President’s Day appeal

I actually wrote this piece about 2 weeks ago (on the day before Reagan’s birthday) as an e-mail to my fellow GOP office holders and a few other candidates. To date I’ve received more responses telling me that my mail has bounced back to me than responses to the actual e-mail (exactly ONE.) It’s a pretty sad state of affairs.

You’ll understand what I’m attempting to do once you read this message. By the way, through the magic of postdating my post, I’m sitting here Sunday morning doing this but the post will come up at midday Monday. In reality I should be sitting at work when this posts, because I’m a member of the productive private sector!

So here is the appeal I sent out to perhaps 30 to 40 people. Let me know if you’re interested yourself or know someone who is…

Greetings to my fellow Central Committee members, and others:

With today being the eve of Ronald Reagan’s birthday, I thought this would be a great time to recommit ourselves to the task of building our local Republican Party. Among other things about this great President, he inspired me to get involved in my local political scene. Naturally the outlet I chose once I learned of the opportunity was joining my local Young Republican chapter.

It is part of our task as Central Committee members to “establish and support Republican clubs.” While there is a Lower Shore Young Republican Club, insofar as I know it’s currently inactive and this leaves a serious void in getting our message to resident voters between the ages of 18 and 40. And let’s face it, the membership in the “regular” GOP organizations is graying. It’s time to start to rebuild the party structure here lest we begin to suffer the demographic decline that already affects the Democrat Party.

So today is the day we need to recommit ourselves as a group to building up the Lower Shore Young Republicans. I’m starting this by seeking contact information for those folks you know who could be interested in giving the Lower Shore club a boost. (This is also why I’ve added other former candidates and elected officials to the mailing list; some of their younger campaign volunteers or they themselves would also be likely to want to join the reestablished YR club.) Once I can get a database of current members and other who are interested, we can begin the work of making this club more active.

Because I’m (barely!) over the age of 40, I technically cannot be a member of the Lower Shore Young Republicans. However, I’m willing to take some time to be a facilitator and mentor to this group, as I was a member of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Young Republican Club from 1995-2001 and served as TMAYRC President in 2000. So I have a little bit of expertise on the subject, and I’m sure the state chapter would help with whatever blanks we would need to have filled in.

I did a little bit of research over the weekend. There are 36,282 registered GOP voters between Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. Based on the Wicomico numbers, roughly 1/4 of these are considered active voters, and about 1/8 of that active group are between 18-40. That leaves about 1,100 voters in the tri-county area who fit both categories. (There’s probably more now as many have just registered and voted in 2006, my information on active voters is pre-election.)

But a good club can be formed and run with 25 dedicated people – that’s just 2% of these voters. And as the group becomes more active, more people join, and more can be accomplished.

A modest YR club can be just a gathering of people who meet on a regular basis to socialize and discuss political issues. As they become larger and/or more ambitious, they can add to this effort by sending their representatives to state conventions. The next step would be campaign involvement – volunteering as a group to start, then taking the step to assist in fundraisers (eventually hosting their own). Some ambitious YR members may run these campaigns or even become candidates themselves for local or state offices.

Eventually, a YR group can become large enough to host a state convention or hold standalone events for the general public like a Ronald Reagan Birthday Party or their own straw poll. I know all this because I was a member of a club that did all of these things. At our peak, we had about 55 registered members. While the base population is smaller here than in Toledo, the Lower Shore is also far more Republican.

What the reformed Lower Shore Young Republican Club will do is totally up to them. But this is the perfect time to push for a renewal. We’re already seeing the disastrous effects of Democrat leadership on the state and local levels, yet we have plenty of time to build momentum for a big push in 2008 for the Presidential election and then again in 2010 for our next state election.

One reason I ran for my Central Committee post was to get more youth involved in the party, because of my firm belief that our next two generations can be the ones who return the country to the path our Founding Fathers intended. Thus I apologize for the length of this communication; however, America’s freedom is a subject I’m damn passionate about.

So here’s how you can help. If you know of people who would be interested in becoming a YR, please get their contact info to me – heck, forward them this note if you want and they can put in the effort. My e-mail address is michael@monoblogue.us.

Right now, in our state our party has nothing, and on a federal level we only have the Presidential post assured for two more years. When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. But our nation has everything to lose if we don’t begin to act.

Sincerely,

Michael Swartz

Member, Wicomico County Republican Central Committee

Let’s see if this does any better at creating a database for me to work from. As I said, I can’t be a member because I’m over the age but I can be the person who helps get things underway again. Despite the voting record of some of our GOP representatives (who shall remain nameless, you know who you are) we at the grassroots can create a push to reinvent the GOP if the youth want it to be reinvented in a manner to become more reflective of its principles. Reinventing the party and making it a majority locally, statewide, and nationally is the goal I’m out to achieve.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.