This week’s announcement that a group of large Republican donors are getting together to redo the image of the Republican Party is a tune that has been sung before.  About once every three to five years, several donors say they are going to get together and try and rewrite who the Republican Party is by using their money and their influence to change "the direction of the party."  The usual announcement is followed by a number of newspaper stories announcing the formation of the group, the newspapers call Allen Hoffenblum, a political consultant who hasn’t been involved in Republican politics in twenty years (except to criticize Republicans) who criticizes conservative Republicans and the effect they have had on the party, and then a series of columns by liberal Democrats, like George Skelton, congratulate these Republicans on their insight into the problem with Republicans.  The biggest problem, according to George, is that Republicans are not like Democrats, and, so says George, if they were just like Democrats, they would win elections.  So, any Republican that tries to reform the Republican Party to make it more like Democrats must be right.  Whether it was the attempt of the Wilson crew in the 90’s, the New Majority in the early part of this decade, or this new effort, these folks have the right diagnosis, Republicans are indeed losing elections, but they have the wrong solution.  To make Republicans more like Democrats is a failed strategy, one that has been pursued any number of times from the day the Republican Party was formed in 1856.

The California Republican Party has problems, to say the least.  We are losing elections.  Whether you are a conservative or a moderate Republican, you have to face facts, we are losing, and have been losing for some time.  Since 1958, Republicans have only controlled one house of the Legislature for four years.  At the statewide level, only in the elections of 1966, 1972, and 1994 did Republicans win a majority of the statewide offices.  Even in the years when Republicans won at the statewide level, most of the elections were close (the most notable exception being Ronald Reagan and the recall).  Deukmejian only won by 50,000 in 1982 and Pete Wilson won by 300,000 votes in 1990.  In both cases, the elections were dominated by conservative themes, guns in 1982 and term limits in 1990, and those themes pulled in enough Republicans to win the Governor’s race (Interestingly enough, even their re-election campaigns were dominated by conservative themes, judges in 1986 and illegal immigration in 1994, leading both to a sizeable re-election).  In neither case did the Governor’s race in 1982 or 1990 pull much down ticket (no Republicans won in 1982 and only Dan Lungren squeaked through in 1990).  Suffice it to say, the only time Republicans have won anything is when we emphasized conservative themes.

That was before the defense draw down between 1992 and 1998.  In that time, over 1 million defense workers lost their jobs in Southern California, and suddenly, Republican strongholds like Pomona, Southern Los Angeles County, and Glendale/Pasadena saw these workers move out to places like Colorado, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico, to be replaced mainly by Hispanics, and Democrat officeholders.  That is the root of our problem.  We were barely winning statewide prior to the defense cutbacks.  Losing 800,000 voters to neighboring states took California from a winnable Republican state to a solid Democrat state.

Quite frankly, we have been losing because we haven’t been working.  Democrats live to obtain political power.  Republicans tolerate government as a necessary evil.  Democrats’ wealth and influence comes from the political arena.  Republicans are entrepreneurial, deriving their wealth and influence from working hard in the private sector.  We will never outsmart, outthink, or out wit the Democrats.  We can, however, outwork them.

So how do we come back?  Certainly not by becoming like Democrats.  If we do that, we will lose what little "base" we now have.  The rank and file Republican is conservative, and very angry at the Republican officeholders for abandoning the principles they so strongly believe in.  The way to win is to work.  To go into the neighborhoods, and take them block by block.  In the soccer fields, in the churches, in the sevice clubs, in every city all over the state, voter by voter, by convincing people that the values we hold are the right values for them.

Most people don’t like the Democrats.  They know that the socialist proposals of the Legislative Democrats don’t work, but they never hear from Republicans.  If an area is not already represented by Republicans, most of these people will never see a Republican officeholder.  Even the Republican clubs in Democrat areas never see a Republican officeholder.  We, as a party, as an organization, and as an association dedicated to electing people to office, have done little to actually building any kind of infrastructure for those efforts.  We raise lots of money, spend it all in the last weeks of an election, after having done little to expand the ranks of those willing to listen to us.  When we lose the election, we all sit around and wonder why, doing nothing for another 20 months, when we start raising money again for the next losing effort.

I don’t blame the donors for trying to do something.  They are tired of losing their money in losing efforts.  Their solutions however are not based in the reality of partisan politics.  No one wins in a partisan arena by eliminating the differences between the Parties.  They win by explaining themselves, what they believe in, and why those beliefs are better for people than the beliefs of their rivals for political influence.  That is harder work, but if Republicans in California actually started working, we would start winning.  Until we start working, we don’t deserve to win.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.