Conservative Grassroots

Six Month Outlook

Octber 1, 2009

            With the 9.12 March on Washington DC behind us, it is incumbent upon the conservative grassroots to look ahead and define what needs to be done in the time leading up to the General Election of 2010.  We all recognize that the 2010 election is key to changing the balance of forces and thus to preserving our liberty.  All the influence we have exerted over elected officials thus far, is based upon the perception that our efforts will be manifested in the votes cast in that election.  So what do we need to do now to make that happen?

            Let us distinguish our efforts as Operational, Tactical and Strategic.

Operational

We must continue to influence legislation and defeat that which is damaging.  We can’t be everywhere, all the time, at maximum force.  So we must prioritize, pick our battles and win the ones that are vital.  Action Alerts to mobilize grassroots response must be based upon credible issues (not merely repeating alarms issued by other organizations whose intent may be to raise funds or build membership), which issues motivate the overwhelming majority of our people, well understood with specific actions to be taken and timely.  Influencing legislation should be prioritized as follows: 

Naturally, national level legislation must take precedence over state legislation, and state legislation must take precedence over local legislation.  Nonetheless, all three levels are important.  We must prioritize between them on the basis of our ability to influence the outcome (pick your battles), the potential impact of the issue (importance) and timeliness.  For example if a local government entity chooses to raise taxes on small business in order to maintain their budget, we should oppose that; the government is not the engine of economic recovery, it is the caboose and we should not be taking resources from job creators in order to keep bureaucracies comfy.  On the other hand, if a choice is whether to influence a key Senate vote on Cap & Trade versus influencing a $10 year tax increase in Podunk, the choice is obvious. 

Tactical

We need to re-double our efforts to educate the public.  This may be prioritized as follows:

1. Precinct activism.  The political ground war is fought in the precincts and the grassroots is the infantry.  Grassroots power trumps fundraising power and media campaigns every time.  We should be organizing, building our strength and educating the public at the precinct level.  Those who do this should become the Central Committeemen/women for their precincts, so that they can vote for who gets to be the Officers and Executive Committee of the political parties.  It is said that conservatives need to regain control of the political parties as the Reagan Revolution did.  This is how it was done.
2. Public forums, town halls, and events like Tea Party’s, participating in other public events, etc. that bring in new people, inform them, and potentially spread the word through media coverage.  Events that do not do this are merely social; preaching to the choir is ok, builds identify and is supportive, but does not have a significant impact.
3. Leveraging the media through Letters-to-the-Editor, speaking appearances on radio and TV, and by pushing content to public TV or other such outlets.  Reach new audiences like Rush appearing on Jay Leno.
4. Diminishing the power of the liberal forces, esp. the media.  Encourage people who watch the network media to switch to a credible source (Fox) for news.  Challenge biased media, and vote with your pocketbook; buy from advertisers who support conservative media and boycott the advertisers who support the liberal media … and let them know you’re doing that!
5. Counteracting disinformation is important.  The major weapon used by the liberals is character assassination and it is particularly targeted toward potential conservative leaders.  We need to set the record straight; in politics an unchallenged lie is perceived to be true by the less informed.
6. We need to expose liberal hypocrisy and hold them to the same standards as everyone else.
7. Continuously prioritize our tactical plans to maximize the impact with existing resources at the national, state and local levels.

Strategic

We must continue to build the conservative majority:

1.  Increasing “membership” by continuously recruiting new people at every opportunity.  This is done mostly by “word of mouth” to Friends And Neighbors.  Our breakfasts are a “friendly” way to get people started.  Another good way of finding new people is by having a presence at public events such as County Fair’s, gun shows, etc.  The most comprehensive way of finding new people however, is by walking your precinct.
2. Increasing the effectiveness of active patriots by helping them to develop the skills of “advocacy”.  We intend to provide more training on how to deliver persuasive messages and how to respond to liberal arguments (if any) and name calling (invariable).
3. Increasing effectiveness by “growing” new leaders.  A “leader” is someone who stepped forward to do more, and most “learned by doing”.  We intend to provide more training opportunities to hasten the learning process.
4. Building or assuming control of a political machine that will deliver the electoral victories we seek in November 2010.
5.  Filling seats of precinct “Central Committee” in next spring’s Primary election (some counties including Medina do not do this until 2012).
6. Electing conservative party officers at county and state level; filling political “vacancies” with conservative candidates.
7. Continue building alliances throughout the county, region, state and nation.  At this time only Texas compares with Ohio for conservative grassroots strength; many states are weak.  Many “national” groups are headed by volunteers no more experienced than the volunteers at the local level.  We need to try to strengthen other states and “national” groups.

Grand Strategy

          1.  Preserve the basic underlying strength of our nation until the international situation rips our focus away from economic to security issues.

          2.  Prepare for a massive shift of focus to National Defense, the War on Terror and defense of traditional allies as the international situation

               is destablized by the White House policy of apology, appeasement, indecisiveness and weakness.  Remember what Reagan would have done.