![]() |
DENNIS MANSFIELD |
I haven't blogged yet on the political weakness of the entire GOP, observed recently by all.
Today I decided to do so.
A little needed background before I make my point:
For years I've been both a businessman and a political consultant.
In business I've owned a small mortgage company, a mid-sized soil erosion control company & a local city-wide firm that helped house ex-addicts. I've been a business coach for almost a decade and I recently became an author, published by Simon and Schuster and Endurance Press.
As a political consultant I lobbied for the Realtors, was the founding executive director of the Building Industry Association (BIA) of Palm Springs, CA and for a decade I founded and ran the Idaho Family forum - a pro-family public policy think-tank that educated and lobbied under IRS code 501 (c) 3 sub chapter (h), working in association with Focus on the Family and the Family Research council.
My experience also involved helping men and women run for office in the California's Assembly, US Congress and US Senate along with Idaho's House and Senate. A partial list of the GOP campaigns I've served/supported includes:
Howard Jarvis/Paul Gann/Proposition 13 ('78 cycle)
Ronald Reagan's PAC, Citizens for the Republic - ('78 cycle)
David Dreier for US Congress ('78 cycle)
Reagan/Bush ('80 cycle in CA)
John Paul Stark for US Congress ('80, '82 and '84 cycles)
Fund-raising for Steve Symms for US Senate, Idaho ('84 cycle)
Robert Henley for CA Assembly ('84 cycle) & US Congress ('86 cycle)
Reagan/Bush('84 cycle in CA)
Roger Madsen for ID State Senate ('92 cycle)
Dave Baumann for ID House ('92 cycle)
Bill Sali for ID House ('92, '94 cycle)
Helen Chenoweth for US Congress ('94 Primary cycle)
Dole/Kemp ('96 cycle)
Gary Bauer for President (2000 Primary cycle)
Bill Sali for US Congress ('06 Cycle)
Raul Labrador for US Congress ('10 Primary cycle)
I hope my credentials speak for themselves.
Not a person among this list would be considered moderate or liberal.
I'm proud of those past credentials - of my business background and my political involvement - and yet I'm cautious of what I'm now seeing in the philosophical break-down within the GOP over this recent budget stalemate. Something deep down is wrong...
I think the Republican Party is lost in the woods - state by state and nationally.
The compass that directed them in the past has lost its true north: the founding document of our Republic, the US Constitution.
In 1980 the GOP used that compass and crafted its national party platform as a reflection of that truth.
Americans came forward because they longed to be involved. Citizens within the republic who had never been involved, became involved. Conservative evangelical christians, economic conservatives, constitutionalists, moms and dads...and then, in recent years, Tea Party members.
The tent was big, the issues were focused.
Not now. The compass still works, it's just been set aside, it seems... (more…)