RebuildtheParty.com Relaunches and Announces Endorsements from Two RNC Chair Candidates

[Patrick Ruffini]

Today we're unveiling a refreshed look for RebuildtheParty.com and new networking features that let you get involved directly in the fight! Here are some highlights:

RNC Candidate Scorecard: Our new site now breaks down where all the declared candidates for RNC Chairman stand on the Plan for the Future. And the good news is that two out of four have already endorsed the plan! Former Tennessee Republican Party chairman Chip Saltsman endorsed us in his memo sent to RNC members as has Michigan Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis. Anuzis talks about his enthusiasm for the plan on his campaign website and confirmed his endorsement via e-mail.

Our Team of Endorsers: If you signed on as an endorser and gave us permission to use your name, we're now listing your name on the site. See your name in lights here!

Join Our Action Network: Using the powerful Ning social networking platform, we're throwing Rebuild the Party open to you -- and your friends, your groups, your blogs, and your photos and videos. Since launching, we've seen an incredible groundswell of support from people wanting to self-organize to rebuild the party, and we hope this new platform provides a launching pad for just that.

Featured Ideas: Over 1,300 ideas have been posted to Ideas.RebuildtheParty.com. We've highlighted the ones that relate directly to Rebuild the Party's core mission of modernizing our infrastructure here, and invite you to vote on them for possible inclusion in the Plan for t... From the ideas submitted so far, we can see that there will be a vibrant debate over where the party should head ideologically in the next few years, and we don't intend to stifle that debate by promoting any one such idea over the other.

[Benton Harbor]

Four things:

1. Identify what the Republican brand stands for; then formulate policy that supports the brand.
2. Do not set out to deliberately antagonize potential allies and adversaries.
3. Do not harbor or protect those who act against the interests of the ENTIRE country.
4. Do not allow single-issue proponents to co-opt the Republican message/brand.

Unless some/all of the above can be accomplished, there will be no movement toward what the newly branded party is to become. Additionally, I wish we can stop invoking Reagan, the larger view is that RR and the policies he initiated were the beginning of the current, woeful state of affairs. Smaller government? Federal spending grew the most in the last 50 years under RR and GW. The Constitution? Please don't get me started, given the last eight years. A Unitary Executive? The number of our (GOP) elected officials indicted and imprisoned since Reagan; hundreds, with nary an end in sight. As has been said by those wiser than I, I didn't leave the Republican Party, it left me. And, if the party is only going to exist the next eight years to obstruct the Obama administration, just because, then we're no better than pissed off children wanting to take our ball and go home when things don't go our way. Now, if we can only figure out a way to regain relevance in a center-left (the truth hurts) America, we'll be over half-way there..

This will be an interesting place to visit, if for no other reason than to see if we can finally rise above ourselves and find those among us who can, once again, govern.

[wes_ben]

RTP, I commend you for your mission, but I think you missed a very important step...defining the GOP. It's hard to promote the GOP when one doesn't know what it stands for anymore. You should take IceNine's comment very seriously.

[Rich]

BTW,
I even received a call from a "real" obama supporter, but his constant mantra of "change" without being able to articulate what was to change or why led me to conclude that it could have been an ultra-sophisticated "bot" utilizing advanced AI. Amazing what you can buy when you raise nearly 1-Ron Paul money bomb's worth of money PER DAY... and do it for several months... Buys a lot of cool stuff...

[Rich]

Jon,
Great job validating this site's treatment of the Republicans Party's metathesizing cancer by strategic application of Band-Aids. Many of us long-term Republicans do not wish the party to continue to die this agonizing death.
Lets stop the denial, obtain a proper diagnosis, and get on with an effective regimen of treatment.

About your 2nd point:
Wasn't it an armada of Obama "bots" who figuratively and literally wiped the latrine floor with your "real candidate's" face this year. Get it already, "bots" don't break fund raising records and fill college rallys with energized supporters. Speaking of automated calls, "bots" if you will: I received over 200 calls from McCain "bots" begging for money and attendance at his pathetic events. Conversely, I received several calls from real people who supported Dr. Ron Paul, Gov Mike Huckabee, Dr. Chuck Baldwin and Dr. Alan Keyes.

[Jon Henke]

Love the site. I've always wanted the right to modernize and become more net savvy. The news side (RCP - Politico - Redstate) has done it. Its nice to see the 'Community' side of it kick off as well.

Observing other communities however I do have some concerns that I hope your colleagues have though about.

(1.) SocialNet-Fatigue Looking back at 2004, the first election since the start of the political internet machines. In the week before the election, Democrats were riled up by the sheer number of uses and the rapid growth of the many lib sites MoveOn - Kos - and others. Only on election day did they find out that the combined community of 1 million accounts was the same 200K users across all the sites.

(2.) Congressman Mr. Dr. Ron Paul Esquire Looking at the primaries in 2008 the Ron Paul bots posted and dugg so many stories on so many sites it (start Ron Paul Fight Machine here) actually made some people think he was a real candidate. Yes he has *some* good points but when people start talking about going back to the Gold Standard of the 1870s, 9/11 being an inside job, and bases his main argument against the war on terror on fiscal reasons it sounds a little Cynthia Mckennyish and it makes it harder for honest, common sense and true ideas to resonate.

(3.) Every Voice and Rambling Stories The internet is anonymous. Anonymity is the ultimate freedom. Freedom means the freedom to say stupid things. While that's just fine for pot smoking hippies bumming for change on the streets of San Fran (and the parks, sidewalks, Courthouse steps, Coffeeshops...), it can complicate building a community based on solid ideas. Ever try to fill out a 1040A sitting on a FOB in Iraq while mortar rounds are inbound and a sniper is firing at you. Granted he's a horrible shot and it does alieviate the boredom but he is making it hard to concentrate while determining if I want the standard deduction or if I want to itemize my expenses for uniforms.

So how do we:
(1.) Avoid just duplicating the communities of other conservative sites. What do we add? How do we keep people engaged?
(2.) Allow people to contribute while preventing the ever evolving bot wars. Simply how do we prevent The most popular story is 14 reasons why Alan Keyes should be the next Chairman of the RNC.
(3.) How do we find the diamonds in the rough? Promote the good ideas, engage the good contributors, refine the medioce in to better ideas, and chase away the 'Beam weapons brought down the WTC' crowd.

P.S. a little plea for a spell checker and an 'edit comment' countdown similar to Digg's forumns.

[IceNine]

P.S. Sorry about the typos, especially the missing articles. I should have proofed this more diligently.

[IceNine]

Hello.

This will be a long post, but it’s worth reading because I’m an unapologetic liberal and a registered Independent. (Even worse: I’m a socialist--in the modern European sense, not in Rush’s boogedy-boogedy sense.) I discovered the site in the WaPo article about Patrick and Mindy.

I’m not here as a provocateur, but as someone who is genuinely interested in how the Republican party tries to re-create itself after two nasty election cycles. I find this far more interesting than following the speculation and rumor mills surrounding the president-elect’s appointments. (I track them, of course, but I don’t obsess about them.) I have always been interested in history and political science, so this is a fascinating Petri dish for me. I will seldom post, but I will certainly be revisiting as a lurker to see what’s going on and to read the comments.

Let me try an analogy here. I’m and Army veteran and I used to work as military intelligence analyst in responsible post with access to sensitive information. My professional focus was always the “other side of the hill”--the opponent’s organization, weapons, training, deployment, strategic principles, and tactical doctrine. (Please notice that I use the word ‘opponent’ here, not ‘enemy’. I think that is a pernicious concept in political discourse in a civil society.)

In my estimation, the Republican party’s effort to rejuvinate itself will be enormously complicated by some fundamental contridictions, of which I am sure the more thoughtful visitors to this site will appreciate.

As I see it, the main problem is how to reconcile those elements of the party that THINK about politics with those elements who FEEL about politics. Most specifically, of course, I am referring to that constituency that is loosely called the “social conservatives.” They present two challenges:

First, At their core is a deeply-rooted anti-intellectualism. They are hostile to science and skeptical of reason. They rely on deep belief to guide them--which is fine, indeed laudible--but they insist on injecting their beliefs into politics and law, desiring to make everyone else conform to their beliefs. In the more extreme forms, loony-tunes ayatollahs want to turn the United States into a theocracy. The read the “freedom to worship” clause of the First Amendment and have no respect--or perhaps no comprehension--of the “establishment” clause.

Second, the social conservatives have a deeply-incised and very narrow set of litmus tests: If you don’t march in absolute lockstep with them on reproductive rights, school science curricula, civil liberties for homosexuals, contraception, stem-cell research (and so on), then you are a political heretic and a political apostate to be hated and condemned as vigorously as the religious varieties of those trangressions in early medieval Europe. In the Dark Ages, such people were burned; today they are labeled RINOs and driven out of party organizations.

There is a similar dogmatic phenomonen--though less rabid and less overtly anti-intellectual-- among the Milton Friedman zealots and the De-regulation Uber Alles crowd. (The Norquist drown-the-baby version of less government, is really a sub-variant.) I don’t see how the Republican party can reinvent itself or present any programmatic innovation, as long the hardcore True Believers insist that the Magic Free Market Fairy will use its Invisible Hand to sprinkle trainloads of de-regulated, supply-side pixie dust and make everything All Better. There is 30 years of secular financial religion standing as a powerful obstacle to your endeavor. The Tax Cuts and De-regulation Mantra just ain’t gonna cut it anymore, folks. You can take that to the bank--if you can find a solvent one.

The final obstacle is messaging. Even if you do come up with fresh ideas and improved programs that will find a wider appeal, the hard-right Echo Chamber of Rush, Sean, Savage, Billo-O, and Fox Noise will undermine you constantly. In the past, the Echo Chamber was of great benefit to the Republican Party (though not to rational or civil discourse), but it now forms a huge obstacle for steering the party into a new course.

As I see it, these powerful centers of resistance--the social conservatives, the hard-line financial dogmatists, and the Echo Cahmber--make meaningful change of the party very unlikely, at least for a long time. I think you may be in the wilderness for a while. If the Congressional leadership goes with hard-line obstructionist tactics--and I personally predict they will--2010 may not be much fun, either. The GOP can no longer continue as the AGAINST party; it must be FOR something.

One final observation. I think the long-term solution must involve broadening the party so that it can accommodate and tolerate a wider spectrum of Republicans, so that it can compete again in all regions of the nation. I’m an old guy--almost 60--and I know that this site is trying to recruit younger folks to the activist ranks. You may not believe this, but once--back in the Pleistocene--there was an actual LIBERAL wing of the Republican Party. It’s now long extinct, but you might want google names like Nelson Rockefeller, John Lindsay, and Lowell Weiker. Today, the moderate Republicans are an endangered species, too: Wayne Gilcrest, taken out in the primary by a Club-for-Growth wingnut. (As a Marylander, I was sorry to see Wayne go, incidentally. He was a good legislator and a good political bridge-builder.) And Chris Shays, the last GOP Representative in all of New England.

If “Republican” becomes synonymous with “conservative”, I think it will be a long, long time before you can compete nationally for Electoral Votes in the northeast or west coast. You are conceding a huge chunk of the population and you start the presidential cycle in deep EV disadvantage. Take this as a mantra for persuading the more pragmatic members of the GOP: It’s the math, stupid.

In closing, I think you’re battling some very strong headwinds, and it may seem futile in the short-term. But with patience, good will, reason, persuasion, and clear thinking you may be able to turn it around eventually. If not, I think the Republican Party will become self-isolating, a prisoner of its own narrow dogma, and increasingly marginalized.

Thank your taking the time to read this long post. I hope it provides a useful springboard for your discussions and dialogue.

Sincerely,

IceNine

[Jason Taylor]

Man, you guys are right in what you say, but you need to stop and listen to Patrick:

They, like us, want to get started now. They also realize how critically important it is to have this debate about how to fix the message, the platform, the candidates, and the party. THEREFORE, they are highlighting the infrastructure things now so that they can get working on something while we hash out the ideological foundation of the party for the next 12 months.

I believe that these guys wouldn't have put this forum up unless they seriously understood the importance of building a message that we all believe in. As we get our thoughts aligned here, the leadership will have to sign on and get involved with us, or risk being left behind by us. After all, the fancy logo doesn't mean anything without the millions of people who choose to stand behind it.

So, give them a little credit. After all, I don't remember anything like this discussion happening after Bob Dole lost in 1996. I think we're really starting to get it together here.

Nice job so far, Patrick. Obviously we've got a ton of work ahead of us.

[Rich]

BTW,
The reason I never thought those younger would get MEANINGFULLY inspired by things political lies in what memory I have of my younger days, and how I was so turned off by politicians "talking the talk" but rarely "walking the walk" - unfortunately a large component of things political these days. Sadly, just like in times past, the younger generation is rarely given credit for serious concern, much less understanding the issues of today. .If we want to reach them, the first step is to REALLY listen.

[Rich]

I've been a registered Republican since being able to vote n the early 1970s and have voted Republican almost exclusively over the years. This last election cycle was to be the year that I broke from being Republican, due to the party straying so far from its roots of limited government and spending, as well as no longer adhering to the Constitution itself. Not that all this happened suddenly, the party gradually forsaking most of its traditions in practice, while continuing to recite the rhetoric was a bit much for me. The only thing that has caused me to remain so far,was the message of freedom, limiting the unbridled growth of government seen under both parties, as well as defending the rights of the people espoused by Dr. Ron Paul. Kind of like the message of Goldwater and early Ronald Reagan The message is what attracted me. What hooked me was the unwavering integrity with which the man lived his principles. This same message energized young people about politics in a way I never thought possible. When you treated these young folks with respect and questioned them, their answers had so much more depth than the "Change" chant you hear so much these days. High school and college age young men and women who understand our monetary system, history and Constitution, as well as being able to think "outside the box" regarding economic and foreign policy.
This is the message we need, delivered in the way we need to. And the interesting thing is that this motivation and inspiration was able to come at the hands of an intelligent, but not so adept speaker, who unabashedly called it as it is with little regard to diplomacy, Have a sound message that inspires, and you will be surprised how much will be accomplished with so little control.