that could be one of the “thousands of new organizations at the national, state, and local level, dealing with narrowly focused issues, public education, or maybe in your local community”. From above quote by Viguerie.

Either way Richard Viguerie's new ideas seem grounded in Old ways and at least point out what is needed in general. It is up to us to teach ourselves how to apply those ideas to the specific and make it happen. It is up to us to take that responsiblity for our actions or lack of actions to secure and make flourish that Freedom so generously given to us.

Everyday on a Personal Level.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative