Andy,

I have been reading your posts on the Minnesota Republican Party with much interest. I wanted to take a couple of minutes to post answers to many of the statements you made and questions you asked and offer my own observations.

First, looking back at your posts.

From: MNGOP Reform, Un happy, but not sure, Email Response

“Why were the funds spent so foolishly trying to smear candidates?”

Because negative campaigning works. Every credible study shows it. Just look at the Democrats who executed a flawless negative attack that worked wonderful at all levels in the 2006 election.

“Why were some candidates never given any resources or assistance?”

Because poll numbers don’t lie. Why spend money in a district we have no chance of winning? Sure some money could have been spent differently to help candidates who the state party did not know were in trouble, but overall the money is spent where it can have the biggest effect.

“In this cycle we had our elected leaders performing remedial staff duties.”

Can you offer some examples so I know what specifically you are talking about?

“The party was so focussed on GOTV activities that it never bothered to define our ideals to the broad electorate. It never bothered to display the incredible team of candidates we had assembled across this state.”

The job of the Minnesota GOP, or any party organization is to drive voters to the polls. It is the candidate’s job to define their message. If a candidate cannot define their own message and must rely on the state party to do it for them, then they have no business running for office.

“In Pawlenty’s case, Carey diverted almost our entire arsenal of resources and energy against Hatch, and in teh end it was a rookie mistake by Hatch’s running mate and his outburst at the media that lost that race for him.”

Carey was elected to be the chair and to make decisions about expending state party resources. I think it is naïve to think that Carey’s expenses to help Pawlenty were wrong. Carey had the poll numbers, he and the staff knew where the funds would best be spent. You can second guess him on this point all you want, but I tend to believe that if the GOP had not spent money on Pawlenty in the final weeks that Hatch may have won despite Hatch’s gaffes.

“Bachmann underperformed terribly. She mustered only 50%, and fell tens of thousands of votes behind Kennedy’s previous performances in 04 and 02. The state party made it a sport of attacking the great St. Patty, as did the NRCC. I believe that was detrimental to the case that Bachmann was a better choice for voters.”

You can hardly blame the Bachmann race on the state party. The failure of the Bachmann campaign to win by a large margin was a result of having lackluster campaign management. The reason for their marginal victory was because the campaign manager didn’t work on weekends until the final weeks of the campaign, had two staff members working on yard signs months after they should have been distributed, didn’t even attend all of the candidate’s debates. And the list could go on and on.

“The state party should help provide a clear difference in the vision of the 2 parties, and not focus on who said what when.”

Again, I think you don’t understand the true purpose of the state party. The purpose of the party is to drive Republicans to the polls. That means ID voters, ensure they know where to vote, pester them with mail and calls, and drive them to the polls if necessary.
It also means that we sometimes need to put the fear of God into the voters when it comes to the possibility of Democrats winning. Which means, for negative campaigning, “We will stop using negative campaigning when negative campaigning stops working.” Statistics show that negative campaigns work.

“I highly doubt such ambitious self promoters and opportunists will realize that the problems of 2006 were more pronounced due to the very decisions they made.”

Some would say that you are, by your actions, a self promoter and opportunist.

In reading your e-mails I feel that you have a lot of build up anger and that is understandable given Republican loses in 2006, but I feel that the way you are lashing out toward the state party does not help the situation. Did you take your concerns directly to the party leadership before airing them publicly? Did you attempt to meet with the executive committee to have your concerns addressed? Did you call up Ron Carey and ask him to meet with you?

It is easy to Monday morning quarterback the election, but what have you offered to do to help? You have offered some suggestions, but you have not put you name out there as a possible candidate to replace Carey. You ask everyone to listen to your ideas, but then you say that you have no clue who should implement them.

“It was a fundamental failure of the people there. If he did try to push for conservative legislation, and Sviggum, Day, and Pawlenty balked at him, then he should have carried the message publicly that this is what the party stands for.”

It is not the state party’s job to promote legislation. It is the job of Republican legislators to push legislation. And if Carey did say that he was gong to help craft good legislation, then he was wrong also. The state party is there to help elect Republicans. Period. It is the job of the BPOUs and state convention to nominate Republicans who adhere to the platform adopted by the convention.

“If he did try to push for conservative legislation, and Sviggum, Day, and Pawlenty balked at him, then he should have carried the message publicly that this is what the party stands for. ”

If Carey disagreed with the Governor or Sviggum, then he should have talked to them personally and had his concerns addressed. He was elected chairman to get Republicans elected, not to publicly chastise Republican leaders for not agreeing with him 100%.

“I totally understand why the state party just did negative campaigning this year. There really wasn’t much to praise Republicans (in St. Paul & DC ) on.”

Again, “We will stop using negative campaigning when negative campaigning stops working.”

“The fact that the state party doesn’t (and many insiders believe it shouldn’t) carry the party’s message is very disturbing, and why we are in such dire straights in this state to begin with.”

You continually state that the party should push ideas. I think that is wrong. The job of the state party, again, is to elect Republicans. If you have a problem with the Republicans the Party is nominating, then you should campaign for your candidates in the endorsement and primary stages of the election process.

“BUT had Carey done what he PROMISED he was going to do, things would have been different. He was elected, because he wasn’t going to follow orders from up high. He was going to listen to us.”

The truth is, if Carey did not play ball with the RNC, he would have not gotten any money for staff, no assistance with fundraising, and no help with GOTV. Other states have had your mentality and they have been shut off from the RNC. In many instances the national organization will just go around the state GOP and set up their own shop if necessary to get Republicans elected. So it is easy to say that he should stand up to the RNC, the reality is that they know what they are doing in most cases. Further, the RNC will actually rely on the Minnesota GOP very little when it comes to the convention. The state folks will have some ceremonial thing to do, but overall they will not have much responsibility.

“There are good people out there, some eager to go public, others in more of a draft me phase, but I do understand the point and agree.
If these people are the true leaders you think they are, then they should step out of the shadows and lead.
Oh and my time? I don’t have time for squat. I have a lot of catching up to do at work, not to mention fill the roles now vacant at my work as we lost 2 employees recently.”

This is a typical response from someone who, in my humble opinion wants to complain, but doesn’t want to solve problems. It reminds me of Roosevelt’s quote:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cols and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

From: More Fat Please

“So we were mailed a preliminary budget report for Saturday’s big meeting in the MNGOP. You see we have to pass a 2007 budget here, even though we should be electing our next round of party leaders at this meeting so that they will have the entire election to work, but nope, we elect them smack dab in the middle so that our candidates are left in the lurch as to who is leading our party.
Have you volunteered your services to help re-write the GOP constitution? Have you asked why the elections were originally held when they are? Have you looked at other state parties to see when they hold their elections?
So anyways, one of my claims is that our party did NOT help out all of the state wide and Congressional candidates like we were promised. There is no line item for it, and it seems we might have only spent about $1.6 or so million on Paid Media advertising and assistance for local races.
That’s the beauty for the leadership, they can hide almost anything in these things. Maybe there is a line item that covers aid provided to the statewide and Congressional candidates, but I don’t really see it.”

It makes no sense to put a line item in for how much money should be spent on specific races. Do you want to tip off the Democrats. Funds should be able to flow to the most winnable races. If that is congressional, fine. If state and local, so be it, but you cannot lock the budget into any one race without causing problems down the road. The central committee elected Carey to lead, but is sounds to me that you feel that he should run every expenditure by you before he spends the money. That is poor management and it surly would help the Democrats.

From: MNGOP, Why Not Stand for Something?

“So the state party is going to demand that the surplus is returned to the taxpayers, right? I mean our top Republican official doesn’t seem interested in following this plank in the platform, so of course MNGOP Chairman Ron Carey is going to, you know, stand up and fight to have our elected officials follow the platform.
Well…. let’s just say I am not exactly holding my breath. I don’t think Carey has the guts to cross Pawlenty on this one, especially when Pawlenty has plans for that money. That’s why we need new leadership in the Republican Party of Minnesota.”

It is not the job of the state party chair to stand up to Pawlenty. How is the chair supposed to unify the party if he is taking potshots at the governor? The reality is, it is the convention’s job to endorse a candidate. In 2002 and 2006 they endorsed Pawlenty. If you have a beef with Pawlenty, then you should be upset at the convention for not endorsing another Republican. I fact is that Carey is supposed to support our endorsed candidates and make sure they get elected.

I am honestly starting to think that you have no idea why the party exists or its primary function.

From: MNGOP Reform The AAA Suggestions #1

“We have a current system that leaves to chance what the leadership roles and duties will be. In the current case, we have had the case of a Chairman (Ron Carey) who has taken, not just a hands on approach, but one of near total control.”

The chairman is supposed to be in control. That is what he was elected to do.

“Treasurer:
This person would be the C.F.O. if you will. The person picked by the party faithful to handle the fundraising and dispersion of funds. This person should be responsible for collecting funds and making sure they are spent wisely and efficiently.”

I think it is unwise to have the Treasurer making the decisions of where money is spent. The reality is that the chair and the ED know best where to spend money. To give the treasurer control over the purse strings is a very bad idea. They should stick to writing checks.

“Secretary:
This person would handle the usual duties of the minutes and internal State Party communications, but also the statewide BPOU leader communications. This person should be the one responsible for lists and records with in the party.”

A state GOP staffer should communicate with the BPOUs. It would be impossible for a volunteer to handle all communications with the BPOUs. It is more efficient for a paid staffer to do it, especially considering that a staffer will likely know more answers than the volunteer secretary would.

“Chair:
This person would be responsible for expressing the party message and expressing the will of our party’s base. Far too often we are left to rely on elected officials to carry our water. That just isn’t realistic in many of the broader covered positions and no one really pays attention the more local ‘good guys’ who do a great job standing up for what we do as the party base.
Not only would this person be the one expressing what it means to be Republican and what we stand for, but they would also work with the elected officials and stand up and say something when they stray so that people see the Republican party does mean something and stands up for it.
It is really key for there to be some vessel (person) that is going to deliver our message when no one wants to. We’ll always have a Republican Party (maybe ☺ ). So we should always have someone out there fighting against the DFLers even if we don’t hold that office or a candidate is running. With our ridiculous endorsing and primary schedule, it could be just weeks or short months before the election when voters see the alternative to the DFL coming from a Republican candidate.
You are way off base on what the Chair’s job should be. The chair should promote our candidates and get Republicans elected. Candidates should express our party message. That means that nominating conventions need to nominate Republicans that adhere to the Republican platform. It is that simple.

Our Executive Committee and RNC Committee members should be serious jobs and duties, not ceremonial recognitions for time served or volunteered. These people on either level will be making serious decisions, the Congressional Districts should be wise in who they send. The elected state leadership should also have to respect the wishes of the Executive Committee.”

I am confused, earlier in this post you said that “In the past our Chairmen were volunteers, mere figure heads who had a more ceremonial role than operational.” Is that what you want, or do you want the leaders to have “serious jobs and duties”?

I will have more tomorrow…

J. Ewing,

I am trying to be short with my responses. If you think they are too long, feel free not to read them.

I challenge you to demonstrate your claim that the purpose of the Republican Party is to do more than elect Republicans that hold to the party platform.

The truth is that the party should nominate Republicans who hold to the Party platform. If someone thinks that Pawlenty is not a strong Republican then they should mount a campaign against him Jeffers did just that, but the Republican convention chose to nominate Pawlenty for a second term. The duty of the Party and the chair are to get the Republican nominees elected by driving the Republican voters to the polls. Ron Carey didn’t single handedly choose Kennedy, Pawlenty, Bachmann, or any other candidate. His job is to take those nominees and get them elected. That means candidate training, GOTV, ID work, and so on. It does not mean that he should tell them what to think or what to say. If he did that, it would mean that we would have a bunch of Carey robots walking around instead of candidates.

I prefer candidates who can act on their own to define the Republican Party. Unfortunately that means that we get moderate and liberal Republicans running for office some times, but those candidates are a reflection of the nominating committees that select them.

Also, I don’t think that the Party or the chair should always agree with the governor. I simply stated that it is not the job of the chair to publicly call the governor on the carpet over policy issues. There is a big difference. If the chair has a problem he needs to address it with the governor directly. The Republican convention nominated Pawlenty and he is their candidate. He was elected and now his ideas are being put forth. I know a lot of conservative Republicans do not like what he is doing, but the fact of the matter is they did not get a more conservative candidate nominated at the convention. Usually, as in the health care debate, other Republican elected officials take the Governor to task.
An aside to this point is, have you ever seen a politician respond well to public threats from other people? I never have.

I do agree that it is important for the Party to educate new voters about our ideas, but that should be done in the classroom.

So let have the candidates do what they do best, which is promote the ideas of the Republican Party and the Party do what it does best, which is get Republicans elected.

Jonathan, you’ve changed the challenge, but the answer is the same. The party is formed around a set of ideas. Candidates come and go. The only reason to elect a Republican is to advance those ideas. Some candidates are better than others at that, and the party has to select among them and get them elected to advance those ideas. The candidates are just the way in which the principles get moved forward. There is no duty to support them except to the degree they advance the cause. We need to think 1994 again.

The more I think about it (and pardon my presumption, Andy), the more I think that Andy and I are in basic agreement. We both want the State party to be more active in advancing, aka marketing, the party platform. This would include creation of a basic platform to work from, a consistent and persistent communication of the message, as well as working with candidates before, during and after their election to “follow through” on that consistent message. Andy, I think, thinks Ron Carey should have already done these things. I think the party has /never/ done these things and doesn’t even know how. I look forward to seeing them figure it out.

And yes, the best way to have better nominees is to have more and better nominees to pick among. Sue Jeffers was, on balance, not the better candidate, in my judgement. Fault the party for protecting Pawlenty from her, but I doubt it would have mattered in the slightest to the result. I know many who argued that Pawlenty would have been a stronger choice (and IMHO a better governor) had she been allowed to speak and challenge him from the right. Here is the key, though: if the public accepts (as many already have) conservative principles as “common sense and common knowledge” before the campaign starts, conservative candidates will have a much easier time of it.

Johnathan — “I do agree that it is important for the Party to educate new voters about our ideas, but that should be done in the classroom.”

I agree, but the classrooms are voter’s living rooms as they are watching TV or their bus seat as they are reading the paper.

The Party at the national level, particularly with McClellan and even after have done a horrible job of this. Bush completely underutilizes the bully pulpit.

The State Party has done just as poorly. Strategy, a strategic communications plan and messaging are a central function of a party, and they have fallen down badly.

I agree that a political parties main purpose for existing is to get candidates elected. Commucation of ideas is the means to do so. They can never hope to succeed without a constant advance and eduction of Republican / conservative ideals and a strong message WHY they are the right ideals.

As a candidate, I had to dig for information and talking points on a variety of key issues. I found what I needed from sources outside the party, because what the party provided was extremely weak and not at all well positioned.

Control the message — win the issue. Win the issue — determine the outcome.

Let’s frame the pro-life position as the pro-civil liberties position (I’ve done it in discussion and even won a person or two over). Instead of letting the GOP be framed as part of “the man” let’s frame ourselves as fighting “the man” as fighting Big Brother government. Let’s shout from the rooftops how lower tax rates have actually lead to higher taxes paid by corporations and the top 2% of taxpayers to the benefit of those who receive government services.

That is the essential role of the party and the means with which you accomplish the goal. Until that is understood by party leadership, we will make the same mistakes over and over.

Great discussion. I can only hope our leadership is having the same type of dialogue.

Jonathan, you are correct that the party cannot advance principles except by electing candidates who, supposedly, share in our principles. The problem is that none of us has a clear understanding of what these basic principles are, making a “litmus test” for candidates difficult, and candidates often feel free to do whatever they darn well please once they get elected. I think it is imperative that the party clarify the message upfront and then demand a certain amount of fealty to those basic conservative principles from our elected candidates. I don’t believe that our elected leaders have any right to expect that we will follow them when they stray from principle. We don’t have to agree and we don’t have to keep silent. Just because they were the best nominee at the time doesn’t give them a free pass.