2010 Maine Republican Party Platform

Bob Emrich asks how many terms did Goldwater spend as president. Study the chronology -- I know it because I was there first hand in the trenches: you would not have had Ronald Reagan without the Goldwater campaign. The Goldwater campaign was the icebreaker for all conservative campaigns to come.

California, in those days, elected county and state committee members in the primary election ballot. The California Republican Party was controlled by the very liberal Earl Warren wing of the GOP. The June 1964 Goldwater-Rockefeller primary was the last one in the country and the national nomination hung in the balance. The Goldwater campaign was a newly-activated group of conservatives who wanted to change the party. By hitting the streets with a sophisticated (for the time) GOTV, Goldwater beat Rockefeller but, more significantly, conservatives took enough county and state committee seats to shift the balance.

The first thing the new committee people did was to change the state rules which gagged internal opposition.

Ronald Reagan emerged onto the political scene by giving The Speech at the 1964 convention and then appearing as a surrogate for Goldwater in the general election campaign when there was a big event but a schedule conflict.

Meantime, the Goldwater activists were being coalated and organized into mailing lists and local, neighborhood grassroots campaign clubs under the name United Republicans of California (UROC) -- again, techniques which were quite sophisiticated for its time -- so that within a week of Goldwater's general election defeat to LBJ, everyone on the Goldwater list received a letter with a membership card in the "Silverscreen Club for Reagan" and his gubernatorial campaign was launched on the shoulders of the Goldwater grassroots cadre.

Also, it needs to be noted that the Reagan effort was extremely well-funded with the money channeling down to organizing the grassroots. Look up big money names like Henry Salvatori of Western Geophysical, Cy Rubel of Union Oil, auto dealer Holmes Tuttle who zeroed in on Reagan as a gubernatorial candidate before Goldwater even lost the November presidential election. And they hired Stu Spencer and Bill Roberts to hang with Reagan 24/7 and vet everything he said in public until it was crafted into a coherent message which was repeated without deviation.

The gubernatorial primary was a replay of the Goldwater-Rockefeller presidential primary with the Rockefeller wing backing San Francisco Mayor George Christopher. The Reagan campaign built on the grassroots lessons from the Goldwater campaign and not only won the primary but picked up enough county and state committee seats in the primary to now have a majority. They also learned more sophisticated ways to present conservative messages and were the first to employ the "It's the Economy, Stupid!" approach to publicly offering issues which resonated with a broad cross-section of voters. Reagan did not preach conservativism or raise hot button emotional issues, he stuck to basics which hit home to people and shaped their ballot decisions.

I was involved first hand as a Youth for Goldwater grass roots organizer and Young Republican officer in the 1964 campaign and then became treasurer of the Golden Gate Chapter of UROC. But you can see it documented independetly in chapters of Edmund Morris' Dutch - A Memoir of Ronald Reagan (1999 Random House).

Point here is that Maine is still in the baby steps of such a sophisiticated grassroots organization and should be concentrating on that if it wants to win.

I was a Navy pilot during the Goldwater campaign and could not publicly advocate for any candidate. However there were many of us behind the scenes working nights and weekends on that campaign.

PatRiot, I repeat: I missed a meeting. That I didn't know was taking place.
Also, i wonder if you are going to answer the question about runnng for platform committee yourself......it seems very important to you, and that would tend to make me think you would try to get on it (if you aren't already). Also, any info you could provide about any committees, task forces, etc. that you are part of (or have been part of) would be appreciated (most minutes/attendance stuff are easily Googled).
Thank you.

Vic - That was a long way around the question. The answer is simple - None

So here we are, being lectured by a minority within the Republican Party advising us to keep our most important views quiet and only focus on what the minority wants to focus on. Before you jump on me about majority/minority look back and see the claims made here that the SC forced the platform. The platform committee voted, did they not? The convention votes on the platform every time, do they not? The reason given for leaving our values at the door? - we can win elections that way. Of course this is not proven. The evidence for this being the most effective approach is the campaign strategy of one who lost. Others are advocating for electing candidates with the right initials hoping to secure our goals (or polish the furniture) after the elections. Of course that gives us no assurance at all that the people we elect even agree with us.

Here is my humble proposal. Instead of always asking (demanding) that social conservatives drop thier priorities, just add yours to the same platform. If we can agree to help each other, we have a strong party that can appeal to the majority of Mainers. In other words, it does not have to be either marriage/life OR fiscal sanity. It can be both. I think that is all we have asked for. After all, it is a big tent, right? I would love to hear the "non social conservatives" (not sure what to call you to avoid being offensive) standing up to say "so what if he/she is a social conservative, he/she is a fiscal conservative and therefore has my vote." We are not embarassed by our values and see no reason to hide them.

so what if he/she is a social conservative, he/she is a fiscal conservative and therefore has my vote.

It is my understanding after taking to several people who have run for office that they do not knock on a door and when the people answer say " Hi my name is X and I am a social conservative/moderate". Is there anyone out there that has won an election that leads with this when talking to every person they met? If not why do we do it as a party......

I agree with you that it is all about who shows up and who has the money......

I think that the "social conservatives" put in a good showing at the meetings. Some of them were pushing the same "mission statement" that I was. I felt that the best way to appeal to the average Maine voter was to focus on the economic issues. The platform would be for the Party and the "mission statement" would be a promise of what the party would do for Maine.

It was decided early on that we would keep the 2008 platform and work on a mission statement that discussed current topics....in my mind that was the economy. I though that this was a good compromise. Keep in mind that if the committee was stacked with liberals then the 2008 platform would have been changed to exclude the social issues.

I would also like to say that I could care less if someone is a "social conservative" or a "social moderate", as long as they are a "fiscal conservative" and have an R after there name, they have my vote. It would be nice if we could get rid of the RINO label for awhile.

Right on, LarryinAugusta!

We can win on the fiscal issues this year because EVERYONE is hurting. Social issues aren't the priority when you fear loss of a job in a state which doesn't grow investments which create new jobs or your 401K becomes a worthless piece of paper.

Let's not focus media attention on a floor fight over the social agenda which will just marginalize Republicans in the general voters' minds as a bunch of religious kooks. (That is not meant to degrade those with devout beliefs but in the capital cloakroom one should check denominations at the door and go for the common cause of improving the civil society so that one can have more freedom to practice in whatever form one believes best.) IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!

It's the economy, stupid!

Disclaimer: the above slogan is not meant to be taken literally and not meant to degrade the person for whom it is intended. We regret that the word stupid has connotations of mental ineptitude and general low intelligence for the average audience or voting public. Please make all checks payable to the Maine GOP. Thank you, and may G--, uh... have a nice day!

Big change with the platform.......We voted and approved the platform brought to us from the knox county republican committee. Could someone post the new platform.....

Like an echo from the past, the entire platform as proposed by the platform committee was replaced by a different platform more in line with the National Republican Platform. This was a complete surprise to the committee. It is what happens when the grass roots turn out for town caucuses on snowy days and the progressives stay home.

This platform does not align with the national GOP platform......I would advise people to go to http://mises.org/ now that part of the platform is "return to the principles of Austrian Economics". I really like this part of the platform, this platform affirms that the Ron Paul people are not the RINO's :)

I saw this platform in January and it should not be new to anyone on the platform committee. This is what you get when you only have two meeting and don't give people enough time to vet their ideas in committee.....

dup ... please delete

Ron Paul and his "Audit the Fed" bill are officially part of the party platform. What a difference two years makes, eh?

I know, its hard to believe that we are the "in crowd" now:)

I stood up in favor of the New Platform.

They put the pro-life plank and traditional marriage plank in. Kudos!

I even agree with Ron Paul regarding the audit of the fed.

Well, this platform will be a real help in winning over the independents we'll need to take the governor's race. At least four positives, however.

1. It didn't contain a plank to authorize the burning of witches.

2. No section on doing away with the Tri-Lateral Commission.

3. No avocation to a return to the gold standard.

4. Few people will take the time to read it ( except the democrat nominee and Cutler campaign who will excise choice snippits)

That all being said, a brilliant tactical move by the conservatives who counted the house and knew they had the votes!

Remove foot from shoe, take .45 caliber hand gun, shoot self in foot!

Exactly.

It has a whole section on the UN and talks about one-world government. Nutcase stuff.

It also stresses following the Constitution and then calls for a statute to impose Congressional term limits. (I support term limits but you would need a constitutional amendment to impose them at the federal level.)

We need to stop adopting a platform.

As near as I can remember.. many of the planks really seemed to be aimed at the Federal Government.

I was in the minority who voted against it. Not because I don't agree with 98 percent of it, but I agree with the shoot in foot comment above.

"It also stresses following the Constitution and then calls for a statute to impose Congressional term limits. (I support term limits but you would need a constitutional amendment to impose them at the federal level.)"

It says "Pass a constitutional reform act which includes the following provisions XXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

The sky is not falling and this is not a bad thing for the party. I preferred the platform I posted earlier but think this one is better than the one we had. This was also the platform of mainstream Republicans and had overwhelming support.

An act is a statute, not a constitutional amendment. The people who claim to support the Constitution lack a basic understanding of it, IMO.

There was rumor going around the convention that the new Platform was big news and the story "went national" about how the Maine Republicans adopted a Tea Party / Ron Paul inspired platform. I searched the internet and didn't see anything, but I did see channel 13 interviewing the guy that introduced the amendment in the first place.

Maine GOP platform nearly overshadows candidates

Only the policy wonks will give a crap about the platform.

I agree with Dan's point. Why do we adopt a platform in the first place? To satisfy the policy wonks?

The winner in November will be the candidate that understands what most people want for a government in Augusta, can focus on a few fiscal issues and hammer the Democrats over the head with them. Meet and greet, grip and grin, and don't apologize for your position and principles.

The platform is avaliable at this link

http://paintmainered.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2731571%3ATopic%3A3111...

I tried to copy and past it into a word doc, but it pasted with each word with spaces between the characters.

As to the article Ken just posted, the comment at the end indicates that Charlie never looked at the document.

Steven Scharf
SCSMedia@aol.com

I prefer intellectual clarity to mush and I agree with John Maynard Keynes that ideas ultimately determine the course of a nation's and a civilization's development.

The fact remains, no one ever won an election with a manifesto. And it was pretty late in the game to eliminate "platforming." If that statement of principles had not been adopted the convention would have spent hours debating the long list of amendments submitted, and the gubernatorial would have ended up making their presentation under the moon to a thin crowd of exhausted and cantankerous delegates.

All of which would have given the unfriendly press and Democrats all the material they needed to bray about GOP radical rightists and party "civil wars."

Professor...

To my point... Who cares about the press and the Democrats? Take it to the people.

Thanks Steven. I knew someone on AMG would come through and scoop the rest of the media.

Professor: There is little intellectual about that document.

But it does have meat on the bones. I don't agree with all of it but I agree with a number of points. No wishy washy feeling good lets not step on toes pablum.

Wack job pablum instead.