Re-seeding and cultivating the center-right grassroots

Since the GOP’s most recent drubbing at the polls, there’s a detectable sense of triumphalism among denizens of the left-o-sphere. As conservatives retreat to their cabins in the wilderness, stocked up on hardtack and salt pork, to contemplate the future of the movement, the sounds of snickering and mockery from their opponents and the recriminations of erstwhile allies echo in their ears. At times like these, it’s easy to lose heart – especially if you don’t have the proper perspective on what, exactly, is going on.

Much of the delight that the left is taking in the travails of conservatives is misguided, however. It’s hard to blame them for basking in it, having spent the better part of the last ten years holed up in rustic domiciles of their own. But, if anyone should be aware that fortunes can turn in a relatively short period of time, it’s the left. After all, it was only a scant four years ago that the right was exulting in Howard Dean’s bellow heard ’round the world and chortling at the fact that Democrats had responded by putting him at the head of the party. And, we all see who’s laughing now.

Where the left is mistaken is in its perception of just what is taking place among the right in the aftermath of November 4. Witnessing the squabbling and finger-pointing, they seem to have convinced themselves that conservatism is a movement at long last put asunder. Of course, time will eventually be the judge. But, I would assert that what appears to be cannibalism and intramural bloodletting is little more than the transient bout of catharsis that always follows electoral losses – especially a second straight decisive electoral loss in four years.

There are signs that the conservative movement is in a much healthier state relative to that which its counterparts on the left found themselves in following the consecutive losses in 2000, 2002, and 2004. The most encouraging sign is the seeming lack of an outpouring of toxic hatred and rage toward the victors. Another encouraging sign is that there seems to be a much lower level of conspiracy mongering – and very little that isn’t justified by the fact that there are currently FBI investigations underway looking into voter registration fraud. Conservatives aren’t blaming Diebold and Halliburton, or their ideological equivalents, for what happened this year. By and large, the garment rending on the right has been a matter of self-rebuke.

Liberals will point to the recent rush to purchase guns as evidence that the the right is turning into a collection of concrete bunker-building yahoos beset by imaginary demons seeking to obliterate national boundaries and enslave the population. This is precisely where the left tends to go astray. By failing to recognize legitimate concerns of average Americans regarding government encroachments on individual liberties such as gun ownership, and lampooning people who see the potential for those encroachments when liberals control the legislative, executive and, potentially, the judiciary branches, Democrats will likely alienate the very voters they were so careful to pacify to get where they are.

What is encouraging about the right’s reaction to their rejection at the hands of voters is that, presented with the opportunity to blame America itself for failing to see the superiority of its ideas, it has so far refused to take the bait. A few people here and there lowered their flags to half-staff, or flew them upside-down in a silly display of petulance. And, a tiny, scattered minority of conservatives have talked about leaving the country for a more friendly atmosphere (which would be where, exactly?). But, on the whole, conservatives seem to be focused on finding out where they, themselves, went wrong. This is exactly the kind of healthy approach that brings about a speedy recovery.

What many on the left have convinced themselves are turf wars are actually little more than shoving matches between friends and allies. There’ll be plenty of name calling and blame-shifting over the coming months, to be sure. But, as the next round of elections draws nearer, and conservatives confront the very real prospect of further losses, there will be the kind of focusing of minds that comes about as the proverbial dawn hanging looms.

As I pointed out in my blog post from yesterday, there are already signs that the right is starting to “get it”. The efforts of the #dontgo Movement indicate a seriousness of purpose that hasn’t been seen since the Gingrich Revolution of 1994. But #dontgo will only be a part of the comeback, albeit an absolutely crucial part. In essence, it will be laying the groundwork that will enable other efforts to succeed.

Where #dontgo’s work focuses on promoting the tenets of traditional conservatism – low taxation, low regulation, individual liberties, and free markets – other entities are working to find ways to draw the Republican Party, as a vehicle for those ideas, back to its foundations. At The Next Right, a web site put together by a group of young center-right activists, the focus is on using technology as a tool to put together a right-leaning, grassroots-centered agenda that will bring about a conservative-libertarian resurgence, and rebuilding the Republican Party around that agenda.

Additionally, at Next Gen GOP, there’s a focus on promoting the ideas of an even younger generation of conservatives. This will be an absolutely crucial element of any rebuilding strategy if the Republican Party is to survive and provide an alternative to the evermore left-leaning agenda of the Democrats. As currently constructed, the GOP is hopelessly out of step with voters age 18-29. While some comfort themselves with the fact that, as a group, the youth vote tends not to show up on Election Day, it’s a very false sense of comfort, and to accept it as a justification for ignoring the concerns of younger voters is to sow the seeds of conservatism’s ultimate extinction.

Voting patterns are established early in people’s civic lives. A person who begins political life as a Democrat will likely die a Democrat. While it’s true that people tend to grow more conservative with age, and that more people come of age as political liberals, it serves no good purpose to allow an entire generation of voters to grow comfortable with the ideas of the left. And, unless the Republican Party makes an effort to address the concerns of younger voters, demonstrates a degree of respect for their ideas, and makes an effort to explain how center-right principles are more advantageous to interests than those of the opposition, the path back to relevance will be much longer and the terrain will be much rougher.

The efforts of groups like #dontgo, The Next Right, and Next Gen GOP, while separate and distinct, are by no means mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they are complementary and interdependent. Where #dontgo seeks to isolate itself from partisan identity in order to cultivate relationships with voters who believe in center-right principles, but no longer believe in the party that espouses them, The Next Right seeks to create an agenda that draws the party closer to those who believe in its principles, but have lost faith in its willingness to live up to them. And, while these two entities are working separately to bring voters and the GOP together by bridging the chasm that has opened between them as a consequence of a disconnect between the stated principles of the Republican Party and the actions of its leadership, Next Gen GOP is working to fill the gap with a younger, fresher, set of ideas that appeal to voters who will chart the course for conservatism and America itself.

So, while liberals are basking in the glory of finally having wrested the levers of power from the hands of the Republican Party, it will be a huge mistake if they allow themselves to believe that they have vanquished conservatism. Truth is, they’ve only succeeded in temporarily stalling the vehicle that conservatism rode to power; a vehicle in desperate need of a tuneup, no less. Let them have their day for the time being. Soon enough, they’ll fall victim to their own hubris, and conservatives will be poised to regain control. The groundwork is being laid as I write.

Why we need the #dontgo movement

As the Republican Party goes about deciding what it’s going to do in order to regain the influence it once had, there’s a subterranean movement afoot among free market, low-tax, low-regulation, pro-personal freedom activists seeking to reassert the influence their ideals once held in the GOP. Some elements are explicitly party-centered, while others have abandoned the notion that the Republicans can be changed from within and are seeking ways in which they can promote their beliefs among the voting public in order to force office seekers to come their way.

The #dontgo movement is one of the latter stripe, which started as a relatively small number of activists using the social media service Twitter to broadcast updates on the floor protest among House members opposed to the leadership’s decision to go into summer recess before passing an energy bill. The name comes from the tag, #dontgo, which was inserted into each update to enable supporters of the protest to more easily follow the debate’s progress. By entering the #dontgo identifier into Twitter’s search function, activists could easily follow minute-by-minute updates from people on the ground at the site of the protest, which in many cases included House members and their staffs.

Also, by using the #dontgo tag, activists from across the country were able to communicate with the people on the scene and provide feedback from the grassroots. As interest grew, a web site was constructed which provided an opportunity for activists to opt-in to email updates. The number of email subscribers now stands at over 30,000 – a movement in its nascent stages, set to grow as it mobilizes to set up a 50-state organization on the Web to facilitate action at the grassroots level.

With the recent decline in oil prices easing the energy issue out of the national spotlight, one might expect a similar decline in relevance of the #dontgo movement. That would be a mistake, however. The rationale behind #dontgo has far less to do with oil and energy issues themselves than it does with a general belief that regulation and government interference in free markets exacerbates problems more often than it alleviates them. In the particular case of the energy bill, #dontgo fought to have government restrictions on drilling lifted which contribute to high fuel prices by constricting oil supplies.

Seeing an opportunity to broadly promote free market principles, #dontgo has expanded its focus to include other areas where government intrusion has a negative effect on freedom. In resisting alignment with a particular political party, #dontgo has chosen to promote its ideas among the voters themselves at the grassroots level. The underlying rationale is that entrenched powers among the political elite long ago ceased to be concerned about ideas and voter concerns and, instead, have put establishing their own entrenchment at the top of their priority lists. This desire to grab and hold onto power at the expense of basic principles became all-too-apparent to many free market advocates during the massive bailout of financial institutions this fall, and is becoming more so as corporations like General Motors increasingly turn to the federal government to remedy their self-inflicted woes.

Noting the effectiveness with which Democrats utilized social media and Web 2.0 to spread the message of the Obama campaign, the #dontgo movement is currently engaged in a push to replicate that success in promoting free markets, lower taxes, less regulation, and government transparency. At its web site, along with signing up for the movement’s email newsletter, users can view the ongoing Twitter stream that launched the movement, as well as join the #dontgo Facebook group, which currently has just over 1,800 members.

This is just the beginning of an overall strategy to use the latest online technology to reach voters and bring them into the process of forming an anti-tax, pro-growth, pro-individual liberty agenda. The ultimate goal is to completely reform the way agendas are shaped. The need for this was perfectly captured in the days following the GOP’s defeat at the polls on November 4, when a small group of conservative leaders gathered for a closed-door meeting to decide what direction the conservative movement should take going forward. This stirred considerable angst among the conservative online community because it showed a complete misunderstanding of what brought about the recent string of Republican failures.

By not including any of the emerging talent from the conservative online community, the establishment demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of political activism in the digital age. This, of course, is nothing new among failed establishments. Having been successful in the past, and earning the deference of the rank and file over time, they become complacent and arrogant. The current conservative leadership serves as an object lesson in that phenomenon.

Rather than struggle with the powers that be within the existing structure, the #dontgo movement has chosen create its own structure and set its own priorities. Operating independently of the current regime, it will be able to allocate its resources where they will have the most impact rather than in ways that will placate those who cling to the old order of things. As an independent entity working directly and in constant communication with its rank and file, this new movement will be able to impose the will of the people on the current leadership, rather than perpetuating the status quo wherein the leadership makes promises in exchange for support, and then does as it sees fit and then counts on a short public attention span.

One of the integral parts of this movement – and one that has been woefully neglected by the conservative movement in recent years – will be the establishment of a citizens’ corps of investigative journalists, set to begin in January 2009. As currently conceived, each state will be a bureau unto itself, with state-wide coordinators and editors monitoring and managing contributors, potentially down to the precinct level. State editors will be responsible for aggregating and promoting content to highlight reporting that is most likely to have an impact on advancing #dontgo’s pro-freedom agenda. By exposing corruption, mobilizing public sentiment against initiatives that limit individual liberties, combating government intrusion into free markets, and working as an advocate for taxpayers, the #dontgo movement will send a message to the political establishment, regardless of party affiliation, that the American people have had enough.

More than anything, this movement provides an opportunity for all advocates of personal liberty, government accountability and free markets – after an election that can only be seen as a major setback – to rally around ideals rather than the same political parties that have failed them time and time again over the years. By promoting pro-freedom principles among the populace rather than engaging in a futile attempt to entice the establishment into promoting those principles in the corridors of power, the #dontgo movement is sending the message that the lip service that inevitably gets paid to the precepts enshrined in our Constitution by the Founding Fathers as Election Day draws near will no longer suffice.

Notice has been served: the #dontgo movement is underway.

Get Out and Push!

OK, folks. You’ve had 24 hours to sulk and conjure all the nightmare scenarios and conspiracy theories you’ll need to cover you for the next four years. Now, it’s time to get real and get serious about putting the conservative house back in order. And, while it may soothe your anguished soul to believe that Barack Obama can be prevented from taking office, if only an expert safecracker could take a shot at the vault in the Bureau of Health Statistics in Honolulu, there are pressing matters at hand that demand immediate attention; matters that will actually make a difference in the long run.

You see, there’s a movement to rebuild. It’s a movement which I’ve been accused of taking part in destroying by some folks who are enraged that John McCain managed to secure the nomination of the Republican Party. The fact is, I supported McCain in the primaries. And, as it turns out, he was soundly beaten at the polls. My rationale at the time was the same as it is now: That McCain was the only candidate in the mix who had a shot at winning on November 4. That matter will obviously be debated ad nauseum for the next four to eight years and beyond, depending upon how long it takes for conservatives to get their act straight.

I was also an early supporter of Sarah Palin, having voiced the opinion that she would make an excellent vice presidential candidate a few days after McCain secured the GOP nomination. And, as is bound to happen when you stick your head out of the foxhole, I’m getting flak from all directions. The rightest of the right in the GOP don’t like me much for backing McCain, and the left side of the GOP don’t like me much for daring to suggest that some backwoods governor from a state without an Amtrak station could possibly serve as Vice President of the United States of America.

Of course, it goes a bit far to suggest that my opinion has any bearing on the course of campaign events. Still, I’ve been gifted with the hair shirt by people from both ends of the Republican ideological spectrum, and if I have to wear it, so be it. I’ll take the blame if it will help a few people to get out of the ditch and get behind the conservative movement once again.

Just so we’re clear on things, let me point out that this is not going to be an easy task. It’s going to take the effort of literally millions of people to get this train rolling again. But it can be done, and most importantly, it must be done. There’s a plenty at stake for the future of America without raising the specter of tanks rolling through the streets and mysterious squads of black-clad government agents descending upon suburban homes to snatch law-abiding conservatives from their beds in the wee hours. Tuesday’s election did not foreordaine this despite anything your coworkers forward to your email account.

Given my recent success (as it were) in choosing candidates and reaching accord with my fellow conservatives, I’ll reserve for now my opinion on just which way the conservative movement must lurch if we are to regain the trust of the voting public in operating the levers of government. Instead, I will focus on what other conservatives must do in order to exert influence on the direction of the party that will embody that movement. This will be the easy part, since none of the suggestions I make require any monetary investment, and the process of undertaking them requires minimal effort – scarcely more than a few mouse clicks and filling out a few form fields on web pages.

First off, I suggest that every conservative sign up on at least one social networking site. My personal preference is Facebook, where I have managed to build a “friends list” of just under 900 people in a matter of just a few months. Not all of the people on my list are politically active. Some, in fact, are old high school friends whom I haven’t seen in years. That’s part of the beauty of the social networking phenomenon, actually. It can be a gratifying experience on a personal level, whether you intend to use it in order to make political connections, to simply reconnect with long-lost acquaintances, or both. It doesn’t cost a thin dime, and it can be an incredibly informative tool if used properly.

When you set up an account on Facebook and other social networking sites (or “SocNets” in Web parlance), the site will offer to look through the contacts in your Web-based email accounts to see if there are any existing users in your contact list. This is purely optional, so you can decline to allow it to do so and go about searching for contacts manually. While it may seem somewhat invasive, it is much more convenient to permit Facebook to search for you. So, you have to balance your sense of comfort with the privacy of your contact list with your desire to establish as many contacts as you can in the least amount of time.

For social networking to be effective, you need to establish a good number of contacts: The more you have, the more quickly and easily you can communicate and share information. That’s not to say that everyone needs to have a huge list of friends. It all depends on what you’re seeking to accomplish. If your aim is to share information and keep abreast of the latest developments in a broad area of interest, it pays to have a lot of people in your network. Likewise, if you’re simply interested in staying in contact with a close, tight-knit community of people with a focus on a specific, narrow set of issues, there’s no point in establishing a huge list of contacts.

There are other sites which work in similar ways. Simply typing “social networking sites” into your favorite search engine will reveal dozens of choices. Pick out the one that sounds most appealing to you – there are several criteria to consider, such as demographics – but one will surely appeal to you. And, once you’ve settled on your preference, take the time to tinker and explore. But, whatever you do, don’t give up on it if you don’t immediately see its utility. My Facebook account sat dormant for several weeks while I wasted time dawdling on a MySpace page that I abandoned in fairly short order.

If privacy is your concern, there are settings that can be adjusted on your account that you can use to restrict who is able to access your page and see your activity. While nothing is 100 percent fool-proof when it comes to the nefarious activities of malingering web denizens, my experience has been completely free of hassle and harrassment.

Once you’ve set up on a social networking site, you’ll also want to sign up for a Twitter account. Like Facebook, Twitter’s utility isn’t immediately obvious. Much like my initial foray into social networking, I allowed my account to sit unused for several weeks before I finally decided to see what the fuss was all about and learn how to properly use it. Since then, it has become an integral part of my online experience.

Twitter is a a combination of social networking and blogging – some refer to it as “micro-blogging”. It’s an extremely efficient way of broadcasting your thoughts and activities and keeping up with those of others. It basically works by restricting your posts to 140 characters. This forces you to get to the point quickly, and the key to getting your point across is to be as interesting as possible within those 140 characters. The forced efficiency is part of the beauty of Twitter, actually. It has a way of removing extraneous information that only serves to get in the way of your message.

A huge part of the effectiveness of Twitter is broadcasting links to information that you encounter as you go about your typical routine on the Web. Yet, as anyone knows, link URL’s can be well over 140 characters long in some cases, making them too long for Twitter’s imposed limit. However, there are services called URL shorterners, or re-directs, which will cut down the number of characters to allow them to fit Twitter’s format. My personal favorite is called “is.gd”. Another popular one is “tinyurl”. Just type either of those terms into a search engine and you’ll find them. Once there, all you do is cut and paste the original URL into a form field and submit it, and you’ll be provided with an permanent alternate URL that will be approximately 18 to 25 characters long and will allow you to type in a description to accompany your link.

Of course, then there’s the matter of getting your link seen by others. It will do no good to send out every interesting tidbit of information you encounter on a given day if no one sees it. The way to do this is to begin “following” others’ Twitter messages – or “Tweets” as they’re referred to in the “Twitterverse”. Like Facebook, when you set up your account, it will give you the option to allow Twitter to scour the contacts stored in your web-based email account for users who are already signed up with the service. You can choose from a list of whoever the software discovers and immediately begin following their Tweets, or you can choose to follow none at all. Also, you can choose not to allow Twitter to scour your contacts if don’t feel comfortable with the idea.

Assuming you have a healthy paranoia about allowing unknown software to pilfer through your email contacts, you can always use Twitter’s search function to find accounts of people you want to follow. Many politicians now use Twitter to communicate with their online grassroots, and so do many major news sources like Fox News and CNN. Matt Drudge also has a Twitter feed that you can follow, as does Jim Geraghty from National Review Online’s blog “The Campaign Spot”. Some are more active than others, but you can expect to see Twitter used more and more in the future as awareness of the potential of this technology begins to dawn on more and more people who seek to influence news coverage or public policy.

Part of the etiquette of Twitter, and what makes it work, is the phenomenon called “follow-back”. Simply put, if someone follows your Tweets, it’s a good practice to follow theirs in return. You will find the option to do this whenever you search for a Twitter user and succeed in finding one. Generally speaking, if you set your account up in order to do so, you will be notified when someone begins following your Tweets, and vice-versa. Also, you’ll gain followers by simply using Twitter.

The key to gaining followers by using the service is to use the “reply” function whenever you see a Tweet that you feel calls for a response. When you do this, all the people who are following the person you reply to will see it. If your response is interesting or entertaining, there’s a good chance someone will begin following your Tweets. Remember to return the favor – and, if you’re so inclined, it never hurts to send a reply to that person, saying “Thanks for the follow!”

If all of this seems a bit complicated, it’s much easier than you’d expect. Just use your preferred search engine to find “Twitter how-to” or “Twitter tutorial” and you’ll find plenty of links to explain the ins and outs. And, once you’ve gotten a handle on it, you’ll want to find ways to integrate it into your Web habits: Twitter can actually be somewhat addictive once you’ve discovered just how useful and entertaining it can be.

One way to get integrated is through using browser extensions, or add-ons. There are several useful ones available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. There are even some standalone Twitter applications that can be downloaded to make using it more convenient for those who prefer it that way. As you become more familiar with Twitter, you’ll likely want to find these tools to maximize your efficiency. Simply searching for “Twitter extensions” or “Twitter add-ons” or “Twitter toolbar” will lead you to plenty of options. They’re typically small downloads that install themselves and require little more than relaunching your browser filling in your account information to get set up and running.

One of the benefits of using a service like Twitter and following others and being followed is that you’re likely to be able to find help if you should encounter any trouble installing extensions and toolbars. There are lots of people in the Twitterverse who are more than happy to help out with minor technical problems.

The key is not to get discouraged or dismiss its utility too soon. Keep using it and keep searching for people to follow and before you know it, it will pay off. You’ll get links that are hilarious and some that are stunning. But, always, always remember that whenever you send out a Tweet, whoever is following you will see it. So, it pays to practice some discretion since, by its very nature, Twitter is not a way to transmit private information. It simply isn’t intended to be.

The reason services like Twitter and Facebook will be so important in rebuilding the conservative movement is because that is where technology is currently heading. The ability to connect with others and disseminate information as quickly and widely as possible will be crucial in the months and years ahead. New technologies will emerge that will eventually push these aside. But, as long as conservatives make it a point to stay abreast of trends in communicating and broadcasting information, we will be able to compete with the left. And, until we make an effort to do that, all the money and door knocking and phone banking and campaigning in the world won’t help ups to close the gap and eventually return to prominence.

There’s a movement already underway, and it’s being led by sharp, talented, and savvy young leaders like Patrick Ruffini, Jon Henke, and Soren Dayton at The Next Right – a right-leaning community/blog/forum dedicated to rebuilding the conservative movement through grassroots participation and exploitation of technology – otherwise known as “building the Rightroots”. These dedicated thirty-something activists have taken it upon themselves to start a process that is long overdue, and they’re getting the attention of the Republican leadership. Likely, they’ll have considerable influence over that leadership in the near future. As such, it behooves conservatives of every stripe to keep an eye on them and pay close attention to what they have to say.

Also, there’s a brand new group called NextGenGOP who have launched a blog dedicated developing conservative talent from an even younger pool of activists – those age 18 – 25. It will be crucial for the conservative movement pay attention to this group of voters because, as November 4 made clear, the Republican Party is graying quickly. And, unless the GOP can get a handle on what’s on the minds of the younger generation, it will be relegated to permanent minority status. The party, as a vehicle for conservatism, simply cannot afford to allow an entire generation of voters to get into the habit of voting for Democrats for no better reason than that the GOP never bothered to pay attention to them or their concerns. This isn’t simply a matter of winning the next election. It’s a matter of political survival.  If you know a bright young conservative who might be able to contribute, tell them about NextGenGOP.

So there you have it. That’s my advice, for what it’s worth, on what it will take to bring the Republican Party back out of the wilderness in which we currently find ourselves. As I said at the beginning of this post, it’s not my intention to influence the ideological direction, or to make any pronouncements on which government policy positions are needed to regain the trust and respect of the American voter. Rather, it’s my intention to point in the general direction that conservatives must head if they’re going to have any influence over the future direction of this great movement.

And with that, I hope to see a confident, forward-looking movement again in the near future. As I said, it’s not going to be easy. There will be setbacks and recriminations along the way – something I can attest to with complete confidence, as I’ll be bearing some of the brunt. But, for now, the time has come for conservatives to get behind this movement and push it up and out of the ditch in which it is currently mired.

There’s no time to waste.