Carolina Politics Online

It starts here. It starts now.

Alright, maybe someone else started it, and since I’ve been remiss on N.C. blog cruising duties, I could have missed someone else posting this before me.

Nevertheless, I will say it, and I ask that you repeat it. Repeat it on your own blog. Post it to someone else’s blog. Tell your friends. Drive around your neighborhood with a bullhorn and shout it out so everyone hears:

NCGOP Chairwoman Linda Daves must resign.

And she must resign now. No protracted leadership fight. No backroom deals. No being drug out of the chairman’s office by her feet as she digs her fingernails into the wooden floor like in some Loony Tunes cartoon.

It’s time to go, and for the good of the party she needs to resign now so that not only will we know that new leadership is coming, but so that we have an opportunity to fully vet any new potential chair. And vet we must. Because the next chair will their work cut out for them.

The future of the party begins today, and Linda Daves isn’t just yesterday, she’s 10 years ago.

If Salvador Dali ever did a pure politically-themed painting, it would look strikingly similar to the scene I witnessed a week ago. I was standing in the middle of the NCGOP’s “Victory” celebration at the Raleigh Hilton. On one side of me, Bev Perdue was on TV giving her victory speech. On the other side of me, another TV was showing a map that made the U.S. look like it was flooded- a blue tide was spilling over the coasts, flooding the heartland and drowing our own beautiful North Carolina. And in front of me was a third TV on which several commentators were discussing what Elizabeth Dole did wrong.

And standing at a podium giving a “rah, rah” speech was our own Linda Daves, seemingly oblivious to the catatonic stares on the faces in the crowd- all desperately wondering if someone got the license plate of that big blue truck that hit us.

The only thing missing was a melting podium and funky looking trees. Believe me, they would have fit right in, because out party was melting before our eyes. Melting into a puddle of gelatinous ooze with no spine, no shape, no form, and no future. And Linda Daves was giving a “go team go” speech.

She must resign. She must do it on her own, or we must make her.

And the new chairman must be someone who understands that the GOP is now fit to be molded from an oozing puddle into a steel sword. How? They must have the following priorities and extensive experience in each: 

• Fundraising. And I don’t mean calling up the usual donors and begging for more dough. We need someone who understands what the Dems learned four years ago- small donors and online giving are the future of political donations. Need further proof that new leadership is needed? In this past cycle the NC Democrat Party outraised the NCGOP by $7 million to $2 million. Unacceptable. Un. Acc. Ept. Ab. Le.
• Party Building. Our county chairmen aren’t just on different pages; they aren’t even reading the same book. It’s time for our local clubs to reach out to unaffiliated voters, minorities, blue-dog Democrats, rural voters, and suburbanites. It’s time for our local clubs to get busy recruiting candidates, and not just for state house and state senate, but for town council, mayor, and county commission, and then supporting those campaigns with everything they can muster. Those small seats are how political careers begin.
• Campaign Management. And especially hiring people WITH campaign management experience. After two years of campaigning, the state house contest ended in a draw and we gained exactly one -ONE- state senate seat. Unacceptable. We need new state house and state senate campaign chairmen, and we need to do a better job recruiting candidates for 2010.
• New Media. Blogs, online presence, IPods, IPhones, IWhatevers. I don’t care. I doubt if half the people working in the NCGOP know how to send a text message, let alone understand the new technology that powers our future. Just look at how the Democrats kicked our ass on volunteer recruitment, online donations, and grassroots organization. Did you know that Barack Obama actually had his own IPhone application? Does Linda Daves even know what an IPhone is???

And most importantly, we need a new chairman who understands the single biggest reason for our loss on Tuesday. Most of our problems- paltry donations, dwindling enthusiasm, and voter backlash, can be attributed to one thing: our party has lost its way. We now have two parties in America- the party of big government and the party of REALLY big government. I’ll let you guess which is which. And this applies both nationally and statewide. Here in North Carolina our Republican Party has pretty much rubber-stamped Democrat spending proposals that could bankrupt our state. They’ve stood by as willing accomplices while economically illiterate Democrats turned a surplus into a $2 billion debt while making North Carolina the highest taxed state in the southeast.

Linda Daves is a good woman, but she’s presided over the shattering and wussification of our party. Our next chairman must make himself explicitly clear that while we are a “big tent” party, there is no room here for tax hikers. There is no room for debt-raisers. There is no room for people who join with Democrats to pass a monstrosity of a state budget that our grandkids may end up having to pay off.

It’s time to take back our party. And once we do, we will take back our state. It’s time to stand up for principled small government conservatives and to demand a chairman who will do the same. It’s time to make it clear it clear that the current incarnation of the Republican Party, nationally and statewide, is unacceptable to us.

It’s time for Linda Daves to resign. And if she won’t, we must make her. The future of the NCGOP starts now, and she’s not a part of it. I have sounded the call for change, for reform, and for renewal. Will you join me?

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