Chicago Republicans

Hello all,

I am new here to Chicago and to the GOP -- I was a registered independent back home in NC. I'm glad to be here

So what I wanted to post about was the concept of "next play" -- what can we as Republicans do to recraft our message in the wake of the 2008 elections? Now that some of the sting of Nov. 4 has worn off, I think its time to start thinking about where this party can and where it should go.

I leave this as an open question to the forum: what about the current Republican platform should be reformed? What should be eliminated? What should be preserved? I have heard many theories out there on the internet, but most of them were from talking heads -- not grassroots Republicans.

Any thoughts?

If Peraica did well as a conservative and Topinka did poorly as a moderate, it would seem to indicate a conservative would do better.

It is easy to call for a generic return to smaller government through tax and spending cuts, but voters want more. For Republicans to regain any credibility, they must propose specific solutions to today's pressing issues. Free market competition will spur innovation and increased availability of quality health care, education, and energy. This is the answer for Republicans.

It sounds pretty good, and once we get specific ideas, it will sound even better. Unfortunately, government officials proposing free market solutions is not really a free market at all. It's just another government pet project, only it uses private money and ideas, instead of public ones. A true conservative approach would not even allow, for example, public schools to compete with each other, or with private or charter schools. It would abolish the Department of Education and create an actual free market. It is disingenuous for Republicans to suggest free market solutions in a world that has no truly free markets, a world where a Republican President, with the support of Congressional Republicans has bailed out so many failed institutions. We cannot supplement unfree markets with free ones and force them to compete; we should either create free markets, or accept the fact that we are on a one way street heading left arguing over the speed limit.

Anthony, you make a good point that "free market solutions" enacted by the government are the antitheses of actual free market principles. However, I would disagree with your public school choice example. I doubt any Republican president -- even with a republican majority in both houses -- could easily and quickly dispose of the Department of Education. So why not try and implement vouchers, charter schools, or school choice on a local and state level, as it is the closest to introducing competition and merit pay as we are going to get in the near future? Furthermore, if abolishment of the DoE is your endstate, then why not support school choice today, as free-choice schools within the current public system would be far better prepared to endure the transition? Just some thoughts.

Illinois is a different beast. Political ideology takes a backseat to corruption. 40% of the vote comes from Cook County. Chicago alone accounts for 20% of the vote. The Chicago Democrat machine is only interested in maintaining power at any cost. Over the years, they turned the city (22,000 employees) and county (24,000 employees) in patronage dumping grounds. With 40,000 taxpayer funded campaign employees, they have destroyed the GOP, independents, and reform Democrats for decades.

After I sat in the audience of their election for a new county chairman, I was shocked by who represents us. I thought this impressive Democrat machine was created by smart, aggressive, intellectual planners. What I saw was the opposite. Sychophants and idiots would be generous.

That day, I decided to volunteer some time to build the party. I'm not willing to lose to them! If we can get our act together in Chicago/Cook, we can be competitive in 2010.

Hey, I agree, for the most part. Vouchers are good idea, and school choice as well. I'm not opposed to these free market solutions, just skeptical of government-enforced free markets. I know abolishing the DoE is pie-in-the-sky, and I understand that there are real issues facing us, and that there are equally real and efficacious solutions that good conservatives can get behind. I just don't want these solutions to come from the federal government.

Tom has this right about Illinois and Chicago, though. We must start with ousting the corruption and it begins with elections. If the United Nations monitored Chicago elections, their puny little heads would explode. Just getting Republicans on the ballot is difficult enough, but that's where we have to start. When given a choice, you'll be surprised who voters will choose in the privacy of the booth (assuming they aren't intimidated).

Again, we must address important issues, but I'm not even sure we're there yet. First we must overcome the corruption that has engulfed the state of Illinois. It's time to throw Ryan, Blago, and everybody else under the bus and declare a dedication to cleaner politics by properly cleaning house (whatever's left of it) and vetting our future candidates.

Given the current attention our state has received in the past week, Republicans must begin pushing an agenda of political reform that would reach across party lines. While many laymen do not know how redistricting is done in our state, I believe if a campaign to educate voters on our backward system of redrawing district lines was done there would be strong support for reform. Our current process leads inevitably to politicians picking their constituents instead of the other way around. Iowa seems to have a good system for removing many of the political charades from the process. I think many voters would also react favorably to term limits on state and federal offices. State legislative offices were meant to be part time jobs by concerned citizens. Instead it has become a place where politicians are elected in perpetuity and then pass the seat to their sons as Emil Jones famously did this past election. Congressman Dan Lipinski and Cook County President Todd Stroger are the also the beneficiaries of nepotism. Finally, Republicans must challenge the practice of officials serving in different capacities of government and receiving multiple pensions as famously illustrated by Bobbi Steele the Interim Cook County President who received a full pension of $67,500 a year for four months of work in addition to other pensions from her past government jobs. An official should only be allowed to draw one pension from one of their past government jobs. These reforms would resonate with the voters regardless of party.

Amen. These are all great ideas, but I don't think the politicians, who have made a career of it, will vote themselves out with term limits.

I also think the high level of corruption is tolerated because of a fear of Jesse Jackson running for Mayor. His dad transformed from a civil rights activist to a shakedown artist. There is palpable fear Jesse Jr. would turn things upside down.

Then we have to run politicans who promise to vote for term limits. If they do not then we vote them out. Or perhaps have a referendum where the people choose whether we have term limits. We cannot stand for corruption, waste and nepotism anymore. It is too bad that this is all happening right after an election. I feel many voters will have short memories.

Tom is right -- 40,000 city and county employees do everything they can to keep their employers in office.

40,000 -- out of 2.5 million City Residents, and perhaps 3.5 million County Residents.

The crying game is over. It is time for the Republican Party to Unite on common ground, become active and bring leadership to our starved government.

The single issue we can all agree on is Fiscal Transparency -- regardless of political views, and thus -- we ought to make this our Creed when we campaign for office.

Where are our elected republican leaders? When is the next meeting (not beer event, or fund raiser for the 42nd ward) where the leadership is defining our next step to move the electorate? Perhaps we need to recognize the actions of our current leadership and begin to make changes within before making strides to rally the rest of the Republicans while converting Democrats.

Tick...Tick...Tick...

Steve is dead on. Fiscal transparency is the lynchpin. We must demand that our own candidates come clean and comply with full disclosure, otherwise, we should not allow them to run under the party banner.

There are several issues that need to be addressed as quickly as possible.

Education is one of them. The use DoE should not necessarily go away but needs to redevelop their mission. They should not be to "overlords" of education; instead they should set policies and minimum standards and distribute funds. Reduce the size of the Department but not abolish it. Excluding any special projects all federal funds spent on education should go directly to each school at a per capita rate (legal U.S. resident students only) that also takes performance into the formula. There are too many bureaucrats in the education food chain and all too often the money gets redirected to their pet projects instead of on the students where it belongs.

Schools, particularly in our border states, have way too many students that are not there legally. I remember when I was growing up in San Diego. My school was 80% hispanic and of those over 50% came across the border every day. Some legally entering through checkpoints, some entering illegally by coming through holes in the fence. None of the cross border students paid for their education, they used someone else's address in the district to register and the schools turned a blind eye and never verified addresses. The State of California is going broke supporting non tax paying citizens because of practices like this.

Another issue that affects Illinois is health care costs and availability. Universal health care will not fix the problem; it will just spread the cost of it around. We need to fix the underlying issues that cause health care costs to skyrocket. Malpractice insurance costs have driven physicians out of the state. The malpractice rates are outrageous. Several factors affect these rates. The insurance companies are raising everyone's rates instead of just on the bad physicians. We need a national registry of physicians that tracks every single doctor in the United States. It should not be accessible to the general public but access to it reserved to insurance companies, hospitals, other physicians, etc. so they can determine the risk of insuring, referring, or hiring a physician. Every adverse incident should be tracked as well as certifications and education. We also need some sort of tort reform. I know that the trial lawyers have a large lobby to try to prevent realistic tort reform but we need to reign in those out of control juries and judges that levy outrageous damages on physicians and hospitals that make mistakes during a procedure. They damages are not equitable nor are they reasonable. At a minimum, a standard schedule of damages should be developed to allow better equity in awards.

The third issue that is high on the list is jobs. Every day, I hear about people losing their job or being forced to retire early. Many of these jobs are lost due to outsourcing. Outsourcing is not necessarily bad it basically allows companies to reduce long term obligations and eliminate the positions that they determine costs too much to maintain. Many of these are in the technical fields. With technology moving at its current pace, many skills are outdated within a couple of years and technical training costs are quite high. When a company outsources to a another country it is bad for our economy and although the immediate indications are that the company saves money, they end up going in the opposite direction when the economic ramifications of the growing unemployment rate start to affect their bottom line because no one is buying their product or services. One way to reverse this unemployment trend is to end the H1B Visa program or strictly limit it by redefining the jobs that fall within its scope. Specify that medical and scientific jobs are the only jobs that fall within that program. Give H1B Visa holders that no longer meet the new criteria 90 days to get their households in order then have them return to their countries of origin. That will then free up tens of thousands of jobs that will become available to U. S. Citizens.

There are many more issues but these two seem to be at the top of the list. If we do not do something about education now, we will not be able to compete in the global market for jobs. If we do not fix the healthcare system, it will end up non-existent. The jobs issue causes cascading issues throughout all levels of the economy.

I agree with this. This should be another populace issue that should be added to our Republican platform

I see 4 issues.
Corruption – Pay for play politics
Lack of accountability regarding all elected officials - We the voters do not hold our elected officials accountable
Lack of Leadership
Fiscal accountability for District, State, and Federal Funds

Until we address the core issues we will not make any progress. We need to provide a strong message about what the Republican Party stands for and what value we bring to the voters today.

Republican Party attorney Steve Boulton makes the point candidates are not working for the needs of the voters.

I would add "Ethics Reform" to the list. We are in desperate need of campaign finance reform laws. This is the first thing Quinn wants to do. It will be interesting to see if he can get it done because the Illinois General Assembly voted it done the last 3 times.

We have too many career politicians. I personally think term-limits would work, but this isn't really the full answer. Illinois voters should stop voting for corrupt, ignorant, or otherwise disasterous politicians.

Political commentator Dan Proft frequently states, "you get the government you deserve." At what point, is there enough?

There are many issues. Misuse of tax money, over taxation becuase of democrat corruption, and big government. Also, too many aldermen. We don't need 50.

Some very good points being discussed, and I plan on writing a more extensive post soon, but just a quick thought:

Candidate recruitment is the answer to most of these concerns. I think it comes first in the chicken-egg argument. Either we wait around for the Republican candidates to show up and have all these wonderful ideas, or we cultivate the discussion, put good people on the ballot, and build the base.

The time we invest in 2010 and beyond is time well spent to say, we have a presence here in Chicago, we have sounder, more responsible policy, and we're going to deliver a few chinks in the armor of your Machine.

Let's get out and tell people what we're about. Do we want a serious party that can raise funds and hold primaries for every statewide office, considering now that some Democrats run unopposed? Then we need to get to work.

I like.

One hurdle, we live in the largest Democratic stronghold in the State, much less the Nation. The idiocies of the Democratic Party are so painfully obvious, and yet they are still elected....virtually unopposed.

Despite scandal, corruption, racially based voting, and even multiple indictments (the
Democratic Alderman record comes to mind)this area is going to be a challenge for any kind of Republican voice.