A Proposed Strategic Plan for
the HCRP for 2009-2010

Creating New Opportunities by Applying
Ageless Principles to Local Challenges:

A Strategy for Republicans to Win Future Elections in Harris County
The Plan Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Action Plan to Meet Objectives:

1. To work with precinct chairmen, affiliated clubs within the Republican Party, and associated groups and individuals to coordinate the activities of the Party and to create the structural reforms needed to elect Republicans.

The various factions among the Republican activists and voters in Harris County must be united behind the mission of electing Republican candidates to office. The HCRP must serve as the vehicle to unite these factions and coordinate their efforts to win elections.

To serve this function, the structure of the HCRP must be reformed to give each group a role and a stake in the party's future. Over the last year local Republicans have functioned like a watch in which the gears are all moving, but none of them engage each other. The outcome was predictable. The gears need to be re-engaged.

One aspect of re-engaging the various factions is to address the same issue that HCRP will have to address with all voters: trust. As Governor Jindal of Louisiana recently noted in his rebuttal to President Obama's speech to a joint-session of Congress, Republicans need to rebuild trust within our party, as well with the wider public.

The reasons we lost trust are several: our strident opposition to issues without presenting corresponding positive alternatives; the gap between our rhetoric and our actions, and between our ethical values and our behaviors; our loss of fiscal discipline and managerial competence; and we stopped listening (even to people who agree with us). Due to this loss of trust, a large number of local Republicans have stopped participating in, or contributing to the HCRP. The first step in re-establishing trust is to start with the Republican base.

As stated in the Organization Section, above, the Advisory Board needs to be reconstituted in order to re-engage the different affiliated entities of the party into its governance and activities. Additionally, the HCRP needs to work with the local chapters of the Young Republicans, College Republicans, and the TFRW clubs to establish a volunteer staff to provide for continuous, open operation of the headquarters office, and any and all satellite offices in the county, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week throughout the year. During the 60 days leading up to and including the early vote and Election Day, the operation of these offices should be manned at least 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The HCRP, in partnership with the TFRW clubs, and any other affiliated clubs who have the resources to contribute, should (no later than May, 2010) establish permanent satellite offices in each county commissioner's precinct in Harris County (other than the precinct where the headquarters is located), and separate Outreach offices in one or more other strategic locations within the county. In this spirit, as affiliated organizations develop online, we should make their websites and associated links into "virtual" satellite offices that are linked into the full menu of online party communications and organizations.

Moreover, the HCRP should jointly develop and implement a Candidate Training Seminar and a Consultant Training Seminar, with the help of affiliated clubs. These seminars should provide consistent training in campaign technology, marketing and get-out-the-vote activities to all prospective candidates and their consultants, while the affiliation of Republican clubs should help initiate the candidates into the Republican community. Access to this seminar should then be provided on a quarterly basis in the future.

Additionally, the HCRP should include the affiliated clubs in the scheduling of formal candidate forums during the primary season, and in coordinated fundraising drives for the party during the spring of each year.

Finally, the HCRP needs to explore legal methods to include and coordinate the members of independent organizations that have traditionally supported conservative candidates and causes into our party's activities. These civic, religious and cause-promoting organizations, and their members, have been a source of endorsements, funding, research and volunteers for conservative causes and policies for decades. Within legal means, greater coordination could help the party address the challenge that groups like ACORN, and its affiliates, will pose to the party in the future. There is no question that some churches, unions, and ACORN affiliates helped the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party mobilize for the last election. We need to explore how we can legally match this organizational effort.

2. To develop positive messages and policies that unite every faction within the Party around our shared principles.

Boiled down to its essence, the Republican Party stands for "Individual Empowerment" instead of "Government Empowerment". Although Republicans may legitimately disagree over many issues, "Individual Empowerment" is a binding principle for all Republicans.

Empowering individuals with the means to meet the challenges we face requires promoting policies that empower the relationships through which individuals actAifamilies, neighborhoods, organizations, businesses, and local governments.

Individuals need these strong relationships in order to control their destinies, and to control their lives, effectively. These types of relationships are not only important to traditional Republicans, they are important to the members of every Target Outreach Community we are trying to bring into the fold. Our primary challenge will be how to communicate our principles and policies to new voters through a positive message of "Individual Empowerment" and "Relationships."

This message could possibly be as follows: "The HCRP wants to promote policies that empower you, your family, and your neighborhood to address the challenges you face, rather than continue to empower the same old government and policies that have continually failed."

This message is consistent with the platform of the Republican Party of Texas, and with the most basic principles we Republicans share:

The proposition that "all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." is the fundamental ideal for the organization of human societies.

This fundamental ideal is rooted in the rules of basic morality, as reflected in the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Golden Rule, which provide the basis for true and lasting equality: we should strive to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, which requires that we treat our neighbors as we ourselves want to be treated.

Although government is necessary to secure and preserve our fundamental ideal, governments can't and won't love your neighbor. Only people can love their neighbors through their active involvement in the life of their neighborhoods.

By promoting liberty, morality, integrity, and a sense of responsibility for ourselves and our fellow man, we continue to develop the character traits of justice, moderation, frugality, and virtue. These character traits are needed by each individual to practice forbearance, love, mercy and charity towards each other throughout life. These character traits and lifelong practices are necessary to promote the dignity of each human being, and to create the enduring wealth within a free-market system, needed to build and maintain lasting neighborhoods.

The original constitutional structures of checks-and-balances and Federalism, fortified by the Bill of Rights, the 14th Amendment, and our common-law system, were designed to promote and secure the development of lasting neighborhoods of people free from the dominance or control of government.

"Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned." Government actions should be consistent with our Constitution, and be limited to effectively promote and secure our fundamental ideal, the equality of the Golden Rule, and the functioning of lasting neighborhoods.

If the Republican Party follows these principles, and pursues policies that empower people and their relationships, we will continue to embrace a culture of life because it naturally flows from our fidelity to the fundamental ideal that life is an inalienable right, from our respect for the dignity of each human life, and from our adherence to the Golden Rule.

If we follow these principles, and pursue policies that empower people and their relationships, we will continue to promote low taxation, because low taxes promote limited government, and thereby provide individuals with the means and power to shape their own lives and neighborhoods.

If we follow these principles, and pursue policies that empower people and their relationships, we will be more likely to attract young voters who are community and service oriented, and voters in our Target Outreach Communities who value their relationship-centric communities.

An example of how Republicans could apply these themes, is to use the following message to address an issue that our opponents label "divisive". Our party's platform calls for the adoption of English as our official language. How do we effectively communicate this message to members of communities that have recent immigrants who still speak their native language amidst a culture that says--"don't worry, you don't need to adapt to America, we'll adapt to you?" We do so by focusing on how a shared language promotes individual empowerment.

It should be obvious that we can't form the relationships needed to maintain a neighborhood and control our own destinies, if we don't share the same language. Asking all of us to share a language is inclusive, not exclusive or divisive--we are not asking anyone to give up their native tongue, but only to share one common language in our public discourse. We are only asking everyone to adopt the means to communicate effectively, so we can work together as neighbors to control our destinies without excessive interference from government, as takes place in countries that require the official use of multiple languages. This policy gives "E Pluribus Unum" real meaning.

Why English? Because our most cherished principles and laws are conveyed in that language. Any linguist will admit that concepts conveyed in one language do not translate the same to other languages. So, no matter how good a translation is, meaning is always lost. To fully share our principles and empower each other, we need to share a language.

We can apply this similar, positive approach to many of the issues we hold dear. For example, school vouchers empower individuals and families to get the best education for their children, and they empower neighborhoods with competition needed to improve their schools. Demanding higher performance standards for our schools empowers individuals, families and neighborhoods to keep their children in school and to get them the best education possible, while higher performances will help children to grow-up to get better jobs, earn more income and increase the wealth of society. Virtually all of our principles and policies can be explained this way.

If Republicans take a positive approach to our message, our party will grow. The bottom line for our party going into future elections is that we need to find a way to promote positive messages and policies based on our principles in order to regain trust and expand the party. We simply can't continue to be perceived as the party of "no", especially when we don't even stick by our decision to say "no." Whether the theme is "Individual Empowerment" (and "Relationships") or something else, Republicans need to embrace a positive message in order to be successful in our outreach to new voters.

3. To expand the Party into new communities.

Through the new Vice Chair for Outreach, the HCRP must identify communities and organizations to approach where we can begin to recruit new voters. These communities include the Target Outreach Communities. We will work with candidates and party members to develop our positive message in a way that effectively communicates our principles and policy alternatives to these communities.

We will immediately begin showing a presence in places that are not traditional places for the Republican Party to be seen, and we will collect contact information to effectively communicate to these communities in the future. This will be done in two ways.

First, the usage of technology to obtain text and email contact information for new potential Republicans, as well as their conventional contact information, is essential. We must use the full menu of modern technology to convey our message and speak to those that we are not reaching by solely relying on the old methods of campaigning, ie., direct mail, television, radio. Obama was able to text message 3 million people when he announced his choice for a running mate. His campaign made the vice-presidential pick personal to those that received the text message. Our technology will be more open to allow younger generations to take part in the future of the party, not just have the future of the party fed to them. This is what is now termed "collaboration."

Second, community projects must be undertaken that inject Republicans into communities where voters are located. If our message is that we are the party of "Individual Empowerment" and "Relationships," we need to have an effective presence in every neighborhood. We need to undertake activities such as community clean-up projects, recycling programs, adopt-a-highway programs, mentorship programs, and sponsoring and teaching adult education and citizenship classes. For recent immigrants from countries where the culture is more hospitable to government providing for the necessities of life, we need to actually help their neighborhoods establish the private organizational structures that support "Individual Empowerment".

Third, it is important to use all of the tools of the party to our advantage. When we introduce the party to these communities we need to offer new activists several avenues for immediate involvement in the party, including: precinct chair; street captain; election judge; poll worker; community representative for their city; community representative for their school district; local candidacies (on an EMS district board, a utility district board, a school board, or a city council). Also available would be membership in one or more affiliated clubs and/or assistance to create new affiliated clubs to serve the specific community. With a position within the party, these new activists will have a base from which to recruit others to the party.

When the party of individual empowerment and local government does not engage in the life of these communities, our message gets confused, and credibility and trust are lost. We have to make our views known and put a human face on these issues that are important to so many people. If the Democratic Party is the only party talking to people that care about these sorts of issues, our party will lose them forever.

4. To introduce our principles, messages and policies to new voters.

The Vice Chairs for Communication and Outreach must use every available media to get our message to the new groups and voters identified and recruited, especially younger voters.

We must work immediately to grow the local party email list. More people are using email and text messaging everyday. Many people now have access to these tools 24/7 through Blackberrys and cell phones. Conversely, many people no longer welcome door-to-door solicitation of any kind, and many people effectively screen telephone calls so that they never have to deal with political phone calls. Therefore, we need to communicate with people where they are and in a way that they are comfortable.

By Election Day, the Obama campaign had developed a 13-million person email/text message list, and it now plans to keep this online organization active in Democratic politics through the next Presidential election. We need to develop the same type of capability and organization locally.

The HCRP should develop a secure, interactive website for communication between party officials, and an interactive website to communicate with Republican voters. We also should take advantage of the social networking sites (such as Facebook and Twitter), which so many people, especially those under 35 years of age, now use. The interactivity of these tools can be used for polling and tailoring our message, as well as mobilization. We must begin training and empowering the precinct chairs in the effective use of these technologies to communicate with, identify, and mobilize our voters.

The HCRP also needs to develop an online virtual "war-room" through the interactive website that should be created. The purpose of the war-room would be to serve as a fast-paced clearinghouse of information that would provide precinct chairs and activists with quick responses to negative stories about Republican candidates and policies after the stories appear in local media and on liberal blogs. Our activists could then use this information to rebut these stories when talking with our voters, and to send rebuttals to the media and blogs. By staffing this war-room with young, computer-savvy volunteers to help our more politically experienced volunteers, we also develop new blood while maintaining continuity.

We should promote the creation of new online "virtual" clubs as part of an effort to embrace younger voters. Many people under 35 years of age spend hours socializing and networking with others online in ways that mimic the ways we and our parents used our Republican clubs and community service organizations. We need to try and harness this energy and socialization to our advantage.

We should develop a media plan to re-educate voters about our principles and to promote our message. One approach could be to create and air short spots on local media and the Internet, including radio and TV stations that service our Target Outreach Communities, in which noted spokespersons and party officials discuss the application of our principles to real issues. This type of campaign has worked in the past. Fred Thompson (before he announced his run in 2007) was quite successful on ABC radio stations with these type of spots, which also were posted on the Internet. Wendell Willkie became a household name with his radio and print spots in response to the New Deal. Look at how successful T. Boone Pickens was last year with his advertising campaign. In fact, our national party did something like this with interactive cable TV programs in 1993 and 1994; and, even earlier, Milton Friedman introduced the nation to conservative economic principles in his multi-segment PBS series, Free to Choose, almost 30 years ago.

But we can't just rely on technology and media -old-fashioned human contact is still essential. When schools start in August of each year, we will have representatives on those campuses talking to the new incoming students. When new housing developments start to sell homes, or when occupancy permits are issued, we should be there with a welcome basket of sorts (including voter-registration forms). When a new business opens, we should greet the new entrepreneur with our message and our best wishes.

Finally, we need to find the means to effectively identify and communicate with our entire base, including our primary voters and our general election voters. In the last election the Democrats were given a gift when about 400,000 people self-identified themselves as Democrats in the primary. So, now the party can more easily find and communicate with these voters. We currently are capturing our 171,000 primary voters, but in the last general election 320,000 additional Harris County voters consistently voted for Republicans candidates. We need to develop an effective system for identifying and communicating with these people.

5. To recruit and train strong candidates who will share and promote our principles, messages, and policies, and to run them in every race on the local, state, and national level.

There are over 600 elective offices in Harris County, and 875 precinct chair positions in the HCRP. We don't consistently compete in even a third of the races for elective office, and we have a 45% vacancy rate among our precinct chairs. We must spread the field, contest every race, and fill every precinct chair.

What are these 600 elected offices? The government offices include: 12 county commissioners and countywide offices; 8 constables; 16 justices of the peace; 100 judicial offices; 7 members of the Harris County Board of Education and 9 members of the Houston Community College Board of Trustees; at least 161 school board trustees sitting on 23 school boards; 39 congressional and state legislative seats; 34 mayors; at least 185 city council members spread among 34 cities; and multiple seats on at least 24 EMS, water and utility districts. Although many of these offices are officially non-partisan, Democrats have supported candidates for these offices for years in order to pursue their policy agenda and develop a "farm team" of candidates. It is time we do the same.

For example, there are at least three good reasons for promoting candidates for school boards. First, we care deeply about education and local government. Republicans have talked for decades about the need to address the problems with our educational system, and with keeping the power over that system at the local level. It makes no sense to continue, year after year, to argue these policy points if we do not actually promote candidates for offices that actually have the power to address them. If we truly believe that improving education is the key to solving so many of our economic and social problems, and believe that the effort to improve education should be directed locally, then we Republicans need to participate in that local effort.

Second, effective outreach requires establishing roots in every community and neighborhood. The one institution in American life in which every person participates at some point in their life is schoolAieither as a student, a parent, a teacher, or a taxpayer. The school is the heart and soul of the community in which it sits. If we sincerely want to reach-out to the members of every community in this county, we need to be involved in the schools. To win the allegiance of our neighbors, we have to be good neighbors.

Third, recruiting good candidates for county, state, and federal offices requires a "farm team." By learning to be good public servants in their neighborhoods, prospective candidates learn the facts and skills they will need for future office. If we are to remain competitive politically in Harris County, Republicans need to groom a new generation of candidates, and the best way to do that is to cultivate a new generation of local public servants.

So, by getting involved in local races in each neighborhood we get a "three-fer": we promote the principles we cherish; we reach new communities with our message; and we train a new generation of Republican candidates. Conversely, if we don't involve ourselves in the local governance of our communities and schools, we may just lose the local control we cherish. Anyone who has listened to, or read President Obama's recent statements knows he intends to further nationalize education and many functions historically left to local governments and private organizations (e.g., he even intends to phase-out the charitable deduction for high-income earners, which is the life-blood for private organizations in our communities). If his is the only voice people hear on these issues, the voters may eventually cede control of these functions to the national government. We must fight for our cherished principles with real action and real policies.

As for our party offices, there are 875 precincts in the county. We have the ability to directly elect a precinct chair in each precinct, as well as our County Chair. Not only do we not find candidates to contest every race for a governmental office in this county, as of January 1, 2009, we had filled only 454 of our precinct chairs, and many of those positions have had to be filled by appointment rather than election. With the Democrats having 641 precinct chairs filled, we are leaving to the Democrats at least a third of the county uncontested, because we have no boots on the ground.

If we are going to rebuild a competitive party in this county, we need to implement a process to find, train and support candidates for all of these offices. This process must include outreach programs into neighborhoods and precincts we have ignored in the past, as well as establishing a specific candidate support program. It also will require coordination with our counterparts in adjacent counties, because many of the school districts, cities, and congressional and legislative districts cover more than one county.

By September, 2009, we should have re-written the questionnaires and guidelines for candidates and precinct chairs, with a new purpose designed only to make an objective determination of their constitutional, intellectual, and ethical fitness to run for and hold the office they seek. We should replace any perceived litmus test for any office with an acknowledgement of shared principles and of new ethical norms for their behavior in office. In order to attract a new, energetic group of candidates who will share and implement our principles, there will be no seniority-based requirement for any candidate.

By September, 2009, we should have interviewed each of the Republican incumbents who intend to run for re-election in 2010 to determine whether and how they can promote the principles, messages and policies we have agreed to pursue; and whether and how the Party can support their campaigns.

For open seats, we should interview and identify potential candidates, in order to field at least one qualified candidate for each race, without interfering with, or discouraging contested primaries. We will endeavor to broaden the background of our candidates through the recruitment of candidates from every community within the county, and from the under-40 age group.

By June 1, 2010, we should have developed and implemented a Candidate Training Seminar and a Consultant Training Seminar, to provide consistent training in campaign technology, marketing and get-out-the-vote activities to all the winners of the March Primary. Access to this seminar should then be provided on a quarterly basis in the future.

We not only need to have a candidate in every race, we have to spread the field by also fighting in every precinct, in order to increase our margins in Republican precincts, win back those precincts that leaned Democratic, and get marginal increases in Democratic strongholds. To meet this challenge we will need a wholesale change in the recruitment and appointment of precinct chairs -away from an emphasis on specific views on issues and, instead, toward a commitment to our shared principles and to actively getting out the vote in their precinct. A complimentary plan should be implemented to separately recruit and train election judges and precinct chairs.

The goal should be to have a separate precinct chair, election judge, and street captains in at least 650 precincts by June 1, 2010, as well as community representatives in at least 20 cities and 10 school districts by that time. We will conduct separate training seminars for these positions by August 1, 2010, with an emphasis on coordinating and implementing a sustained get-out-the-vote effort beginning at least 3 weeks before the start of early voting, and a get-to-the-polls effort during each day of early voting.



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