We made the change for change’s sake move last time. Lesson learned.

Oh and my time? I don’t have time for squat. I have a lot of catching up to do at work, not to mention fill the roles now vacant at my work as we lost 2 employees recently.

To quote loosely the Matrix, “I am just showing people the door, it is up to them to walk through it.” Either way, in or out. I just don’t think we can fumble our way through another dismal election this way. This makes the second one where we forgot all about what got us there in the first place.

You seem to have faith that Carey will finally figure that out, I do not.

Oh and thank you for the words on the discussion. As long as it is civil and on point, I have no problem with it,

Now if you were actively looking for someone “better qualified” to advance your goals, with the purpose of challenging Mr. Carey at the next convention, you might have an easier time of it. Of course your time is yours to spend as you see fit. My theory is that, by that time, we’ll know what reforms the party constitution needs to establish these new more platform-centric processes, whatever they are, and whether or not Mr. Carey has been a help or hindrance (or largely a supportive bystander, as I suspect) to the process. Maybe I’ll see you Saturday.

Well, he sure didn’t seem to stand up very well this time. And how do we know THIS time he will stand up to the new leadership at the RNC. I mean it isn’t like the RNC won’t have some pretty strong demands upon our state party with the big show coming here. Is Carey strong enough to look them in the eye and say, no, sorry we have some elections of our own to win and our party is really much more interested in that right now than catering to whatever hoop they have for us to jump through.

Yes, that’s another little dynamic we really don’t have the details on. What kind of promises were made? What requirements and commitments are we bound to now?

And a final attempt here. If person A says they will do stuff B if we trust them, but they end up doing C. Well 2 years roll around and person A is back saying they will consider doing stuff B if we trust them. Would you really trust them? Besides, he’s been there almost 10 years now. How much longer are we going to give him on the learning curve?

All of the things you suggest are very good ideas, and I agree they should be done. Where I disagree is that the current Republican Party COULD have done them for this election cycle. Could they have done better? Possibly, but changing leadership based on what might have been seems like wasted motion to me. I’ll be looking to push forward your ideas on how we can do better, and what we have to do to make it possible NEXT time. There really isn’t much we can really do about the past.

It didn’t have to be this bad. Had things been done differently in the actual campaign season, I bet we would have won a few more Legi. races.

Had Carey actually done what he said he would do and helped craft good legislation (One he made in his Chairman campaign) that conservatives would be happy with, we wouldn’t have had the problem of all our base being demoralized. That would have changed things.

So no, it wasn’t just a few mistakes here or there. It was a fundamental failure of the people there. If he did try to push for conservative legislation, and Sviggum, Day, and Pawlenty balked at him, then he should have carried the message publicly that this is what the party stands for.

I totally understand why the state party just did negative campaigning this year. There really wasn’t much to praise Republicans (in St. Paul & DC ) on. But, then you have to define why people should identify with Republicans. Because of our ridiculous endorsement and primary timeline, by the time we officially had our candidates, people had already made up their minds.

Had the state party been carrying the message the entire time, including in the off year, it wouldn’t have been too late.

I think the excuse that no one pays attention until after State Fair is not 100% true. They just don’t want to pay attention. You have to make them. Converting MN from Blue to red will never happen if we just keep playing the game the same way. You cannot change the way people think with a 30 second ad here or there. People here have DFL as a default setting and it is going to take constant pressure to change that.

That pressure has to come from a constant source. Elected officials come and go, and as we see, their beliefs can change with the tides. Butthe state party is constant, and our message (IE platform) gradually changes at our request.

The fact that the state party doesn’t (and many insiders believe it shouldn’t) carry the party’s message is very disturbing, and why we are in such dire straights in this state to begin with.

Heck look at the national situation. Over the last 6 years, Bush and the wayward Senate GOPers have strayed on so many issues, that they have redefined (or tried to) what we stand for. And as Mehlman has said, you can’t just focus on turnout. The issues matter too.

So, Had carey done as he promised and pushed officials on legislation and also been a mouthpiece for conservative ideals, things would have been different.

I believe the first post was called what went wrong, which is exactly that, The Democrats didn’t win this election, we lost it by not being ourselves. Elected officials are too unreliable and they DO represent the entire population of their area, so they will disappoint from time to time. But party leaders, that’s a different story, they are actually elected to represent the party.

I am still of the opinion, too, that there is no such thing as a leader so strong and so brilliant that he or she can turn 10,000 GOP activists around, re-center the party on ideas, and make them an important force in determining who gets elected and how our elected officials behave. We have NONE of that now, and never did. OK, it’s more than one comment. But it’s not as simple as dumping the Chair.