by Max Barry

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Region: Libertatem

Suzi Island wrote:Cerno talked about the GOP implementing ballot harvesting in summer 2020 and was ignored maybe we should of listened?

Perhaps it may have been an area to seriously consider, but I do not think the Republicans could have built up their ballot harvesting game sufficiently in a few short months in order to turn the election around. I do think there are other factors that probably contributed to the result and probably would have overwhelmed any marginal increase in Republican ballots through harvesting. 2020 sucked, but I've heard it said that it may have been providential. It got a lot of people to open their eyes regarding the state we're actually in.

I would say that more generally, Republicans need to focus on learning community organizing, and reaching out to populations that establishment Republicans have written off for decades. No serious party can sustain itself while forfeiting the cities, the women, and the minorities - that's a fast track to irrelevance. I am aware that Scott Presler is doing good work on some of these fronts.

Republicans also needed better leadership, which appears to be improving slowly. Glad to see Mitch McConnell and Ronna Romney go from their high profile leadership positions, but I've also heard of the Precinct Strategy led by Dan Schultz which is growing party leadership from the ground up by filling empty precinct committeeman positions, which are important for nominating and electing higher leadership positions. Seems promising. More generally, I think Reagan's Eleventh Commandment has its place, but Republicans need to be more discerning about RINOs, and gate keep the controlled opposition. The reelection of Kemp comes to mind, and the former Arizona GOP Chair Jeff DeWit made famous by Kari Lake's released recording - people like these are all over and they will sell out principled Republicans for a little personal gain. I'd put Nikki Haley in this category too, and I've got to admit I was pretty disappointed by most of the GOP's contenders for runner up.

But if Republicans want to be something other than the second party in a one party state, they can't shrink from the Democrats' aggressive legal and cultural battles. When rules, laws, and constitutional provisions are violated, and cases are brought to the courts and dismissed not on the merits, but on a catch-22 of standing and laches, then the fight has to be taken up politically, not surrendered by weak kneed (or worse) leadership.

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