Continuing on the theme started by Rittinger where the VA GOP — at all levels — should take heed of what happened to the once dominant NY GOP, I bring more news from the Empire State.
In the town that I grew up in, the Town of Colonie, located in Albany County, Democrats have not elected a single candidate to any office at the town level since before Prohibition. Not one in more than 80 years. We’re talking “Curse of the Bambino” proportions here.
On Tuesday, Democrats may have swept the elections in the Town of Colonie. Now, to put this in perspective, this “town” isn’t like any of the quiet, bucholic towns we have here in Virginia. This “town” is the largest town in the United States — so large that it had to be split into two separate school districts — 80,000 residents as of 2000. This has real significance.
How did Democrats do it?
Phil Steck, Colonie Democratic chairman, has worked each year to find attractive candidates to challenge Republicans for seats on the Town Board seats
Tenacity and good candidate recruitment — those are the keys to party building. There is no excuse not to make every effort to recruit solid candidates who are good fits for the electorate to run in every race on the ballot in every election. Once you start conceding races, the slide towards irrelevance begins.
But the issue of fiscal discipline came into play there as well:
One GOP observer outside the town said repeated tax increases and an $8.5 million deficit may have been too much for even some loyal Republican voters. The town’s fiscal problems were outlined in a report this year by Moody’s Investors Service, which provided an unenthusiastic outlook for reversal in the near future.
We need to learn these lessons within the VA GOP at every level from U.S. Senate to school board — recruit the best man or woman for the particular seat. Someone who espouses the basic Republican tenets of limited government, low taxes and personal freedom. Someone with a good personality, pleasant temperment and positive disposition. Someone who has a background that is a good match for the constituents of that district.
Sometimes these candidates hold themselves out for service. Often times, such individuals need to be convinced or cajoled into doing it, though. That is where party leadership can make the difference. Too often, we all sit back and wait for candidates to declare instead of actively pursuing the person who would be the best candidate to represent the GOP in a particular race. As a result, frequently we either find ourselves in elections that are closer than they should be or else not competitive at all because the candidate we have running is not viewed as a serious or credible contender. There is no excuse for that. That has to stop. Now.
From now on, we must be smart about our candidate selection. Three questions need to be asked and answered if we are to win elections. Who is the best fit for the particular seat? What are the issues that are of concern to the voters in the race? What are the commonsense conservative solutions that our candidate can offer? If we can answer those questions and recruit the best candidate, we win.
Filed under: 2007 Elections, Republican Party of Virginia, Republicans, Virginia Politics
Here here. Contest every race, do it with good people. I volunteered with Chris Yaabouski, who got 44% of the vote against a 24 year entrenched incumbent and with little money and a funny last name. If the party put as much into Chris as they put into FitzSimmonds, it would be a 20-20 Senate- not great but better than 19-21!
Virtuocon,
I wish the GOP leadership would take this to heart.
Hear, hear. You nailed it, Riley.
[...] more, check out the ODBA and, in particular, Virginia Virtucon. Jim Riley has his thoughts on Party Buildingand candidate recruitment and Rittinger has a potential bad scenario that could teach the GOP some [...]
You’ve got it, Riley…that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be done.
Not to throw cold water on the theory but there were some really good candidates this cycle and ran and had no chance just because of the state of the national party right now. NO amount of party building can fix this until our current leader either gets more popular or leaves office. When a great candidate like Jill Vogel wins by less than 700 votes in a hard R district we know we have BIG problems, most of which can be traced back to the top and an unpopular war combined with out of control spending and ethical problems from last year in Congress. The Brand is simply diminished right now. There were several good candidates and incumbents that never even had a chance given the national envirnonment for the GOP. These folks would have won 4 years ago. O’Brien is as good as they come candidate wise and he lost due to no fault of his own. When incumbents like O’Brien lose and superb candidates like Vogel just barely squeek by in a hard R district, some things are just our of our control.
Party building is a critical component of fixing the problem, and it requires leadership at every level. From the RPV down to the local party level to the candidates and their supporters as well. I saw a terrific display of teamwork and commitment from the Stafford GOP this election cycle. Susan Stimpson, head of the Stafford GOP and Richard Stuart’s Campaign Director, did a tremendous job of organizing the grassroots movement in support of ALL of the Republican candidates in her region. I believe only one lost race (supervisor). And the GOPers in Stafford showed a particularly strong level of support to Richard Stuart, despite having backed another candidate in the primaries. Heck, even one of his primary opponents was walking door-to-door and working behind-the-scenes in support of Stuart! That’s what true party loyalty is. That’s the level of leadership and support we need at every level. FINDING people like the ones in Stafford County to get the vote out (which is truly what it’s all about) is the key. And another blog post was right– many times, these people will have to be recruited. We are all familiar with the active members of our party. We know who embodies true leadership qualities and who can put Virginia back on its feet. We just need to get them there.
In Spotsy there were VERY few volunteers walking and organizing. We need a true statewide commitment to rebuilding the party’s critical grassroots or we’re going to get bludgeoned over the head time and again.
Think about this: lost Earley, lost Kilgore, lost Allen, and going to lose Gilmore BIG TIME. Some of this is nominating better candidates FOR THE TIME AND DISTRICT. And some is grassroots. But we need it all, and as we’re seeing in some of these close races, the effort is the difference between winning and having hamhanded excuses about national party weakness, brand and other things that have very little to do with local races.
I don’t care what our candidate quality is, or the organization for that matter; without the right platform we will go nowhere.
As for the NY GOP, it was never “dominant.” That’s an appalling misnomer. The Democrats have had a hammerlock on the State Assembly (lower house) for as long as I’ve been alive.
You would be very suprised if you saw the numbers on how the national party effects local republican races at the state level. When our leader is directly contradicting what the grassroots wants it is difficult to impossible to build the local party.
Party leadership begins at the top. Most campaigns I know of could not even find enough “paid” volunteers. For many it was just one or two staff members and the candidates family. Until Bush leaves or magically becomes more popular this will not change. Most counties had very little volunteers and very few paid college students or others and it certainly was not for lack of effort. You cannot magically generate the grassroots when the national party is in the tank.
Well, D.J., it was never dominant in the VA sense of it, but holding one of the U.S. Senate seats plus a solid long-term majority in the state senate are pretty good by NY GOP standards. Plus, the senator we had (D’Amato) ran on both the Conservative Party and Right To Life Party lines in addition to the GOP line.
Everything that people here mentioned goes into party building — establishing a strong grassroots base, recruiting the best candidates, and running on the issues that people care about that differentiate Republicans. True, the national climate does play a role, but when you have the other pieces in place, it can help at least some of your candidates buck the trend.
Now, with regard to candidate recruitment, there isn’t much that you can do when you’re dealing with an incumbent and he either loses a primary (Marty Williams) or else is in a weakened state for the general (Nick Rerras). But open seats and challengers are a different story and that’s where we can make the difference.
Lots of good points here. I agree with most of it- and find DJ’s comment interesting. He worked with the one Republican in Spotsy who won Tuesday. He also is doing a superb job with communications for the county GOP.
While we have much to point to with the POTUS, we should learn from HOW he won in 2004. Forget how he governed; he won with pure grassroots in 2004- and got his vote out so well. We have NONE of that in VA. We need a reasonable 72 hour program; we need a good network of vols; all this will feed the wolf.
There are still more conservatives in VA than liberals. While we can, we must mobilize them by nominating better candidates and finding good people to push them. Starts at the top, but there is much everyone can do under our control to start the comeback.
As you will note from my post here (http://right-wing-liberal.blogspot.com/2007/11/myth-and-reality-from-virginia-election.html), I don’t think the VA GOP was dominant either.
I also didn’t mean to blow such cold air on the recruitment point; I just want to make sure we don’t think our only problem was organization. Organization takes effort, and effort takes motivation. That’s what was missing thanks to the transportation tax hike.