Business2.0.com: Only on AOL Big Story - Page 1: "For Clif's marketing staff, this was close to the perfect storm: a smallish gathering with lots of young, left-leaning trendsetters, a chance to associate Clif with a socially responsible message -- and a surefire means of coaxing people to try the product. "
This is why more multi-millionairs support Dems than GOP... Young market segment mostly Dem. Who was it that said: "If you aren't a liberal when you are young, you have no heart. If you aren't a conservative when you are older, you have no brain." That's why only grassroots organization can win elections for the GOP. We've proven now in Colorado that a mass market appeal to the young voter with a very attractive candidate along the lines of Clif Erickson (Pete Coors) and a Dem-style get out the vote effort (96-hour campaign) just doesn't work. What we need are grassroots county chairs, hard working district captains who fill every precient with trained leaders and block workers, culminating in 1) well attended neighborhood caucuses, and 2) support of every GOP candidate from nomination to get out the vote on election day. At least that's what I think. Do you agree?
Scott Russell is right. Your comments are negative and not really helpful to the Republican cause. It is true that at a state level, Colorado did not do so hot. It is easy to be a monday morning quarterback (or wednesday morning in this case) and try to distribute blame here or there. At our Senate candidate or at the best thing to thappen to the Republican Party in a long time (96-Hour Campaign). I agree 100% that the county chairs, dirtrict captains and precinct captains need to be more involved in the grassroots efforts. That would be the Cadillac version of the 96-Hour Program. That is what we attempted with the 96-Hour program. Unfortunately, if grass-roots campaigning were left up to County Chairs etc. then our situation would be much worse. In my opinion, the one thing that the state could do better, something that might have been helpful this time around, is candidate recruitment for the State House and Senate.
ReplyDeleteJon Reynolds
Field Director
96-Hour Campaign
I believe that the "grassroots" of the party, including candidates, appreciate the hard work done by 96 Hours to elect the president.
ReplyDeleteWhat is not appreciated is sugar coating 96 Hours as the saviour of the GOP. We lost the entire state legislature, one senate seat, one house seat, the governor took a bath on FasTracks -- and let us not even go into the catastrophic problem with 96 Hour lists.
Criticism that is accurate is not "negative," and attempting to characterize it as negative is avoidance behavior that will solve nothing. 96 Hours was a failure except for President Bush, no small victory, but should it even have been that close in Colorado?
96 Hours needs to respect the first tier counties' party organization and work within it, not over it.
There were indeed many problems with the 96-Hour program, some of which you've mentioned. Criticism of those problems is not unwelcome. However, criticism of the organization as a whole is not necesarily productive. The 96-Hour Program is still in a stage of infancy. This year was the second go around. Two years ago the program was very successful. This year the program more than quadrupled it's size. That is a big leap and disorganization can be expected. 96-Hour does not need to be replaced by county party leadership. The role of 96-Hour should be to supplement county party efforts and vice versa. There were many instances around the state where county parties served more as a social club than a grass roots organization. All of the mistakes made by the 96-Hour Campaign need to be improved upon. 96-Hour needs to be a year round project, constantly building relationships with county parties and potential candidates, building up an infrastructure so that when an election year arrives, everything is in place and ready to roll. The Republican Party will become a force to be reckoned with if everyone works together. Wrangling within accomplishes absolutely nothing.
ReplyDeleteJR
Watershed moment for GOP, they left behind decades of being leaders in Colorado, and I changed my registration when I could see what would eventually lead to 9/11 and January 6.
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