Leadership/Communications

Suggested New Year’s resolution for “activists”: Stop enabling

By John Biver

My colleague Cathy Santos has said it over and over again: It is not our job to clean up the Democratic Party – it’s our job to clean up the Republican Party. As 2008 ends and 2009 begins there are too many Illinois Republican activists still not quite understanding that new behavior and new leaders will be needed if the future isn’t going to look exactly like the past.

Forget Rod Blagojevich. If you think his arrest changes anything you’re not paying attention. The people who continue to lead the Illinois Republican Party are so incompetent that they haven’t been able to take advantage of Rod’s actions before his arrest, so get it out of your head that they’re going to be able to do so now.

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Illinois Democrats strengthened, not weakened, by Blago’s arrest

By John Biver

Many members of the Illinois Republican Party are in danger of falling into a new delusion now that we enter the post-Blago era. CBS2Chicago.com reports that FBI Special Agent In Charge Robert Grant woke Governor Rod Blagojevich up at his home at 6 a.m. today and told him –

– “that two agents were outside waiting to take him into custody. He was asked to open the door and was arrested without incident.

‘Is this a joke?’ Blagojevich told Grant.”

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Post election analysis that doesn’t highlight your responsibility falls short

By John Biver

My guess is that I’m not alone in being extremely tired of reading shallow post election analysis. Why did Republicans lose two straight elections? It’s not because they don’t know how to win – not long ago, they held the very power the Democrats hold today.

What Republicans don’t know how to do is govern according to their principles. GOP principles demand bringing real reform to government. To successfully implement that kind of reform our Republican leaders would have had to aggressively make their case and win public support for that change. But they failed, so voters tossed them out.

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We the people…need reformers

By John Biver

Breaking with a failed past is an American tradition – Republicans need only do it again. Job number one is to find and support new leadership. If anyone thinks the current crop of men and women holding office as Republicans is sufficient, please send me some evidence.

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The week after: Issues autopsy, goodbye to hope, and Camille Paglia on Sarah Palin

By John Biver

Earlier this week a OneNewsNow.com article titled “Voters distrust ‘diluted’ GOP” included this:

“A conservative non-profit organization has completed a study that shows the liberal tsunami on Election Day 2008 was not because the country wanted to move radically to the left, but because voters wanted to punish Republicans for abandoning conservative principles.

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A word (again) about the state legislative Republican leadership

By John Biver

Republicans in the state senate are about to choose a new leader. They might want to think twice about whether they’ll muster enough rank and file party support should they electChristine Radogno, a pro-abort legislator who is confused about human behavior and thinks that how a person likes to have sex is the equivalent of race and gender.

And Kirk Dillard’s commercial for Barack Obama surely doesn’t inspire the kind of confidence Republicans need to have if they’re going to pitch in and help advance a GOP agenda.

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Political power: Use it or lose it

By John Biver

Policy matters. Principle matters. Professionalism matters. If, for example, Republicans hold power, spend like Democrats, fail to advance reforms – it’s not surprising that they’d get thrown out of power. Then in an ironic twist of fate, we’re about to get even more doomed-to-fail programs and policies from Democrats.

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A lot of work will be required to regain lost ground

By John Biver

As President-elect Barack Obama enters his transition period and begins his “political honeymoon,” now is a good time to read (or reread) Mark Steyn’s book “America Alone.” His subject is the huge demographic and cultural problem we’ll continue to face in 2009 and beyond.

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It’s time for a new generation of leaders in the Republican Party

By John Biver

Two paragraphs from the Wall Street Journal this morning serve as a good short glance in the rear view mirror. The view through the windshield is what I’ll be summarizing over the next several days and weeks. It’ll be easy to write about the path ahead because I’ve been doing so for years. Yesterday merely confirmed that I’ve been right all along.

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Obama on NAFTA and a Social Security tax hike

By John Biver

Last spring the National Review’s Rich Lowry wrote a piece titled “On Trade: Obama’s Opportunistic Fear-Mongering.”
“For Barack Obama, hope can triumph over anything, except for open trade with a neighboring country with an economy 1/20th the size of ours. Then, all is despair.

Obama’s culprit is Mexico , our third-largest trading partner. It is trade deals like NAFTA — the 1993 accord eliminating tariffs among the U.S., Mexico and Canada — that ‘ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with teenagers for minimum wage at Wal-Mart,’ Obama intones. Feel inspired yet?”

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Observations on Obama: Dreams, reality, and pride

By The Editor

Hugh Hewitt refers to Barack Obama as an “inexperienced Chicago pol” who “isn’t remotely ready for prime time if the questions are at all pointed.” Here are a couple excerpts from Hewitt’s column “The Least Unpredictable Campaign Ever?”

“The campaign ahead has to be about the realities of the world we live in, not the one we wish we had. Senator Obama’s minions can continue to treat him as the Dalai Obama, but like other other-worldly prophets of peace, Obama’s dreams have left him extremely ill-prepared for the way the world is.

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