This morning I read an article in the Riverside Press Enterprise that looked at voter registration figures, and it showed the despite growing unpopularity with this President, Democrat registration in the state is slightly up, and in several key areas of the state, Republican registration is going down.  The part that I found to be most interesting was some of the places that were specifically mentioned in the article where GOP registration is dropping, and DTS registration is going up — Stanislaus County, Monterey County and San Bernardino County.  There were big Democrat gains in Fresno County.

These are areas of the state represented in the legislature by Republicans who in a very high profile manner violated their voluntary, written pledges not to raise taxes last year — and in fact voter for higher taxes on income, sales and automobiles — and voter to place the doubling (in length) of these taxes before voters.  Needless to say it was controversial and generated a lot of attention in those areas especially.

Now there many be a lot of different factors that effect voter registration in those specific areas (localized paid efforts, etc.) — but it is certainly valid to put forward that Republicans that raise taxes hurt the core brand name of our party, which stands for limited government, and freedom and liberty for individuals (along with personal responsibility). 

At the end of the day, for Republicans to boost our own registration numbers, we not only need this President and his party to flame out (which they are doing), but Republicans need to rally for ideas that matter — and most importantly, we must engage in the contact game of the sport.  Whether in Washington, D.C., or in Sacramento, we must acknowledge that we must take on the Democrats every day, with a focus on a concerted communications plan to make sure that Californians know we are doing this.

It’s very easy for the political party (or the Governor) to waive a flag of bipartisanship in the air, and talk about the need to "work together for the common good" — but it ignores the political reality, which is that in order for the minority party, Republicans, to achieve a majority, we need to make sure that we push forward with bold proposals consistent with our principles and ideology.  Every time we produce "Democrat Lite" we fall back in our quest for majority status.

For some time now the California Republican Party, working in concert with the NRCC and local county committees, has really stepped up paid voter registration efforts.  The two greatest thing our Republican elected officials can do to assist in those efforts are, 1) be bold, and proud Republicans creating a positive image for our party so that people are receptive to joining or rejoining the GOP, and 2) donating campaign funds to this effort, either through funding their legislative leadership efforts, or the state and/or local party.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.