Posted on 04/15/2012 6:54:46 AM PDT by ziravan
I am a candidate for Texas Legislature,and I had the opportunity to speak at my County Republican Party Convention.
This is what I said:
There is not a Democrat in the State of Texas that can stop a truly conservative agenda (applause).
The people and power brokers that are stopping our agenda all wear the label, "Republican". (Party chair shakes head at this comment).
We don't need to guess what our grassroots want from us. We have a convenient document, a document that we are crafting in this room today, that shows us what our party wants from us. That is our Party Platform. If you look at the Texas Republican Platform, it is a very conservative call to action. If we followed our platform, we wouldn't have needed a 'tea party'; the Republican party WOULD BE the TEA PARTY.
Instead, it is my experience that most of our elected officials either don't know what is in the platform, or don't care. I've actually heard an elected leader - not in this county - state that the platform is little more than fodder to keep the base happy.
Not so. The platform is our party's message to this meeting about the direction in which we want our Nation, our State, and our Community to go. We ignore our base at our own peril.
President Reagan used to say, "I didn't leave the Democrat Party; the Democrat Party left me." I talk with the rank and file that make up the base of our party every day. More and more often I hear something quite similar, "I didn't leave the Republican Party; the Republican Party left me." (Party chair shakes head no).
We must take our Party back. That means we must work to make our platform a reality and hold our candidates to its agenda. If we keep ignoring our grassroots, we WILL lose our base.
The GOP likes the message that they are in the majority in Texas, but doesn’t like nearly as much the message that that must mean that the GOP is fully responsible for holding back a conservative agenda.
I meant to say something about ABO but changed my mind - and that change didn’t make it into the title, sorry. What I meant to say is that while talking to people, I do hear ABO quite a bit.
But.
The people saying that the party is leaving them behind are growing in numbers every day. That part of our base doesn’t say ABO nearly so often...
Good luck on your candidacy. Speaker Straus has GOT to go.
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