Trustees undertake Remedial Steps to Stop GOP Decline

All technical indicators (independent of the more publicized but inherently transitory public opinion polls) quantitatively examining this year’s political performance pointedly suggest the Republican Party’s organizational responsiveness is deteriorating so precipitously — that unless immediately arrested — GOP Congressional and legislative losses will be so substantial as to significantly marginalize Republican participation in Federal and multiple state policy deliberations for at least four to six years. This predicament renders the GOP unable to capitalize on the inevitable favorable public opinion upward shifts by virtue of its extremely weakened organizational structure unable to marshal resources to adequately respond.

This deleterious condition, while significantly exasperated by significantly adverse public events, remains the result of the GOP’s institutional failure to adequately embrace the significant paradigm shift from centralized command-dominated, television based campaigns to decentralized command, grassroots-initiated, Internet campaigns which began in the late 1990s and rapidly matured in the 2006 elections. The Republicans’ organizational defects could become more pointedly pronounced if as pollsters imply, Senator Barak Obama’s spectator rise in the September opinions polls which implies the inevitability of his election invites the renewed public scrutiny that reduces the very surge that initially propelled his gains in the polls.

The GOP’s organizational defects, more than prevailing shift in public opinion influenced by current events which are always an oscillating condition not representative of underlying political philosophies, is so precipitous as to suggest the potentiality of an electoral loss that will disintegrate into a rout not observed since the Great Depression, the last time the GOP experienced back-to-back losses of greater than 10 U.S. House seats and five U.S. Senate seats. The GOP lost 40% of its U.S. House strength in the 8-year period from 1930 through 1938, when its caucus membership declined from 218 to 88 House Republicans. 1930 also saw the GOP lose 8 U.S. Senate seats, followed by ten additional seats in 1932, 11 in 1934 and finally nine more seats lost in 1936. The Democrats retained Congressional control for the next 60 years, outside of two brief GOP interregnums for one term each under Truman and Eisenhower. Concurrently, Democrats maintained a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate for 14 years.

In 2006, the GOP lost 30 Congressional seats and six U.S. Senate seats. If current opinion polls are representative of the November 4th election, the Republicans will lose another five to seven Senate seats and an additional 13 to 20 House seats. This represents a potential percentage of party changeover of approximately 5.01%. The percentage of party changeover in the House in 2006 was 7.59%. Anytime percentage of party changeover in the U.S. House greater than 5% anticipates significant long term consequences for the party suffering such loss. Likewise, in the Senate, the GOP percentage of party changeover was 10%. If it suffers such as loss in 2008 as to represent an aggregate percentage of party changeover greater than 13%, which a loss of at least three seats will represent, the GOP will be organizationally unable to regain U.S. Senate control for at least twelve years, as Senators are elected to six-year terms.

These trends are not limited to Federal elections, but are mirrored in many state legislative political balances, which is all the more disconcerting as 2010 electoral results cement electoral gains through decennial redistricting, which could represent the potentiality of party changeover of an additional 25 Congressional seats. The aforementioned GOP percentage losses in the Congress resulted in a the Democrats controlling the majority of state legislative chambers for 54 years, interrupted only twice when both Eisenhower and Nixon were first elected, although such losses percentage wise were not as significant as the Congressional losses until the 1974 Watergate elections, where the GOP lost 75% of legislative elections. The GOP was able rapidly recover by 1978 to sustain itself until it was able to obtain and retain a majority of state capitals since the 1994 “Contract with America” elections.

However, in 2006, the GOP gain control of only one state legislative chamber, while the Democrats gained 10 chambers, in their pickup of 334 state house and senate seats, apparently the most one-sided gain in modern political history. The 2006 election witnessed Democrats moving ahead of Republicans by more than 665 seats out of the 7382 or just under 55% of all legislative seats. These 2006 losses were on top of the GOP losing 25 seats in 2004, despite the fact that historically the party winning the presidency gained legislative seats in 11 of the 17 elections since 1940, with an average pickup of 125 legislative seats.

In 2008, there are legislative elections in 44 states with a total of 5,824 legislative seats up for grabs. That represents 79% of the 7,382 total legislative seats of which 3,993 are Democratic legislators, and 3,310 are Republican. It is important to observe that 642 state Senators elected in 2008 remain in office to effectuate 2010 Congressional and legislative redistricting. A shift of only one seat represents change of party control in nine chambers (the Alaska Senate, Maine Senate, Montana Senate, Nevada Senate, New York Senate, Indiana House, Montana House, Oregon House, and Pennsylvania House). Additional state houses in Michigan, Ohio and Texas, are all close enough to be in play. Democrats are targeting six GOP controlled chambers: the Delaware House, Montana House, Nevada Senate, New York Senate, Ohio House, and Wisconsin Assembly. The GOP were targeting six Democratic controlled chambers: the Indiana House, Maine Senate, Michigan House, Pennsylvania House, Tennessee House and the Wisconsin Senate. If significant Republican legislative losses occur similar, the GOP will be at an extreme disadvantage in essential Northern industrial states.

Likewise, the gubernatorial landscape is not promising. The Republican Governors Association forecasts a worst-case 2010 loss of 33 gubernatorial elections, resulting in Democrats controlling 37 governor offices to the GOP holding only 13. This factor is important when considering that four out of the last five Presidents were previously governors.  There are 10 term limited governor’s offices held by Democrats, 8 by Republicans. There are 10 non-term limited Democratic seats, 8 held by Republicans. If current trends of traditional GOP states leaning Democratic persist, the GOP’s pickup of governors may be limited only to Wyoming, while losing California, Florida, Hawaii, Georgia, Minnesota and Nevada to the Democrats.  These losses are in addition to GOP held Missouri and North Carolina gubernatorial offices at risk of loss this year.

The absence of a Republican organizational capability sufficient to counter-balance the Democrats’ increased organizational strength has already demonstrated the adverse consequences to the GOP by the significant decline in registered Republican voter turnout as measured by the party’s TLI, Turnout Loyalty Index in thirty-three states in 2006. Voter registration trends in 2008, particularly in battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, are reaching the tipping point where reliance on anything but extraordinarily high Republican turnout will be numerically insufficient to answer average Democratic turnout, which all prevailing opinion polls suggest is not a luxury the GOP can currently anticipate.

While not disavowing the Trustees’ own partisan interests, it remains indisputable that a substantially weakened two-party system is never in the public interest and represents a grave disservice to constitutional principles of governance essential for national security and economic growth. Despite the Supreme Court’s decision last term correctly refusing to apply rules of equity to internal party disputes, constitutional law still suggests the GOP’s self-inflicted attenuation diminishes the First Amendment rights of all registered Republicans, as the party downward spiral renders it institutionally incompetent to adequately enforce its party principles in public policy deliberations and formation.

The GOP’s apparent resignation to concede organizational dominance to the Democrats in 2006 and again in 2008 translates into the inescapable reality of aggregating for 2010 the investment not made in 2006 and 2008. Anemic donor support for party organizational structure fails to appreciate the reality that such organizational underpinnings remains required to constitute a sufficient buttress to withstand oscillating public opinion shifts caused by extrinsic factors such as economic or international crises, which while inflicting stress, cannot become a smokescreen for the GOP’s organizational forfeiture in the 2008 election. Likewise, ignoring organizational support only aggravates the financial advantage which such organization has afforded the Democrats in this election cycle, which according to latest accountings, shows Senator Obama outspending Senator McCain three to one in specific battleground states.

What is equally disturbing that the GOP organizational deficiencies become self-fulfilling prophesy generating a pronounced panic which merely aggravates downward spiral, Senator McCain’s announced pullout in Michigan and unannounced pullout in Pennsylvania contributes to the sense of inevitability of his Democratic opponent, which emboldens the balance of the Democratic ticket.

In part to provide a remedial solution to the GOP’s deleterious condition and in response to extrinsic financial constraints imposed by prevailing atmosphere of anemic donor response, the Trustees of the Republican Leadership Trust have readjusted their strategic offering to Republican Party committees to provide a preventive opportunity to arrest the rapidly accelerating declines in GOP organizational capacity, in order that the party will be able to capitalize on expected narrowing of the Presidential opinion polls while aligning itself to immediately commence post-election party-rebuilding without the burdensome imposition of vexatious demands on scarce resources.

Specifically, the Trustees seek to raise the maximum allowable Levin funds of $10,000 for targeted counties first within Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia; thereafter specific counties within Michigan, Pennsylvania through a nationwide webcast to be aired Sunday, November 2nd at 9:00 A.M. local time per each time zone. The Trustees seek to raise $640,000 for Colorado, minimally $670,000 (and up to $3,790,000 per each of the 379 city Republican committees) for Florida, $160,000 for Nevada, up to $600,000 for New Hampshire (30 towns within Hillsborough County, 11 cities and towns in Belkap County, 19 towns in Carroll County), $330,000 for New Mexico, and minimally $500,000 each for Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia; all for a total $4,900,000 in addition to raising reserves for the Trustees to assist the GOP in the essential 2010 gubernatorial and legislative campaigns. Because Levin funds are exempt from the McCain-Feingold state party affiliation rules, with their own per committee $10,000 limits, such remains the only viable option readily available for rescuing state, county and local Republican Party committees.

Click here for your copy of Pennsylvania Republicans Confronting Self-Inflicted Meltdown analysis by the Trustees.

© Copyright 2008 The Trustees of the Republican Leadership Trust. All rights reserved. Paid for by the Trustees of the Republican Leadership Trust. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

The Trustees of the Republican Leadership Trust convened Monday, May 16, 2008 to enact Resolution No. 2008-11, which confirmed to the Federal Election Commission that the Trust was independent, as a matter of law, from any other state Republican committee, and thus was entitled to have its own FECA campaign contribution limits.  The Trustees registered with the Federal Election Commission solely to satisfy 11 CFR 300.11(a)(3)(i) and 11 CFR 300.37(a)(3)(i) so that the RNC and state Republican committees could refer donations to the Trustees.   Resolutions No. 2008-03, 2008-07, 2008-09 and 2008-10 remain on the table until the Trustees convene again.   Click here to download a copy of Resolution No. 2008-11.  The following are the additional developments before the Trustees: Read more »

The Trustees are prepared to be the difference for a McCain victory November 4th in the key battleground states of Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania, by providing the beta version of Republican All in One^™ to county Republican committees that are critical for McCain to win the state’s Electoral Votes. “Regrettably, the Federal court decisions earlier this year knocked-out a critical source of funding, which precludes our delivery of the software nationwide.” said Trustee Chairman Peter J. Wirs, “But that won’t stop the Trustees from being heavily involved in the key states which Senator McCain has to win.” The Trustees are conferring with national and state GOP leaders to determine which county Republican committees will receive the updated beta version of Republican All in One™ which the Allegheny County (PA) Republican Committee has already tested and which provided a 7.5% increase in Republican voter turnout in the November, 2007 elections.

The Trustees also indicated that if sufficient funds are raised among new settlors, the Voter Fraud List of Republican All in One^™ is still anticipated to be provided nationwide. The Voter Fraud List authenticates facts in support of electoral challenges against illegal voting practices, such as repeat Democratic Party voters who seek to cast ballots in multiple polling places

The Washington Post’s Michael Mosak reports (March 18, 2008) that while Barack Obama’s $55 million haul in February, for instance,  527 organizations, most notably, the web site ActBlue.com, which collects contributions for all Democrats, announced it has so far raised $21,226,219 for Democratic candidates who face election in November.

The Post states that ”the more substantial impact of the site’s efforts are likely to be felt by congressional candidates, according to Marissa Doran, who serves as director of strategy and communications for the site. The site has enabled donors around the country to direct money to targeted races, often ones identified and promoted by liberal blogs.”

“Republicans have attempted to match the effort on a handful of similar sites, but to date have not found the traction of ActBlue,” reports the Post.  The newspaper appears not be aware of Republican All in One(tm) and its public portal, to be unveiled by the Trustees of the Republican Leadership Trust as soon as funding is complete.

. . . they would have maintained control of the U.S. Congress.  The Bulletin analyzed the hotly contested U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania where incumbent Republican Rick Santorium lost to Democrat Robert P. Casey by a margin of 708,416.  However, had Republican All in One(tm) been used, Santorium would have won by a margin of 344,098 votes.  You can read the front page articles about Republican All in One(tm) at http://www.thebulletin.us/site/news.asp?brd=2737&pag=460&dept_id=576361

According to an Associated Press account, Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL) raised $45 million in online contributions, representing 81% of his total funds raised. The Obama campaign is reported to assert that 90% of its contributors gave $100 or less.  The Politico.com reports that to date, Obama has 1,069,333 donors; the inference being the majority are online contributors. The AP report filed by Jim Kuhnhenn, also states that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) raised $4 million online from 30,000 Internet contributors since the Tuesday “Super Tuesday II” primary victories in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas.  At no time has the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) even remotely approached such online contribution numbers.   The online fund raising successes reported by Obama and Clinton must be rivaled by McCain if the GOP contemplates closing the financial gap. 

The GOP’s chances to reverse the 2006 losses in a Presidential Election year suffered a significant setback, when New York State Republicans suffered a shocking loss in a Feb. 26th Special Election in an upstate, rural 48th Senatorial District with Democrat Darrel J. Aubertine winning 52% of the vote to Republican William A. Barclay’s 48%, despite the GOP having an almost 2 to 1 edge in the district, 78,454 registered Republicans to only 46,824 Democrats. Aubertine won 27,712 votes to Barclay’s 25,001 votes, sweeping all three counties: Jefferson, Oswego, and St. Lawrence.

The Republican TLI, Turnout Loyalty Index, one of the three key election result indicia to measure party performance, was only 31.86%, whereas the Democratic TLI was 59.18%. Use of Republican All in One would most likely prevented such a significant GOP loss in an election that should have been won, by preventing such a dramatically low Republican TLI. The GOP’s failure to get out GOP votes in a heavily Republican district in a Northern, Mid Atlantic state does not bode well for the GOP in a Presidential Election year, as the bulk of the Republican losses occurred in the New England and Mid Atlantic states, particularly New Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania.

The Trustees of the Republican Leadership Trust were not notified by the New York State Republican Committee or State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno of the need to deploy Republican All in One^™ for this special election. Based on last year’s beta test in selected precincts in Allegheny Co., PA, Republican All in One^™ increased Republican turnout 7.5%. Had Republican All in One^™ been employed in the New York Special Election, Republican Barclay would have won by 3,173 votes instead of losing by 2,711 votes cast. As a result of this setback, the GOP majority in the New York State Senate is a one-seat margin. Not since 1974 has Albany been in control by one party

The two Democratic Presidential candidates, Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have raised an estimated $68.5 million in online contributions, whereas the Republican Presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have raised an estimated $18 million in online contributions, based on an analysis of donors by amount of contributions provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, Washington, DC.  However, level of caution is required, since there is no official breakdown of donors by form of receipt, forcing independent analysis to focus on the size of contribution, since most concede the lower the amount, the more probable by the Internet.  The Center for Responsive Politics provides data by number of donors making $200 or less contributions.  Experts assert relying on the candidates’ own statements may not be statistically reliable.

According to the analysis, Senator Obama is the clear online contribution front runner, raising an estimated $46.9 million or 54.3% share of all online contributions.  Mrs. Clinton is second, raising $21.5 million, which represents 24.8% of the total online contributions.  Senator McCain is a distant third, $12.8 million, or 14.9% of all online contributions.  Governor Huckabee is last, with $5.1 million, 5.9% of total online contributions.  More information on campaign contribution data can be had at www.OpenSecrets.org.

Assuming that actual online contributions parallel the estimates, the GOP significantly trails the Democrats in capitalizing on online contributions, a point David All of RepublicanTech.com makes in his interview with the San Jose Mercury, posted below.

PRESIDENTIAL RIVALS, LED BY OBAMA, EMBRACE THE INTERNET AS TOOL FOR BUILDING SUPPORT
By Frank Davies
Mercury News Washington Bureau
Article Launched: 02/24/2008 01:34:31 AM PST

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama’s ascendancy comes with a popular affirmation: “Yes we can.” Maybe it should be “Yes we click,” as his presidential campaign takes online politics to new levels.

Obama became the front-runner for the Democratic nomination this month after a string of primary and caucus victories, and his inspirational appeal and effective campaign organization are getting most of the credit for his stunning success.

But there is another major factor: smart use of new technology, from record-breaking fundraising to Facebook widgets attracting new supporters and mass texting to keep his backers connected.

While every candidate in this year’s presidential contest has used the Internet far more effectively than anyone who ran in 2004, Obama is so far ahead of other candidates in Web traffic, social networking and user-generated video that he’s in a class by himself.

“Barack Obama is successful because he is Barack Obama, and his message is spot-on with Democrats,” said David All, a Republican strategist specializing in new media. “But he is leveraging that with the most effective, comprehensive online strategy of any campaign. He’s using the tools that help you find and mobilize new voters.”

Andrew Rasiej, a leading analyst of online politics, said the Obama campaign “has come the closest to achieving the Holy Grail of politics on the Internet - converting online enthusiasm to offline action.”

Other candidates also have struck gold on the Web this election cycle: Obama’s lone remaining Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has mobilized an army of social-networking contacts into an outreach campaign of cell phone callers. Democrat John Edwards developed a fervent following in the liberal blogosphere, and was one of the first candidates to hire popular bloggers.

‘Money bombs’
Republican Ron Paul’s backers pioneered “money bombs,” and set a one-day mark with a fundraising haul online of $6 million last year. Republican Mike Huckabee, on a shoestring budget, generated high Web traffic on his site by welcoming user-generated videos, many of them inspired by Huckabee’s tongue-in-cheek Internet ad with Chuck Norris.

And John McCain, the likely GOP nominee who showed how online fundraising could fuel a campaign in 2000, has been a leader in search advertising. His campaign bought thousands of keywords on Google and Yahoo portals designed to lure users to McCain’s Web site. Eric Frenchman, an Internet strategist for McCain, estimated the campaign brought in $3 to $4 for every $1 spent on search ads.

But the extent of Obama’s online fundraising prowess - $28 million in January, with signs that total will be exceeded this month - has outstripped all competitors and stunned many political analysts. About 90 percent of that money came in donations of $100 or less, allowing donors to give again every few weeks - up to the limit of $2,300 each for the primary and general elections.

GOP strategist All said he knew Obama was onto something during a summer visit last year to a friend in Ohio who planned to contribute $10 or $15 a month to Obama. “That campaign understood ahead of everyone else that you don’t need to rely on megabucks and bundlers, and I’m afraid some Republicans still don’t get that,” All said.

Obama’s huge donor base, now approaching 1 million, allowed a long-shot campaign to grow into a national force, outspending Clinton in state after state. And it freed up Obama to campaign while Clinton had to spend time with fundraising events.

“This is a wonderful, new development,” said Zephyr Teachout, a leader of the Howard Dean campaign in 2004, which raised a total of $27 million online over many months. “Instead of calling rich people for money, you can concentrate on your campaign.”

The campaign invested early in Internet infrastructure, spending $2 million in 2007 on software and hardware. Some of Obama’s new-media leaders, such as Joe Rospars, came from the Dean campaign and Blue State Digital, a consulting firm.

Tech-savvy backers

Steve Westly, a former eBay executive and California co-chair for Obama, said the campaign counted on tech-savvy supporters to “put together the very best online fundraising tools,” which really kicked in as Obama gained momentum.

In California, the Obama campaign used the Web-management tools of Central Desktop to organize its field operation. But the Clinton campaign, using online networking and more traditional campaigning, relied on its army of cell phone users to make 2 million calls in the weekend before the primary. Clinton won California by 9 percentage points.

The Obama campaign has gone beyond fundraising in its use of other new technologies. The goal is to foster a community that does more than give money - writing e-mails and letters to superdelegates, attending house parties and other events, making phone calls and going door to door.

It helps that many supporters are younger voters who are digital natives. They helped make Obama speech clips and a “Yes We Can” music video as popular as Britney Spears on YouTube. Internet activists were also attracted to Obama’s early support for the free use of video content such as TV networks’ campaign debate clips.

“Friends” of Obama on Facebook get automatic news feeds from the campaign sent to their profiles, which are then seen by other friends. The campaign mass-texts news updates (”CNN just projected Obama wins Wisconsin”) and reminders of where to vote in upcoming primaries.

“The use of texting is a big thing, a very effective way to communicate and give people a way to take action,” said Julie Germany, director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet.

A survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project last month found 27 percent of those under 30 had received campaign news through social-networking sites. Rasiej and All said many campaigns are just discovering the value of social networks.

“A primary means of political persuasion has always been people talking to each other - at the dinner table, over the water cooler,” Rasiej said. “Now with these tools it’s like having conversations on steroids.”

Traffic leader
 The Obama campaign Web site, www.barackobama.com, has attracted more traffic than others, according to several surveys, and makes an effort to keep supporters engaged.

Amy Fried, a political science professor at the University of Maine, conducted an experiment last year, signing up with the Obama and Clinton campaigns online. “There was a higher volume of messages from the Obama campaign, and they were doing more,” Fried said.

That’s a reflection of the Obama campaign’s efforts at meshing online and offline activities. A quick survey by Micah Sifry, Rasiej’s colleague at the techPresident Web site (www.techpresident.com), showed there were many more locally organized house parties and other events for Obama than the other two Democrats. One example from mid-January: 189 in San Francisco for Obama, 29 for Edwards and nine for Clinton.

Teachout, the Dean campaign veteran who has done some volunteer work for Obama, said Obama’s organizers learned from both the Dean and the George W. Bush campaigns of 2004 about ways to use the Internet to supplement field organizations.

One Dean veteran who competed fiercely with the Obama campaign - Joe Trippi, chief strategist for Edwards - praised Obama for building the best Internet-driven, “bottom-up” campaign he has seen in politics.

“We were like the Wright Brothers (in 2004), a flimsy little thing with propellers,” Trippi told a New Democrat Network gathering last week in Washington. “Just four years later, they’re landing on the moon.”

Contact Frank Davies at fdavies@mercurynews.com or (202) 662-8921.

The current SIPP Index Ratings for  February 21, 2008, reveal, that despite downward ticks, the two Democratic Presidential candidates, Obama and Clinton have increased their Internet market share lead to 2.74 times greater than the GOP Presidential Candidates, McCain and Huckabee, up from last week’s 2.63 to 1 ratio.  While the Democratic candidates Internet market share declined for Obama a marginal 2.49%,  when coupled with 1.87% increase for Clinton; their overall market share increased .11% because McCain slipped below the 10% benchmark, to a 9.35% market share, down .87%.  Huckabee now leads McCain with a 9.52% market share, despite his share declining .16%, for an overall GOP decline of .52%  with a 9.44% Internet market share compared to the Democrats’ 25.82% market share.   

The GOP Opposite Party margin has now declined for three straight reporting periods.  Obama still commands the strongest opposite party margin, 3.28 to 1, while McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, shows only .36 to 1 margin.   (These comparisons do not include Ron Paul, who has “suspended” his campaign). 

The GOP’s dismal performance in ongoing SIPP Ratings demonstrates the Party’s failure to grasp command of the Internet, which is taking an ever increasing market share from television, the principal medium for political campaigning. 

The Spartan Internet Political Performance (SIPP) Index is the first quantitative metric to measure the Internet-wide performance of each Presidential candidate for the 2008 election. The Index is comprised of over 650 quantitative factors measuring the level of support and how well each candidate is connecting with individuals across the Internet. The score for each candidate represents their overall Internet market share.  Click on the Spartan Political Performance Index at Links for further information.