I think we need to rebuild the conservative movement from the ground up with candidates at the lower office levels. The National Review, Free Republic, Human Events doesn’t provide leadership or a connective force anymore because the coalition is so diverse and disconnected; neither does the Republican party . . . so we need to retake the party. I think that conservatives that don’t have major black marks such as scandals and arrests should realize the simple power that a clean reputation has . . . and run for office . . . and so begin to retake the party.
I think we are getting outworked by the liberals who do have the courage and conviction to run, set up 501(c) after 501(c), get various and bogus grants, unions with their paid protestors, and the whole mechanism of the left which continues to grow. We haven’t seen the full power of it yet because they’ve been out of power at the national level since 1968, with only the disaster of Carter in that period during full control of the Federal Government by the Dems. But if we lose this one . . . we’ll see it. The far lefts international billionaires are much more active than the wealthy on the right as well.
We have to work from the bottom up because the top down will get us the choices of the elites — who are basically open borders, don’t make waves with social issues types. Rockefeller types that wouldn’t mind Romney . . . or McCain . . . at all. Better to run for city council than post! You grab a smidgen of power; a chip that can be played in national races with whatever lists, campaign workers and structures you can build at the local level.
So ends my bloviation.
While a ground game ala Leadership Institute would be wonderful, the Party "leadership" won't let that happen. Just look at the way Bush wrecked the California GOP by letting Rove install Gerry Parsky after the 2000 election. Not only did they screw the GOP gubernatorial nominee, but they gave us Arnold, who cut off the entire down-ticket slate in 2006.
Conservatives have to back their guy in each primary race and stop contributing to the GOP until they change their tune.