Posted on 10/17/2002 8:50:55 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
Morton Blackwell, the Republican National Committeeman from Virginia, has sent a remarkable five-page letter to his colleagues on the national committee.
He is asking them to name names.
By way of background, Blackwell has run a political-action committee for 30 years, one that sends young people into GOP campaigns to organize college campuses. In the last decade, he has run the Leadership Institute, which, among other things, teaches the organizational aspect of politics.
Blackwell has observed that Republicans have lost hundreds of elections because they concentrate exclusively on the air wars and neglect the ground wars. By this he means that candidates for Congress, for example, just advertise and don't bother to organize precincts so they can identify their voters and turn them out on Election Day. He has preached this gospel for years, and his party largely has ignored the message.
Then came the 2000 elections. Vice President Al Gore got a half-million more votes than George W. Bush, who just managed to earn enough electoral votes to win the presidency thanks to his victory in Florida by a heart-stopping margin. The GOP did a postmortem on that election and was astonished to find that a significant portion of its base didn't vote.
So the Republicans did some experimenting in off-year and special elections. They targeted certain areas and made a real effort to identify sympathetic voters and turn them out on Election Day. The results were dramatic, to the point that the party developed a whole program for the upcoming off-year congressional elections. Historically, the party in power loses seats in such elections.
The political consultants, who make their money giving advice to campaigns, almost always have dismissed the need to organize the grass roots. The dirty little secret is that most of them get a 15 percent kickback for booking media advertising. Any money that goes toward a serious grass-roots organizing effort is money unavailable for media.
The Republican National Committee called in all the consultants from across the nation and briefed them on their plan to implement grass-roots organizing for the 2002 elections. They all applauded. But many of them were thinking "over my dead body." Blackwell explains all of this in his letter and points out that the Democrats overcame the objections of their consultants and increased their vote by 4 percent in key areas.
He tells his colleagues: "I'm asking for your help to explore ways to get around, over or through those people whose financial interest or political ignorance causes them to obstruct any campaign efforts other than fund raising and paid media. That won't be easy, particularly where these obstructionists are powerful or well-connected or even our personal friends."
Blackwell asks that his associates pay attention to the plans for implementing the ground wars. "If you find clear evidence of obstructionist activity, please let me know the details of it: who, what and when," he requests.
Blackwell intends to be sure that the names of those consultants who insisted on spending campaign money on media to the detriment of a sound precinct organization are known and that the campaigns they lost as a result of that "strategy" are well-publicized. He points out that the country narrowly is divided and any increase in his party's vote can mean the difference between victory and defeat in what is being viewed as likely one of the closest elections in our history.
Blackwell might want to hire a food taster and someone to start his car. This is serious stuff. Many of these consultants are as mean as they come. He may cost them significant dollars. If they are, in effect, blacklisted in the future, it could cost them their careers. What Blackwell has done takes courage. He should be applauded for what he has undertaken. For far too long, many of these unethical consultants have lined their own pockets at the expense of the candidates they are supposed to be helping, and perhaps even at the expense of the nation.
Perhaps a candidate who lost by 4 percent might have turned out to be a man of true integrity and fortitude who could have helped to turn this nation around. But he is not in Congress today because some consultant talked him out of a good grass-roots organization to ensure the availability of more money for TV ads that usually are seen by thousands upon thousands of people who can't vote in that particular district anyway. Yet the television outlets charge by the number of people they reach during a certain time period, regardless of how many are irrelevant to that campaign. A good precinct organization covers only the territory of the contested district.
One only can hope that Blackwell's colleagues will take this project seriously. It has been a long time since Richard Nixon produced an enemies list. It would seem that the Grand Old Party needs a new one.
Paul M. Weyrich is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Washington-based Free Congress Foundation. INSIGHT magazine October 14, 2002 Is the GOP Losing Races Due to Greedy Media Buyers?
Posted Oct. 14, 2002
By Paul M. Weyrich
Morton Blackwell, the Republican National Committeeman from Virginia, has sent a remarkable five-page letter to his colleagues on the national committee.
He is asking them to name names.
By way of background, Blackwell has run a political-action committee for 30 years, one that sends young people into GOP campaigns to organize college campuses. In the last decade, he has run the Leadership Institute, which, among other things, teaches the organizational aspect of politics.
Blackwell has observed that Republicans have lost hundreds of elections because they concentrate exclusively on the air wars and neglect the ground wars. By this he means that candidates for Congress, for example, just advertise and don't bother to organize precincts so they can identify their voters and turn them out on Election Day. He has preached this gospel for years, and his party largely has ignored the message.
Then came the 2000 elections. Vice President Al Gore got a half-million more votes than George W. Bush, who just managed to earn enough electoral votes to win the presidency thanks to his victory in Florida by a heart-stopping margin. The GOP did a postmortem on that election and was astonished to find that a significant portion of its base didn't vote.
So the Republicans did some experimenting in off-year and special elections. They targeted certain areas and made a real effort to identify sympathetic voters and turn them out on Election Day. The results were dramatic, to the point that the party developed a whole program for the upcoming off-year congressional elections. Historically, the party in power loses seats in such elections.
The political consultants, who make their money giving advice to campaigns, almost always have dismissed the need to organize the grass roots. The dirty little secret is that most of them get a 15 percent kickback for booking media advertising. Any money that goes toward a serious grass-roots organizing effort is money unavailable for media.
The Republican National Committee called in all the consultants from across the nation and briefed them on their plan to implement grass-roots organizing for the 2002 elections. They all applauded. But many of them were thinking "over my dead body." Blackwell explains all of this in his letter and points out that the Democrats overcame the objections of their consultants and increased their vote by 4 percent in key areas.
He tells his colleagues: "I'm asking for your help to explore ways to get around, over or through those people whose financial interest or political ignorance causes them to obstruct any campaign efforts other than fund raising and paid media. That won't be easy, particularly where these obstructionists are powerful or well-connected or even our personal friends."
Blackwell asks that his associates pay attention to the plans for implementing the ground wars. "If you find clear evidence of obstructionist activity, please let me know the details of it: who, what and when," he requests.
Blackwell intends to be sure that the names of those consultants who insisted on spending campaign money on media to the detriment of a sound precinct organization are known and that the campaigns they lost as a result of that "strategy" are well-publicized. He points out that the country narrowly is divided and any increase in his party's vote can mean the difference between victory and defeat in what is being viewed as likely one of the closest elections in our history.
Blackwell might want to hire a food taster and someone to start his car. This is serious stuff. Many of these consultants are as mean as they come. He may cost them significant dollars. If they are, in effect, blacklisted in the future, it could cost them their careers. What Blackwell has done takes courage. He should be applauded for what he has undertaken. For far too long, many of these unethical consultants have lined their own pockets at the expense of the candidates they are supposed to be helping, and perhaps even at the expense of the nation.
Perhaps a candidate who lost by 4 percent might have turned out to be a man of true integrity and fortitude who could have helped to turn this nation around. But he is not in Congress today because some consultant talked him out of a good grass-roots organization to ensure the availability of more money for TV ads that usually are seen by thousands upon thousands of people who can't vote in that particular district anyway. Yet the television outlets charge by the number of people they reach during a certain time period, regardless of how many are irrelevant to that campaign. A good precinct organization covers only the territory of the contested district.
One only can hope that Blackwell's colleagues will take this project seriously. It has been a long time since Richard Nixon produced an enemies list. It would seem that the Grand Old Party needs a new one.
Paul M. Weyrich is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Washington-based Free Congress Foundation.
PA RNC, take note! Rendell's Dems have rallied their base.
Any voter who didn't cast a vote in the 2000 election shouldn't be considered part of anyone's "base."
It has always amazed me that a party that does a reasonable job in government is so incredibly inept in its attempts at getting into government.
What makes this unique is that the "volunteers" are being paid! We are going to turn out enough voters to reelect Senator Allard. Mark my words.
If you want to help take back the Senate, go to
TakeBackCongress.org. It will point you to the key races and has lots of suggestions about how you can help.
If you are a FREEPER in Colorado and would like to help turn out the vote, and get paid, contact me by FREEPMAIL.
I'd like to see Morton Blackwell's letter. Do you have it?
Absolutely not! All your base are belong to us!
Because of forums like FreeRepublic most of us freepers find ourselves shouting at the TV and talking to magazines and newspapers, forgetting that we can't respond there as we do here.
Recently, when Tom Daschle was on TV saying we could not afford a tax cut I was shouting, "It is you big spending leftists Democrats who can't afford a tax cut, not the average American!! Please tell me why the average citizen cannot afford to have more money in his pocket! Please tell me how that would hurt the economy!"
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