After the whole debacle of the GOP backing DeDe, I’ve heard whispers and rumors here and there about the possibility of the Tea Party movement starting a new political party. I believe it’s a bad move. I think conservatives would have much greater impact by taking back the party of Reagan, and making the RNC a haven for conservatism once again. But how? How can we do this? I’ve thought long and hard about this and have several ideas that I would like to see the GOP do.
The first thing I’d do if I was in charge at the GOP, would be to close the primaries. No more Open Primaries, no more allowing Democrats to pick our candidate for us. And while we’re at it, get rid of the caucuses. This nonsense of everyone show up and gather in our corner! “Quick, we don’t have enough to to beat him, and neither do you, join us!” Yea…. No. Enough is enough. Secret ballot is the way to go. Set the registration deadlines and voting days for the primaries such that democrats can not register as republicans, vote, then switch back. No more. Republicans should be the ones picking the Republican candidates, thank you very much.
Step two for me would be to create a platform. To do this, the GOP leadership should go to the people and ask what is important to them. Novel idea I know, but hey… It just might work! I’d bring in the Tea Party leadership and really listen to what they want. Reconnect with the base and find out just what they want. I’m betting that most conservatives would love to see a return to fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government intrusion in our lives. We want candidates that support our ideals – that means Pro-Life. We do not want things like Cap-n-Trade, Public Option Healthcare, or Card Check. We want our freedoms back. We also want to be safe, and no, those two are not mutually exclusive. We want the congress to back off our intelligence guys, and let them do their jobs without fear of criminal charges. We do not want “Enemy Combatants” on our soil, and we want candidates who will support our nation’s military and give them what they need to do their jobs. As far as health care goes – two words. Tort Reform.
Once the platform is set, we need to clean house. All candidates and incumbents need to sign on to the party platform in order to recieve RNC support. Anyone who does not vote in line with the platform, will not get funds from the RNC. Not only that, but when a RINO crosses the line and will not vote in line with what the people want, the RNC should immediately call them out on it. If, given the chance to change and the RINO does not, the RNC should pull funding from that campaign, and instead support a candidate who will support the party platform and vote the will of the people.
Along with that, if I ran the GOP, I would require all candidates wishing party funds to supply the party with every bit of dirt on their lives. Like the pron? Have a weird fetish? We need to know. Experimented with drugs? Cheated on a test in school? We need to know. If a person so much as stole a piece of cake off the wrong rack in a restaurant at age 4, I want to know. The reason for being so intrusive – the Democrats will work overtime, and even hack into personal emails – to find the dirt on our candidates. So we need to not only know ahead of time, but get ahead of the attacks. We need people willing to say, “Yea, I did that… so what?” and let things roll off them. We need to know what we are getting into and whether someone has too many skeletons in their closet to make it in politics.
Finally, we need to put up candidates in *every* race, from the Presidential race, all the way down to the smallest local races in each town. There should never be a Democrat running unopposed, anywhere. We need to tap into the base and get people to do more then just pick up a phone. We need people willing to serve as Mayor, School Board Member, etc.
Fund raising will be easier when the people like what we stand for and are willing to support what we are trying to do. The people have proven, with the NY-23 race, that the old GOP line – “At least we’re not as bad as the other guy!” – just will not do anymore.