Locally, I introduced what I think is a good plan. Here's the summary. It's a New Strategy that I think can help us win elections. There are four components:
1
DON'T GET DISTRACTED BY ISSUES...
Every day we're alerted to new outrages perpetrated by current politicians. Every day fellow patriots encourage us to help, to organize, to donate, write letters, make phone calls, "contact our representatives", to protest, to help fight the latest atrocity.
And every time we do that, we take our eyes off the ball!
We can't waste any more attention on the "issues" no matter how infuriating. From Amnesty to Øbamacare, from the IRS targeting the Tea Party to the NSA snooping on everyone, all the Bad Things have one source: Bad Government made up of Bad People.
Fighting the outrages without eliminating the bad people is like fighting fires without eliminating the arsonists. People act according to their character, and as long as bad people run the government, it will continue to do bad things.
We need to replace them with Good People who who will create Good Government.
Eliminating the incumbents; electing Good People. That is the Mission.
2
EXPOSE THE TRUTH...
We'll win elections by telling the truth about Big Government, and letting the facts speak for themselves. We won't talk in generalities, but in specifics. We will expose every single bad, stupid, abusive, expensive, wasteful thing that government is doing.
We must create a Research Institute who sole job is to catalog every dollar spent by government, every law passed, every employee salary, pension, benefits; every favor done, every instance of waste, abuse, fraud, corruption, every tax levied, every fee charged, every perk granted, every lie told.
We must research City Government (for City Council elections), County Government for (Board of Supervisor elections), State Government (for Legislature elections), and the Federal Government (for Congressional and Senate elections).
We will become experts in local, County, State and Federal government. Will will be able to advise and help candidates for every office with information collected, cataloged, referenced and footnoted...ready to use in elections against incumbents who will be implicated by it all!
The truth about Big Government is so bad for Big Government, that we don't need to embellish or editorialize. We just need to present the facts. We do, however, have to broadcast them far, wide and loud so that even every Low Information Voter hears the message.
Almost nobody knows what politicians really do. The media never expose it—in fact, they're so malfeasant, they might not know either! It will shock and outrage everyone to learn the extent to which the government owns them, and that the American tradition of the free citizens owning the government has been turned on its head.
3
REACH OUT TO ALL VOTERS...
We need to recognize that everybody in California* is a tax payer. Even if they don't pay income taxes, they pay every other kind of taxes. And the poorer they are, the larger the bite out of their budgets those taxes are.
We need to reach out to people who have traditionally been thought of as "non-tax-payers" and help them see that they pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year to the State, County and City in taxes: Sales taxes on everything but food at the grocery store, taxes, fees and surcharges on everything from registering their car, getting a drivers license, phone bills, water bills, gas & electricity bills, bag bans, food & beverage container recycling fees. There's even a "small charge" added to the cost of paint—mandatory to fund government run paint recycling...
And they don't even get a refund!
We need to help them see that they have "skin in the game" and that Big Government taxing and spending is negatively affecting their bottom line and quality of life in a very real and expensive way. Let's encourage them to check their bills and store receipts and add up all the taxes they pay in a month...in a year! They'll begin to think like the taxpayers they are!
We have an advantage here. The Democrats are never going to tell low-income voters or welfare recipients that they are taxpayers. Liberals don't want them to realize that Big Government taxing and spending hurts them too! It's up to us to tell them, and make them partners in our effort to create good, limited, responsible, ethical government by electing good people.
When we elect the right sort of people they'll do the right sort of things. So we need to elect Libertarian-minded people committed to dismantling Leviathan.
*This was originally written for the Tea Party in California. Other states must alter as appropriate.
4
GET ORGANIZED
The basic organization will consist of Research Teams:
City Teams
Each team to gather information on city government including City Council, Mayor's office, Planning Commission, City Employees', salaries, pensions, benefits & perks, required permits, fees & licenses; ordinances & regulations. Annual BUDGET. City taxes. Income/Outgo. Deficits. Multi-year plans, etc.
County Team
For unincorporated areas as well as the County as a whole. All the same information as for Cities, as well as all county wide offices, commissions, committees, appointees, their budgets, how often they meet, what they actually do. If they travel, get expenses, get houses, cars, etc. All County employees' salaries, pensions, benefits, perks, etc.
State Team
All the same things as for Counties, as well as information on all the over 500 State Agencies (in California), what they do, how they're run, what they spend, who's running them and how they got the jobs. This includes the University and College systems and all the teachers' & administrators', salaries, benefits, pensions, perks including housing, cars, vacation pay, tenure, union contracts, etc. All State employees' salaries, pensions, benefits, perks, etc.
Federal Team
To elect Congressmen from districts in the County, and for Senate races. This will be both hard & easy. Hard because there is just so much information to gather and collate. Easy because there are so many sources. Hard because so much of what they say is not true!
Once gathered, organized and collated, appropriate information should be put in the hands of Conservative/Libertarian-minded candidates we support. Election campaigns are the best time to get this information out, as more people than usual are paying attention to the news, in order to know what candidates are saying, and the media, unwilling to cover our issues in the main, in order not to be rendered entirely irrelevant as news organizations, are more or less forced, during elections, to actually report what candidates are saying. It's our best chance to break though the Liberal noise machine.
* * *
I think this approach will work. I think most people are totally unaware of the outrages"our leaders", commit, and how government today works, and how leviathan-like it really is. I don't think people have any idea how many laws there are, who is making them, and how much they impact and limit their everyday lives.
I believe that once they find out, they will be utterly infuriated and moved to replace those currently in charge with people of character who will actually work to change things for the better.
It's worth a try.
(Personally, I would not take tar, feathers and rope** off the table. But, hey, that's just me. )
/gun
**Rope, tree, politician; some assembly required.
