from the Other Side:
So Jindal is going to Iowa as we speak. Romney and Huckabee are in the running. Sarah Palin doesn't have a chance. Ideologically diverse young conservatives are at this very moment and for the next four years, mobilizing for an Obama defeat using Obama's campaign model as well as Ron Paul's, especially counting on many young voters who voted for the real conservative, Ron Paul.
From Ambinder:
Tonight, they're launching a website, www.RebuildTheParty.com, and will ask RNC chairman candidates to support their platform, which puts a premium on Internet organizing and technology.
The signatories include
- Patrick Ruffini, a former senior Republican official;
- Erick Erickson of Red State;
- Phil Musser, the former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, Republican fundraiser
- former Jeb Bush aide Justin Sayfie,
- and others.
All of them are UNDER 40; they have affiliations with different prospective 2012 presidential candidates; they had different opinions of Sarah Palin; they're interested in building a permanent grassroots volunteer infrastructure (apart from state parties if necessary) and candidate recruitment.
Ruffini said the group will launch a tool at ideas.rebuildtheparty.com "for people to suggest their own strategies for the RNC and for the community to vote these up or down."
(KOSSACKS! THIS IS WHERE WE COME IN AND INFILTRATE THE BASE)
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Here's an excerpt from their platform::
The challenge is daunting, but if we adopt a strongly anti-Washington message and charge hard against Obama and the Democrats, we will energize our grassroots base. Among other benefits, this will create real demand for new ways to organize and route around existing power structures that favor the Democrats. And, you will soon discover, online organizing is by far the most efficient way to transform our party structures to be able to compete against what is likely to be a $1 billion Obama re-election campaign in 2012.
Our near loss in the 2000 election sparked the 72 Hour program, after a brutal realization that we were being out-hustled in GOTV activities in the final days. Our partial success in the 2000 election didn't blind us to the need for change, and our eyes must be wide open now.
Barack Obama and the Democrats' ability to build their entire fundraising, GOTV, and communications machine from the Internet is the #1 existential challenge to our existing party model.
....
This goal seems daunting, but it forces us to think creatively about creating the sharpest, most compelling messages that will make people want to join us by the millions. If Newt Gingrich and T. Boone Pickens could each build an army of 1.4 million activists around energy, and Barack Obama could recruit 3 million to receive his VP selection by text message, then we know this is possible. If anything, given where the Internet will be in 2 or 4 years, we are low-balling the potential to create a new Republican online army.
Hold campaigns and local parties accountable. As important as it is that we invest in new technology at the national level, we must remember that the RNC's primary objective is to win races state by state and district by district, not build up its own brand.
To pursue this essential mission, individual campaigns must be held accountable for the number of emails they collect and the money they raise online. As much high-level attention must be paid to candidates' online strategy as with the number of voter contacts made into a particular district or if the right media strategist is working the race.
We must end a sense of dependence on the RNC at all levels -- in which the RNC simply turns over its lists -- and set goals that the campaigns must find creative and aggressive ways to meet:
In target 2010 Congressional races, we recommend setting a standard of at least 5,000 in-district online activists recruited, and a minimum of $100,000 raised online.
They've also adopted the Obama slogan as well:
"Change starts now. Complacency is no longer an option. "
"The Internet: Our #1 Priority in the Next Four Years"
My worry? We built this grassroots internet campaign machine in less than 2 years, and with the help of dailykos. They have 4 years to think this over and craft a new conservative machine, and have gotten a boost from Bush and Palin evangelicals.
READ THE FULL DOCUMENT HERE
Read the whole thing. It's interesting as well as necessary.
So with that said:
If you read the whole document, they're aspirations and observations about their failures are surprisingly very sober and smart and they've woken up to the values of grassroots community organizing and the internet as a means to successfully GOTV.
VIGILANCE, is something we should keep in mind for the next 4 years if Obama is to be a truly transformational and successful president, which will take 2 terms.
So how do we keep this machine running? ... Including the donations, the voter registration efforts, and actually enacting change? I was listening to the radio today and a lot of regular voters who phonebanked for the campaign or knocked on doors, but are NOT activists or dailykos-inclined want to know how to get involved.
We need to find out HOW to keep these people engaged in the process for the next 4 years, and not only for Obama's re-election, but also so that we can mobilize regular folks to put severe pressure on the Congress to get things like healthcare legislation passed and other progressive legislation. Obama's going to be up against new and new, fierce and unconventional opposition with ethnically, ideologically diverse and smarter conservatives than the last batch, because they have been watching Obama's campaign apparatus and victory closely.
The top-down campaign for No on Prop 8, in contrast to the Obama campaign, was absolutely dreadful. How can we apply the Obama campaign's community organizing efforts to progressive initiatives or campaigns like No onProp 8 and bring change elsewhere? So far, all i have seen is the Change.gov website, which at the moment doesnt seem much help and doesnt seem to be getting a lot of publicity anyway.