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New Boss Same As The Old Boss?

By: anacreon (Diary)  |  November 14th, 2010 at 01:01 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Saul Anuzis announced his intention to run against Michael Steele for RNC Chair the other day.  Part of Anuzis’ campaign for RNC Chair centers around wanting to raise money for a “fully funded Victory program” to ensure that the Republicans win the close races that we didn’t win this year.

First, I would like to say that I am not defending Michael Steele in this article; I’m pushing for Erick Erickson to be RNC Chair.

Not that we got that out of the way, back to Anuzis.  The Victory program, which involved setting up call centers and identifying voters, was a mixed bag in my opinion.  Millions of voters were identified via the VIctory program which helped campaigns to funnel resources in the right direction and helped GOTV efforts as well.

However, simply calling voters is not enough.  Neither Steele or Anuzis identified the real problem – lack of GOTV efforts by precinct committeemen and county chairmen.  Anuzis, in his announcement, does bring up the issue of the GOP “ground game”:

I will be a nuts and bolts type of chairman, one who will concentrate on the fundamentals and ensure we properly develop and execute our ground game. It will be my goal to create an unprecedented organizational base, fully funded, to make more phone calls, knock on more doors, mail more material and compete on the airwaves to get our message across.

That’s great, but when states like Illinois – which has about 51% of precincts absent – Anuzis’ statement means nothing.  Of the 49% of precincts that are filled in Illinois, how many of those precinct committeemen actually got out and knocked on doors?  Not many I would gamble.  And there seems to be no pressure on the county chairmen to fill empty precincts or to weed out the precinct committeemen that don’t do anything other than show up at a meeting once a month.  Losing some close state races – Bill Brady for Illinois Governor – Anuzis discusses were partially lost due to the lack of an adequate “ground game”.

That’s Illinois, but I openly wonder if this is a problem across the other states.  The Victory program means nothing if there is nobody to knock on the doors and hand out literature.  In my home county here in Illinois, which is very Republican friendly and has an active Tea Party, the Republican party walked every precinct within the city limits.  Likewise, the Tea Party walked precincts, walked parades, and made phone calls on behalf of a Circuit Court judge.  The results?  Bill Brady won the county with 75.9% of the vote and the Judge won by over 5,000 votes – the largest margin in his 9 county area with a 58% county turnout.

In Illinois, we had a microcosm of the RINO vs conservative battle that took place in many of the primary races around the nation.  We also saw “moderates” sit on their hands as some our conservative candidates lost (Bill Brady in particular) and we now get to see these same “moderates” wringing their hands in glee at the conservative candidates’ defeats.  I’m sure there are plenty of “moderates” basking in the glory of conservative defeats around the country as well.  This turn of events worries me when someone running for RNC Chief states:

I will be a team player and work cooperatively with the NRSC, NRCC and RGA to elect more Republicans across our country. I will not take sides in the presidential primary contest but will be a reliable player that the eventual presidential nominee will be able to depend on, and work with closely and cooperatively through the presidential campaign.

Anuzis may not pick sides, but the NRSC and NRCC has a proven track record of taking sides.  The RGA’s track record is much better in my opinion.  To work “cooperatively” with NRSC and NRCC is nothing more than tacitly agreeing to them picking the winners and losers so that their candidates better fit into the mold of the squish.

We need a conservative as RNC Chair.  We need a RNC Chair that is going to put leverage on the state GOP Chairs to fill precincts – especially with committeemen that want to do something.  We need a RNC Chair that doesn’t just want wins, but quality wins with conservative candidates.  We need a RNC Chair that understands that the pendulum has swung back in the direction of conservatism.  We need a RNC Chair that will take on the Beltway mentality.  We need a RNC Chair who really knows the GOTV effort.  Anuzis does have a good point when he says our GOTV efforts are the best way to prevent being “overwhelmed by the efforts of the unions, the Obama campaign and all their allies”.

Crossposted from Downstate Illinois Advocate

COMMENTS

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  • http://www.facebook.com/BigGator5 BigGator5

    I just joined the local Republican Executive Committee (REC) and I can testify to the holes in precinct committeepeople*. I don’t know the exact number, but we don’t have committeepeople in about 20 precincts! I can honestly throw a stone and hit five of them before it lands. However in some precincts, like mine, we have the maxium number of committeepeople allowed (we can have alternates if get more applicants).

    My county (Lake County, FL) went blood red in the election, but only because this is a very conservative county.

    Now I don’t know what it is like in other states, but in Florida you can only be a precinct committeeperson in the precinct you live in. My solution would be to relax that a little and allow people outside the precinct to represent it, with a few minor stipulations.

    If you really want to change things in RNC and the state level, you will have to start at the bottom. That means you will have to join your local REC. And honestly, it’s not that bad. Our REC has an open invite to the local Tea Party groups and some (like me) have taken up their offer.

    • http://www.downstateiladvocate.com anacreon

      we can appoint PCs in empty precincts where there is no PC. However, only the elected PCs can vote at the county convention.

      The next election, we will be making some people mad because we will be challenging sitting PCs with appointees that live in their represented precincts. I’d rather have people that are willing to work than some old timers who “have been there done that” and feel they have already put in their time, but show up once a month just to say they are PCs.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    CHANGE THE PARTY.

    How? By writing about it? By writing “open letters” to the leadership? Or by actually . . . changing the leadership.

    To change the leadership, you have to earn the right to actually vote in the internal Party leadership elections. I’ve been preaching about this here since about January of 2009.

    Some specifics. In Arizona, where I live, the state statutes allow for each recognized political party to have one precinct committeeman in a precinct for every 125 registered voters of that Party and majority portion of that number.

    My precinct currently has 858 active registered Republicans and 61 inactive registered Republicans and 8 precinct committeeman slots. All 8 are filled. So, on Nov. 30, when our legislative district Republican Party committee meets to elect officers, 8 Republicans from the precinct, out of 919, will have earned the right to participate and actually vote — because they spent a few hours gathering 9 signatures (ten, but they sign for themselves) from other registered Republican or independent voters in their precinct to get on the ballot and be elected to the precinct committeeman office. The other 911 registered Republicans can attend the meeting, but only as spectators. The ball players in the game of party politics are the precinct committeemen — only they get to participate in the leadership elections.

    There are about 65 precincts comprising the legislative district. It has 25,501 active registered Republicans. And only 111 elected precinct committeemen. For 262 allotted slots. So, on November 30, only 111 Republicans will determine, for the other 25,390 active Republicans in the district, who will, for example, be the chairman. Will it be a conservative? I’m working on that. Why is it important? Because that conservative is a member of the Maricopa County Committee and can, for example, vote to endorse candidates in the upcoming 2012 primary elections. The more conservative legislative district committee chairmen, the more conservative county committee we’ll have.

    Then, on Jan. 8, 2011, all of the 2,936 elected precinct committeemen in Maricopa County have the right to participate in the election of the Republican Party county committee leadership elections. There are 708,485 registered Republicans in Maricopa County, but only 2,936 of them have taken the additional step to become members of the Party and have earned the right to vote in the leadership elections.

    I have been, along with other conservative precinct committeemen, recruiting conservative Republicans to become precinct committeemen. In 2008, Maricopa County had 1,989 precinct committeemen; now it has 2.936. But there are 6,241 available slots. We’re only at about 47 per cent strength. In my legislative district, we went from about 70 in 2008 to 111, but we’ve got 262 slots, so we’re at about only 42 per cent strength.

    Will we see conservatives get elected to the leadership positions? We’ll see. Would have been guaranteed if more conservatives here would get involved in party politics — there are plenty of openings. About a third of the precincts in our legislative district, for example, have NOT ONE precinct committeemen.

    Oh, and each legislative district can elect one “state committeemen” to send to the state annual meeting, where the state committee officers are elected, for every three precinct committeemen. So, my legislative district can send 37. If we have a majority of conservatives among the 111 precinct committeemen, then we’ll have 37 conservatives going to the state meeting on Jan. 22, 2011.

    Again, you are a conservative and want to change the Party, the way to change it is to become a precinct committeeman. It doesn’t take a lot of time and it’s fun. Call your county GOP committee and find out what meeting you are supposed to go to and go to it and take all your conservative friends with you.

    On average, about half of these slots, across the country, are vacant. And split about 50-50 between conservatives and moderates. Michael Steele reflects that — he is a reflection of that split, because, ultimately, it’s the precinct committeemen who, indirectly, elected the RNC delegates in each state.

    Do the math. If conservatives filled up all the empty precinct committeeman slots, that 50-50 split changes to a 75 per cent majority for conservatives. Don’t you want to make that happen? Don’t you want to be a full-fledged, “card carrying member” of the Republican Party? A ball player rather than a spectator?

    See my little blog below for more info.

    For Liberty,

    ColdWarrior

    • http://www.downstateiladvocate.com anacreon

      we have 3 empty precincts out of 37 in our county. But, many are not elected at this point. This will change in the next election – outlined in my reply earlier.

      Here, elected PCs get to vote for the state central committeeman and we also need someone to run against the guy that’s been in there since kingdom come.

      Proud conservative PC since 2004.

  • http://redmerrimack.blogspot.com/ charliebravoNH

    I joined my local party in my town which is my legislative district by attending meetings and paying my annual dues. In the local party you get vote for the local leadership and vote on local business.

    If you want to choose the leadership of the County Committee you have to run for Delegate to The State Convention. If so elected you not only vote on the State Party Platform you also go to the County Caucus following the November elections. The Convention Delegates at the Caucus choose the voting members of the County Committee who then choose the Officers of the County Committee as well as become Republican State Committee members themselves.

  • kestrel

    I’ve been searching for info on Anuzis since I heard he is challenging M. Steele. Columnist Hugh Hewitt seems to like him, but when Hewitt expressed concern that early Republican primaries are “open to manipulation” by non-Republicans due to being “open primaries” Anuzis said the RNC chairman can’t affect that because “open vs. closed” is decided on the state level. Anuzis claims to favor closed primaries, yet he was Michigan’s GOP state party chairman from 2005 to 2009, and here we sit, still with an open primary. In this year’s gubernatorial primary, the conservative vote was split, so a moderate who openly courted Democrat cross-over voting won with 37 percent of the vote. Whether, or to what extent, Mr. Anuzis tried to change this awful primary system I don’t know, but as state GOP chair for two terms, I would think he bears some responsibility.

    Here is the relevant part of Hewitt’s interview, and the link.
    HH: I am concerned that the Republican primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond are open to manipulation by Democrat activists who are going to be bored because Obama