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2009: the time to start rebuilding in The cities is now.

Submitted by A.J.Nolte on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 14:17
in

It has been an unfortunate fact of the GOP's recent past that, by and large, we have remained uncompetitive in urban areas. Strategically, Republicans, and conservative republicans in specific, have viewed urban outreach as superfluous at best, believing that a coalition of rural and suburban voters would be sufficient to maintain electoral majorities. If this was ever true before, it is certainly less so now, and if demographics continue to change, will continue to grow less true in coming decades. Now, as we are reeling in response to Democrats capturing deep red districts, the GOP must start thinking about turning the tables, and this begins with candidate-building in America's cities. Some of the countries' largest cities--New York, L.A. and Atlanta just to name a few, will have mayoral and city council elections in 2009. I think it is imperative for state parties, and even the RNC, to target these races, setting measurable goals particularly in city council races. Before we leap-frog into 2010, let's ask--and try to answer--the following questions about 2009:

1. What positive steps can we take immediately to begin building party infrastructure and recruiting activists in urban areas?

2. What measurable goals can we set for local city parties in 2009?

3. What percentage of city council races in 2009 can the GOP reasonably hope to contest?

4. Can the RNC help create a national "contract with urban America" which proposes free-market solutions to urban problems and onto which city council and mayoral candidates can sign? What would such a contract look like?

5. How can the GOP compete with corrupt, one-party rule in the cities? Can we bring shady Democratic practices in such places as Philadelphia and Chicago to light in 2009 and other off-year elections, and if so, how?

 

I welcome comments and suggestions on these important questions. I don't think there are easy answers, but we need to start the discussion, and do it now.

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Comments

Kick the racist bums out of your party

Submitted by RisingTide on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 14:29.

and then maybe people will want to listen.

I know a lot of black conservatives that vote Democratic because they won't vote for the racist party.

Quit trolling this site

Submitted by RedMango on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 15:36.

I'm serious.  GTFO and wallow in Kos filth.  When black people in inner city vote blindly for the Democrats like lemmings, it is motivated by nothing else but sheer racism.  Detroit shows us how good 50 years of uninterrupted Democrat rule can be for blacks. 

Reply to RisingTide troll

Submitted by RedMango on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 15:37.

^

as they said to the contortionist

Submitted by RisingTide on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 15:41.

TITS OR GTFO.

(this preceding message comes straight to you from 4chan. I am not a member of Anonymous).

 

Add up Macacca Allen and Corker to your side

Submitted by RisingTide on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 15:39.

and what do you get? The drumbeat of racism, sometimes literally.

I find it rather funny that you can't realize enlightened self-interest when you see it.

Winning the Cities

Submitted by WoodbridgeVa on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 16:02.

First we should encourage a robust debate, inculding engaging legitimate oppornents who want to discuss issues intellectually.  Nevertheless, the continual insults huled by Rising Tide are nothing more than provocation to divert threads away from meaningful discussion and the best way to deal with his or her comments is to ignore them.

Second, we should put forward an eduction plan for the 21st century based on providing resources but also holding parents, teachers and students responsible for results.  Our cities are dying because their school systems are so miserable that families flee to the suburbs and the response from the teachers' unions is to follow the out and undermine those schools as well.

There are an number of intitiative we can push from better disipline to vouchers to pay for performance.  We should flesh out all of them and make K-12 eduction a cornerstone issue.

I read Field Negro's blog, so I suspect I've got some window

Submitted by RisingTide on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 16:12.

on the inner city problems. Particularly a few that you aren't mentioning.

Where is Gun Control on your list? (no it don't need to be banning, but I want some resonable discussion...)

How do you hold parents accountable? Particularly when they're working longer hours for less pay?

How do you hold students accountable when you're forcing them to enjoy a cookie cutter, blue collar education?

Agree with you on White Flight being a problem -- but do you really think that just education is the reason?

Good ideas

Submitted by Brennan Stout on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 16:13.

I think the two best hooks are school choice and pushing for government transparency.  The two biggest problems in urban government are the clear gaps between school performance and the options that students have compared to their suburban and exurban counterparts along with the incredible secrecy that is employed to get things done.  It's never easy to find out what's going on in urban government unless you're a serious student of it that follows it on a daily basis.  Meetings move.  They're announced with only a weeks notice.  Public figures regularly skip the meetings and dispatch surrogates to handle their affairs.

I think any movement into urban enclaves has to start with mapping the territory.  You have to know what kind of political structure is presently used to make these urban cities one party ruled.

On racism, education, transparency and other urban issues.

Submitted by A.J.Nolte on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 17:48.

1. I'll give Rising Tide the benefit of the doubt and assume he/she is not a troll. As regards the point about racism, yes, there are a few high-profile and highly-problematic Republicans who say things which are, to say the least, racially problematic. There were also 3 major African-American candidates--two for governor and one for the senate--running on the Republican banner in 2006. The high-profile new governor of Louisiana is Indian-American. The new popular governor of Puerto Rico is a Republican. The darling candidate of conservatives for RNC chair is African-American. I think racism is certainly a societal problem, and I don't doubt that there are racists within the GOP, but I think the party has made and is making a good faith effort to transform this dynamic. However I also don't think "stop saying racist stuff" is a sufficient strategy to reverse declining GOP fortunes in the inner cities.

2. Regarding education: I think innovation in education (vouchers, charter schools, private education companies, bringing in professionals from industry to teach classes in their field and a restoration of apprenticeship programs in inner-city schools which provide job training and perhaps even some pay for soon-to-be grads) must be a key part of a "contract with urban America". I think it's maybe the centerpiece of any such contract. Again, I don't think it's sufficient by itself. There are pressing issues like gentrification (which isn't so much an unmitigated catastrophe as it is something with upsides and downsides which have to be managed), rising rent costs and, all-too-often, a lack of basic financial knowledge among the very poorest urban residents (I'm talking things like how to make a personal budget not even laws of the market type stuff). So education has to be a big-time centerpiece, but we have to be more than one-trick poneys.

3. Regarding government transparency: yes, absolutely, this is key. How do we make this commitment into policy? Are we talking about making city government transparent along the lines of the Cobern legislation in the house and senate, or do we need to go beyond this? What would a transparent Republican city government look like?

thanks for a civilized response.

Submitted by RisingTide on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 17:58.

WRT 1, if you can do something about the systematic racism... I think that would win you votes. I think some regulations or whistleblowing might help here. I definitely agree that "stop saying racist stuff" ain't the golden egg. It's just a start.

WRT 2. -- How much of that needs to be school-based? In Japan, plenty of places run prep-schools (and considering how many people have baby-sitting jobs...). Why not give someone vouchers for something that occurs outside of school time? I'd be far more likely to support that. Keeps kids off the streets. I like what Ben And Jerry's is doing in the apprenticeship side of things -- is there some way (tax breaks, i hate to say) to encourage companies to do things like this without federal intervention?

WRT 3. -- How about a watchdog agency, to start? And secondly, a 'free to the people' newspaper of what has happened in the city council (my city does that in one of the free newspapers). And whistleblower protections... I really hate to see people getting away with using job-related materials for non job related activities (though you do NOT need to make a federal case out of it, Miss Buchanan).

What would a transparent Republican city government look like?

Submitted by Brennan Stout on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 18:39.

Everything billed to the people is viewable by the people.

The Democratic party dominates urban areas because they control the process and the public meetings are merely the final step before an actual vote, but the truth is the public meetings are just step 9 in a 10 step process.  The rules, the input, the financing: this has already been addressed in step 1 through 8 and primarily in the halls of Democratic Party political offices.

Show me the process.  Show the voter the process and wait for the outrage.

All the cities will have 2 to 3 Democrats that are the real movers in shakers on just about every major decision.  Topple them and the one party rule is leaderless.  The power vacuum has nobody steering it and the opportunity for gains gives birth to itself.

Picking our targets well.

Submitted by A.J.Nolte on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 22:14.

What it sounds like your suggesting is:

1. Target 2 or 3 major Democratic party "movers and shakers" in each city party organization.

2. Recruit strong candidates to run against them then finance them to the hilt.

3. Shed the light of day on their dirty dealings.

4. Once you've beaten them, start building infrastructure from that success, an encourage transparency.

 

It sounds like a very good strategy. I can only see two potential problems:

1. City council elections are very often structured in such a way that the highest vote-getters are elected. In situations where your Democratic party-broker is a city councilman (or woman) elected in this fashion, you'll need to run some pretty hard-hitting negatives personally against this candidate.

2. Money money money. Anybody running against urban Democratic power-brokers is going to need mucho funding and support, possibly from the national party. We're talking party big-wigs doing fund-raising for state house, state senate or even city council elections.

 

These problems are not insurmountable, and I think the party-broker theory has merit (I'm imagining what would happen if the GOP knocked off, for example, Vince Fumo in the Philli area). We'd have to work our tails off but it sounds viable.

just a thought

Submitted by RisingTide on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 10:08.

you might want to run some conservatives as Democrats in primaries. I can't imagine any Republican winning around here, because people have learned to just pull the straight Dem lever.

Some good points.

Submitted by A.J.Nolte on Thu, 11/20/2008 - 18:23.

Some good points Rising Tide.

If by "systemic racism" you mean systemic neglect of minorities by the GOP then, yeah, I'm right there. How we let the Dems steel a march on us here is mind-boggling to me. I don't think this means we need to "forget the south" or anything; minorities and southern voters was FDR's winning coalition, so I see no reason we couldn't recreate it. That's going to involve more of a pro-active attempt to build organizations and relationships. If you're talking about systemic racism within society, I'm skeptical that a political party's going to be able to address that. And I see no inconsistency in saying that the country's made huge strides while also admitting that we've got many miles to go yet.

Re: education: I definitely think the outside of school bit is key also. This could be an area where we need faith-based initiatives (not the ineffective federal one but local city initiatives modeled on Indianapolis mayr Stephen Goldsmith's front porch alliance maybe). Tax breaks for companies offerin apprenticeships might do it but they'd need to be dramatic. Maybe something like a three year freedom from all municipal business and commercial property taxes for large companies which establish an apprenticeship program. And couldn't the city school districts establish something like the office of career services at schools? I know we cons don't like government doing anything new if we can help it, but we do have a vested interest in making high school students into taxpaying citizens. On vouchers: we should think about that for early-intervention programs as well.

Hmm: the problem with a watchdog agency is the classic "who watches the watchers". Maybe a mayoral commission on government accountability, to produce recommendations which would then receive an up or down vote of the city council. I like the municipal news letter idea as well.

here's my problem with vouchers

Submitted by RisingTide on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 10:14.

say you live in a place that is 90% protestant, and they all want to go to a faithbased school. You drain the public school of the economies of scale, leaving them heavily in debt for buildings and such, and someone who doesn't want to send their kid to a faithbased school is left without options, other than a really sucky school district.

I see much less of a problem in a diverse city, but... I'd be much more likely to favor things done outside of school hours, in smaller scales. You might not need huge tax breaks -- give the kids credit for work done during school hours, and pay them less than the minimum wage... that way businesses can have gophers, and the kids will get good experience.

Dealing with systemic racism is as simple as you want it to be -- the research is all out there, it's just how you deal with it. If you want some education, have community services that teach people how to spot bad loans, and teach them which companies are using discriminatory policies. By giving people more information, you create pressures on the businesses to not discriminate, as they will not get business.

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