I am thrilled to see the ideas that Patrick Ruffini has been putting forward on fixing the party and the “Rebuild the Party” effort:

http://www.rebuildtheparty.com/

My own thoughts on getting back to victory as a party are here:
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/11/no-place-to-go-but-up-strategy-for.html

My point #1 is “Servant-leadership”

It starts with leadership. We need local leadership and elected officials that
re-engage and re-energize the grassroots. These need to be servant-leaders that show the
way by encouraging broad participation. The model is a ‘big tent’, but it is based on core
principles as the tent poles that brings activists in and energizes them. We need to
re-connect our own leaders with our own base, and need to develop new leaders out of
grassroots by getting broader activist participation.

Without a leader who ‘gets it’ our efforts to rebuilt the party will be valiant but futile.
To that end, I think we need to draft Newt Gingrich to be RNC Chair:

1. He embraces the use of new technology
2. He shows he ‘gets it’ when it comes to leveraging grassroots networked movements, as shown by his American Solutions effort.
3. He is the most articulate spokesman we have and is high-profile enough to be able to represent the face of the Republican Party and carry some weight. He is a recognizable figure to unify the GOP that has no natural leader at this time. He can go toe-to-toe on Sunday talk shows, can and is already a draw for audiences.
4. Being an outsider of the past 8 years and a critic of Bush administration, he is not tainted by administration’s failures and subsequent unpopularity. He has critiqued the execution of the Iraq war, opposed the bailout, and been critical of administration on spending and immigration. In short, he stands with the people on issues that the Bush WH lost popular support over.
5. He has never wavered from solid conservative principles, taking popular and correct stands, on drilling, on the bailout, on spending, on fixing Iraq, on immigration. He has credibility with the Republican base.

1. He engineered the 1994 victory, and 2010, in our best-case scenario, could and should be a similar repeat. Who better to win in this situation than to bring out the man who won this type of battle before.

Most critics of Gingrich will say “oh, we need a new face” but in fact, Gingrich, like Churchill, has had his ‘wilderness’ years. Most conservatives WANT the tried-and-true Reagan formula, and they want a leader they can trust not to waver from those principles. They want us to return to the principles that won Reagan the white house and the GOP the Congress. I cannot disagree. When I think of the GOP core principles, I come back to the Reagan formula as the principles to stand on.

Gingrich knows that, and he won’t wobble as others have from articulating a consistent conservative message. BUT ALSO HAS SPENT HIS LIFETIME TALKING ABOUT THE FUTURE. It is a rare and valuable combination that we need at this time. If the GOP stays as stuck-in-the-muds, we lose; if we shed our principles to chase futuristic butterflies, we lose too. Gingrich is unafraid to embrace the future while adhering to core conservative political principles.

We need new conservative leadership in the GOP and we need it NOW – in the RNC! Newt Gingrich is our man.

Draft Newt Gingrich to lead the RNC.

(Crossposted from http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/11/newt-gingrich-for-rnc-chair.html