Want Change in 2016? Start NOW.
Are you frustrated with the current state of the NCGOP? Start organizing your like-minded friends to take over — or at least build a sizeable contingent within — your precinct and your county party organization. The county party organization makes the decisions about who goes to the state convention. That’s where the platform AND the party chairman are decided on. He who shows up, wins. That’s how it works.
Frustrated with your US senator or congress-critter? Start beating the bushes for a suitable candidate NOW. It takes a lot of money — at least $250,000 — to run a credible campaign for the US House (especially against an incumbent). It takes time to build name ID throughout a congressional district. You need someone who will generally be respected in large swaths of your district. You also need to find someone people feel comfortable hosting fundraisers for or cutting big checks for. Look for someone who has a record of actually doing what he/ she says they are going to do. Someone who has actually won an election previously by doing JUST THAT would be an extra-special bonus.
Good communication skills are a plus. We live in a society where how you look and sound means A LOT. Think The Bachelor, American Idol and Dancing With The Stars. That is why you see lawyers, preachers, and funeral directors doing so well in politics. Their business success hinges on being able to communicate effectively and positively influence people. Former media personalities are an option to consider. John Edwards succeeded in 1998 thanks to his courtroom-enhanced silver tongue and the fact women found him attractive. Jesse Helms wasn’t exactly a sex symbol. But he was a television commentator on one of the most-watched TV newscasts in North Carolina. That helped him develop name ID across a good chunk of the state. His professional success in TV depended on his being able to communicate effectively on-camera. Helms was able to cultivate those two factors into a successful 30 year US Senate career.
Settle on a champion as early as possible. I’ve seen far too many lousy establishment types win because the conservative anti-establishment couldn’t unite behind a candidate (Renee Ellmers 2012, Thom Tillis 2014). One establishment type against FIVE Tea Party types tends not to work out well for those of us in the counter-establishment. 
Who can raise the money? Who can earn the most respect district-wide or state-wide? Who is more likely to stand by his or her campaign rhetoric once sworn in to office? Who has the least amount of campaign-killing skeletons in their closet?
Start cultivating a reason for people to make a change. Americans tend to get comfortable with the familiar. They tend not to pay much attention to the nuts-and-bolts of politics and governing, but they do remember who their girl or guy is. There are a lot of good blogs out there that provide ammunition for making the case for changing your politicians. (We do it especially well here.)
People who market products know that they have to present a credible case for consumers to abandon the product or service they currently use for another option. How will this new option make my life better? How will it make things more comfortable and stress-free for me? How will this new candidate make things better for my city / county / state / country than the current candidate?
It’s easy to sit back and gripe — to occasionally post anonymously on blogs. That gives you temporary satisfaction, but it doesn’t do a whole lot to effect real change. Start doing your part. Share information that you obtain from blogs like ours. (Information is power. Why do you think dictatorships take such great pains to clamp down on the media?) Go to work locally on gaining significant influence within your local party organization. Start looking around for suitable, like-minded candidates. (Make folks like us aware of these people so we can start getting the word around about them.)
If you are serious about changing things, you NEED to get to work NOW.
Great article, hope folks read and share over the holidays.
GOP precinct meetings will be in February. Check for the locations, dates, and times in your county. Usually anyone who shows up can be a delegate to the county convention, and the allotment of state delegates is high enough, that usually anyone who wants to go to the state and district conventions, there will be plenty of slots open.
It looks like we will have a conservative running for state chairman this year, so it is important to get the conservative vote out.
What “conservative” is running for State chair?
Maybe you missed this one:
https://dailyhaymaker.com/?p=9715
I am talking about Daoud, of course, NOT Carolyn Justice, who is a big government liberal and Richard Morgan follower.
Not sure about certain things about him including any decision on his part to run, but it wouldn’t take much to be a preferred alternative to her.
Boom.
Your advice about organizing friends and like-minded is valid except for your promotion of political parties. 2016 will be the year of the unaffiliated/independent.
A well organized grassroots movement will eliminate the need for all that money. You will eventually see the wisdom in completely abandoning political parties, as we know them “corrupt beyond repair” you keep playing on “their field” and under their rules, you will rarely ever win.
We need to convince like minds that it is time to be an unaffiliated voter in 2015 because both parties look at registration #”s and we need to give both cause to worry about their donations. If you are unaffiliated then you have a wonderful opportunity of not receiving calls from either one begging for money to support their cause not ours.
Word is Claude Pope will run again and it’ll be between him and Mrs. Justice
Wow, that is like choosing between Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney.
Hard to believe we can’t find a conservative to run for NCGOP Chair.
This ”unaffiliated” talk is extremely counterproductive. I know if has a certain ”feel good” aspect after things like the Boehner Betrayal on CRomnibus, but it makes no practical sense, and just makes conservatives’ task of actually gaining ground in government much harder.
To win elections, we need a mechanism to recruit and support conservative candidates. That exists within the GOP, and we can get our hands as conservatives on it if we try. It does not exist among unaffiliated voters, and without it they are limited to the candidates nominated by Republicans and Democrats. If we cannot nominate good GOP candidates because too many conservatives have deserted to unaffiliated, the unaffiliated voters are left choosing between two bad candidates. What does that accomplish?
Yes, I know that unaffiliated voters can (for now) vote in party primaries, but they cannot vote to help gain control of party structures and that is just as important in getting conservatives nominated. But conservatives, after the dirty tricks by the establishment in Mississippi, are coming to realize that open primaries are not good, and there is growing sentiment to get rid of them. According to the exit polls, the only reason McCain won his key early primaries that gave him the nomination was because of open primaries. If only Repubicans had voted, McCain would have lost. The big reason Republicans should close their primaries to unaffilliated voters is that the lions share of them these days come from the Democrat party and allowing them to participate in GOP primaries pushes the GOP primary electorate to the left.
I get the frustration with the many bad things, most recently CRomnibus, that the Big Government wing of the GOP has done, and I share it. It makes me very frustrated, too, but my reaction is to fight them, not cut and run.
To present a viable alternative, those who want to promote switching to unaffiliated need to create a viable mechanism to recruit and support viable independent conservative candidates. Until that exists, it is silly and counterproductive to be enticing people to switch to unaffiliated. There were lots of tempting targets this past election for independent conservative candidates, whether in races with both parties on the ballot like the 2nd congressional district, or those where a conservative could have had a one on one race with a GOP squish like the 9th congressional district or Skip Stam’s State House district. No conservative independent candidates appeared. Until you have that mechanism, when you try to lure conservative voters into registering unaffiliated, you are just trying to decrease their impact in the political process.
Were do you go if you support NEITHER party?
There are some good people out there, those with strong conservative values that won’t march to the beat of Boehner’s drum but instead will do what the voters ask…….In District 2 we need to replace Ms. Ellmers and we must elect someone we can trust, support and believe in. How about Jim Duncan in Chatham County?
Jim Duncan would be a massive improvement.
I could get behind that, and actually feel good about it. That’s rare these days.