NEWS FLASH: The 2024 campaign is well underway. What are the Republicans generally campaigning for? What are the new policy initiatives? What are the priorities? What are we against? How can I find out more about the 2024 Republican Platform? Good questions; let’s go to the RNC website and get some answers.
OK, I’m in the RNC website; here is the platform page:
“RESOLUTION REGARDING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY PLATFORM”
During the 2020 presidential campaign, because of Covid, the Platform Committee did not meet. While the remainder of society was conducting business via zoom the Republican Party powers-that-be decided to take a pass. After all, it was just a campaign for the Presidency, 35 Senators, the entire House of Representatives, 11 governors and 44 state legislatures. Just 78 days before the 2020 presidential election, on 22 August, 2020, the RNC published these applicable Resolutions:
“RESOLVED, that the 2020 Republican National Convention will adjourn without adopting a new platform until the 2024 Republican National Convention;
RESOLVED, that any motion to amend the 2016 Platform or to adopt a new platform, including any motion to suspend the procedures that will allow doing so, will be ruled out of order.”
If you are one of the thousands of Republicans who will be campaigning over the next year and you want to be on-board with what the Republican Party is all about, go to this page in today’s RNC website:
“REPUBLICAN
PLATFORM
2016”
That’s it, that’s all the RNC has to offer the thousands of Republican candidates across the country until the Republican National Convention 15-18 July NEXT YEAR.
Let’s step back and take a look at the lunacy of this entire platform business. If this was a normal functioning organization, the presidential campaign would be looked upon as a long-range (four year) on-going, strategic planning process. The RNC’s Campaign OPPLAN 2024 would consist of some number of phases. Phase 1 would be the RNC planning phase and would take about 30 days to lay out the whole program. Campaign OPPLAN 2024 could/should contain the following elements:
- Define a realistic end state.
- Draft a mission statement for everyone to see and understand.
- Provide a statement of the RNC’s intent for the 4-year plan.
- Develop Centers of gravity for each phase; i.e., a place, person, thing belief, circumstance or condition that is central to success or could possibly cause failure in that phase. Track them every day.
- Specify how the RNC will organize for action:
–Have a 2024 War Council: A few of the best and brightest at the RNC headquarters who can be brought together at any moment to provide the boss with some immediate comments on a new proposal or crisis issue.
–Have a 2024 Red Team: A small group at the RNC Headquarters who are tasked to be knowledgeable about everything the Democrats are doing/saying/thinking and how they believe the Democrat Party will respond to each RNC initiative.
—Have a 2024 Kitchen Cabinet consisting of three or four grey-beards who are highly respected experienced Republicans (the likes of former Secretary of Education, William Bennett) who will be consulted on every large issue and are invited to provide advice even when not asked.
–organize 2024 Review and Analysis Teams: Example, Biden gets behind a microphone and proclaims, “Today my administration announced that this year the deficit fell by $1.4 trillion, the largest one-year drop in American history.” An R&A team will be assigned to immediately (within minutes) get on it. They will fact check the statement, do some quick research on what the real deficit will be and get a Fact Sheet posted on the RNC website by close-of- business THAT DAY. Have a system in place that would allow the thousands of Republican candidates to be an R&A Subscriber; meaning, they will get an alert any time an R&A fact sheet is published. Result, get the Republican Party aligned and energized on the issue-of-the-day.
Back to the Republican Platform document. The platform should be a central feature of Campaign OPPLAN 2024. But and this is a huge “but”, we cannot/should not wait until the Republican National Convention 15-18 July of 2024 for the Republican Platform Committee to meet and draft a 2024 Platform document. This is simply the dumbest possible sequence of events imaginable. Candidates will have been actively campaigning for over a year without this major policy document in place. In fact, Presidential candidates are campaigning right now, today, with a worthless 2016 Republican Platform as their primary reference document. Who the hell is running this shit-show?
The Republican Platform should be a central feature of Campaign OPPLAN 2024. It should be published early, perhaps in phase 2 or 3 of the OPLAN.
In the 2016 Platform there are about 90 different subjects in narrative form; many are outdated, some are too long, some too brief, there are different presentation formats, and many are lacking enough facts. Additionally, the format is such that it is not easy for candidates to readily copy off a one-page subject with talking points for use during a campaign day.
We need a Platform document that is a useful, convenient campaign tool-box. For example, each subject should be presented in a stand-alone talking-paper formatted something like this:
SUBJECT: VOTER ID
CURRENT SITUATION: Use lots of facts, for example: There are X-million ineligible voters on existing voter registration rolls, X dead voters voted in 2020, X districts had more votes counted than existing eligible voters, voter fraud is associated with mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting and ballot drop boxes, State legislatures changed laws and rules during the voting period. Polls tell us XX% of Americans believe a voter should be able to provide a document proving their eligibility to vote. Etc.
DEMOCRAT POSITION: “Voter ID is racist”
REPUBLICAN SOLUTION: Briefly outline the voter ID reform law proposal.
CONCLUSIONS: Free and honest elections are a cornerstone of this country. We cannot allow election results to be in question. Voting is both a right and a responsibility.
The point of having a format is that it will be familiar, usable, brief and assist in getting Republican candidates across the nation aligned on the major issues of the day.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
The website issues are more complicated by the fact that there isn’t just one official website, there are two; www.gop.com and www.rnc.org. You have to open both to get the whole picture. Crazy.
The RNC website is not, in its current state, a useful resource. To make it more effective, first get the RNC organized for action around a Campaign OPPLAN 2024 and then build a supportive website around that concept.
Rule # 1, when making an assessment of any organization it is always helpful to begin by looking at the organization diagram. Starting at the top for the RNC, you will see, “Chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, Co-Chair Drew McKissick”. Rule-of-thumb for leading an organization, when two people are in charge, no one is in charge. Co-chair?
BOTTOM LINE:
Without a Platform document, the Republican Party is already behind the power curve for the 2024 election. Get it done, now.
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com.