LikeClockwork

How San Diego Did It in 2002

Like Clockwork

Crafting a smooth-running, effective county party

— Ron Nehring

Ron Nehring is chairman of the San Diego County Republican Party.

About Like Clockwork— Printer Friendly version

From California Political Review’s March/April 2003 issue. See also:
Linda Boyd’s “Crawling from the Wreckage: The Rebirth of the Los Angeles
County Republican Party” from the same issue.

How do political parties win in American democracy? Both major parties in California can call on large numbers of volunteer activists, donors, candidates, elected officials, former elected officials, leaders, and members representing a wealth of energy, ideas, talent, skill, and financial resources. But the mere existence of these resources is not enough. They must be effectively organized into a political campaign organization that turns a partisan vision into reality.

So, how is that done? Both parties offer many answers to this question, some telling what to do, others — sometimes even more valuably — telling what to avoid. I would like to answer the question by talking about the recent experience of the Republican Party of San Diego County, where I have served as chairman for the last year and a half and as executive director during the 1990s. San Diego Republicans have no monopoly on good ideas, of course, but San Diego offers one of the best recent illustrations of dramatic improvement in partisan effectiveness. In any event, as I hope to show, the basic principles that worked there can be adapted to work in any California setting.

Rather than consider individual party activities and how each could be improved, let’s begin fresh: how would we organize a party from the ground up to fulfill its mission, making its vision for California become reality? Management experts say a plan’s failure can usually be attributed to a faulty premise, faulty execution, or insufficient resources. In San Diego, we began with eight essential building blocks designed to provide a valid starting place, a reliable roadmap, and sufficient resources to bring success.

Eight Building Blocks

First, we established two premises:

1) Vision: our view of what the ideal California would look like.

2) Mission: the County Party’s contribution to realizing the vision by electing candidates.

Next, before moving to specific strategies and tactics, we divided the playing field to make our job as straightforward as possible:

3) Division of labor and responsibilities, one: between the Republican Party and its candidates. Who is responsible for registering voters? Who develops the message? Should the party fund candidates, programs, or both?

4) Division of labor and responsibilities, two: between the state Party and county committees. Which organization recruits volunteers? Which is responsible for raising funds? Which develops voter contact programs? Which is responsible for communicating with absentee voters? Establishing clearly defined roles allows each committee to set measurable objectives.

Next, we recognized a basic political reality:

5) Victory in a democracy requires coalition-building: in a political system where the key is to persuade more people to follow you than the opposition, the side with the largest number of effective activists usually wins, especially over time.

On these bases, we were able to lay out our job clearly:

6) Strategies: specific goals and objectives for achieving the mission.

7) Tactics: specific programs developed and executed to reach the strategic goals.

8) Logistics: specific tasks undertaken by volunteers, donors, activists, staff, candidates, and elected officials to carry out the programs day-by-day.

These building blocks shaped everything we did in San Diego to win political victories. Let me examine each of them in more detail.

The Vision

How would we define the ideal California? One party might envision a California whose growing economy provides economic opportunity for all Californians; where individual liberties and freedoms are protected; where the rule of law is respected; where individuals and families are strong, safe, and secure; and where policies of personal responsibility prevail — that is one example of a Republican vision for California. A “successful” vision is positive, embodying the values shared by the various elements of the party’s broad coalition — the interest groups, or “stakeholders,” that come together in order to shape the community’s political landscape. A successful vision is compelling enough to draw stakeholders to the party and inspire them to help realize its vision.

The Mission

The Party’s mission is to elect candidates running under its banner who, once elected, will support public policies that move our state and communities toward the party’s vision. A party’s vision and mission usually stir up little debate. This is understandable. By their nature, they are broad objectives — the trouble usually comes with the details. But it is important to state the vision and mission clearly so all party stakeholders understand just what it is we, as a party, are striving to achieve. That understanding holds the coalition together.

Successful candidates and party leaders know this. Candidates and party officials who convey an impression to donors, volunteers, and activists that they are involved only to win an office, get a job, satisfy their ego, or pad a resume lose support because it is evident they do not support the party’s shared vision.

Divisions of labor

The next logical step after establishing vision and mission is to spell out specific strategies for electing party candidates. But that is most often where differences of opinion begin to emerge. Some believe “message” is everything, others see money as the critical factor determining elections. Disputes may arise over principles, candidates, consultants, commissions, internal power struggles, differing views on the role of the media, and other factors. The discussion can easily become blurred.

To restore clarity and effectively determine which strategies best suit a political party, we began with the premise that we must have a clear division of labor and responsibilities between party and candidate, and, within the party, between the state party (CRP) and county committees.

Role of the candidate

I sometimes serve as faculty for Leadership Institute activist and candidate training schools. One of the first lectures in our Grassroots Campaign School is entitled “Strategic Research.” In that lecture, we teach that research is the first step in preparing for a campaign, even preceding the decision to run in the first place.

Candidates have the responsibility, first, to research themselves, then the district, and finally their likely opponents. Only then can they make a reasonably informed decision to run, and develop a campaign and finance plan to make their candidacy successful. Political parties do not choose whether a candidate seeks an office; that decision must be made by the candidate himself.

While the Republican Party is often cited as the party of personal responsibility, too often unsuccessful candidates can be seen looking around for someone to else to blame for their defeat. “The party didn’t help me,” “the moderates didn’t give me money,” “the conservatives wouldn’t carry my literature,” “the caucus didn’t come through.” All that’s missing is “the dog ate my homework.”

One person alone is responsible for whether a candidate achieves victory on election day: the candidate. Before making the final decision to run for office, the candidate must develop a campaign plan and a finance plan that, together, answer two critical questions: How many votes do I need? And, how much money will I need to raise to get those votes?

Those plans must be evaluated for feasibility when compared to the district, all the candidates involved, and the political environment. If he determines the plans are feasible and makes the decision to run, the candidate is then responsible for (1) ensuring the premises are valid, (2) seeing that the plans are executed properly, and (3) ensuring sufficient resources are brought to the campaign to implement the plan fully.

All this, properly, is candidate- driven.

Role of the party

The party’s role is distinct from that of its candidates, but when fulfilled, makes its own necessary contribution to electoral victory.

The Republican Party of San Diego County defined the role of the party as being: maximize the size of its membership, tell its members which candidates the Republican Party supports, and maximize the number of members casting votes on election day. We would fulfill this role by enlisting the volunteers and raising the money necessary to carry out specific programs in these areas.

Put another way, the party would take responsibility for Republican voters, allowing candidates to focus their limited resources on those non-Republican voters necessary to achieve victory on Election Day. This represented a critical evolution in how the Republican Party approached campaigns in San Diego County. It recognizes that the party is the institution best suited to communicate with its own members, because those voters have made the conscious decision to identify with the Republican Party and are most likely to consider the party credible.

It also recognizes that the Republican Party is not the institution best suited to advocate to non- Republican voters. Think about it: a non-Republican registered voter has made a conscious decision against identifying with the GOP. But that same voter probably has not made the decision to reject a specific candidate, Republican or otherwise. Hence, the non- Republican voter will more likely be receptive to an appeal coming directly from a Republican candidate than to one from the Party itself.

Once we established this fundamental division of responsibilities (the Party focused on Republicans, candidates on non-Republicans), our strategic planning quickly fell into place. Republican candidates quickly accepted this division of labor as beneficial to them: relieved of the need to use limited resources to shore up their base, they were free to concentrate resources on non-Republican voters, a critical component of a campaign in all but the most lopsided Republican districts.

As a final element, before proceeding to specific strategies and tactics, we recognized a basic law of politics:

Coalitions are key

In a democracy, political winners are determined, over time, by the number and effectiveness of each sides’ activists. And political technology — the ability to organize and communicate — determines the number and effectiveness of a political movement’s activists. The temperance, civil rights, and women’s suffrage movements provide historical examples of how sufficient numbers of effective activists determine political outcomes over time.

Coalitions in European parliamentary democracies are built among political parties; in America, coalition-building occurs within political parties. A winning coalition consists of an array of stakeholders: volunteers, activists, donors, leaders, elected officials, and candidates. And winning political parties are those in which all stakeholders are convinced a victory for the party is a victory for them.

Clearly understanding our role, we determined five key strategic objectives, and developed sound, proven tactics (programs) to achieve those objectives.

Five Strategies

Strategy One: Maximize the size of the party’s membership as measured by voter registration.

When I left my position as executive director of the Republican Party of San Diego County in 1997, Republicans outnumbered Democrats by more than 100,000. By 2001, that margin had shrunk to 68,018. With the exception of a slight uptick in 2000, the Republican advantage in registration had declined every year for four years. During that period, the Party conducted only limited and sporadic voter registration efforts. Republican women covered the annual Del Mar Fair, while a small group of volunteers covered new citizen swearing-in ceremonies. But their efforts only slowed what would otherwise have been an even quicker evaporation of the GOP registration advantage.

In 2001, Assemblyman Mark Wyland spearheaded a new voter registration program that combined full participation in the state Party’s “Operation Bounty,” which pays $3 per Republican registration gathered through the program, with expanded volunteer efforts. When I became chairman in July 2001, this operation was integrated into the Party organization accompanied by a renewed emphasis on volunteer registration activity.

As a result, the Republican advantage in registration that had slumped to 68,018 climbed to more than 83,000 in 15 months — a 21 percent increase. At new citizen swearing-in ceremonies, where Republican volunteers were outnumbered by several orders of magnitude for the last five years, our people suddenly outnumbered Democrats by 4- and 5-to- 1. Monthly reports on our gains in registration not only gave our candidates a sense of momentum, but also provided our volunteers with the evidence demonstrating that their hard work truly pays off in measurable, demonstrable ways.

Many counties have implemented similar programs, with often dramatic results. In each case, aggressive Republican voter registration efforts provide a larger base for our candidates to draw upon.

Strategy Two: Connect Republican voters with Republican candidates.

California’s ban on political party involvement in local, allegedly “non-partisan” elections was overturned in 1996 as an unconstitutional breach of parties’ first amendment rights.

Recognizing every election in San Diego County as an opportunity to put Republican ideas into action, the County GOP collectively determined to make aggressive use of its powers to endorse and support candidates for every office from governor all the way down to water board and community planning group.

Republican ideas about lower taxes, accountable government, the free market, and academic excellence apply as well in city hall as they do in Washington, D.C., With a redistricting plan that puts Republicans at a disadvantage in winning the state Legislature, we recognized local offices as one area where we could actually implement Republican ideas. At the end of the day, we endorsed 238 candidates throughout the county.

Two questions had to be answered before we could consider requests for the party’s endorsement: how do you deal with situations where more than one Republican is running?, and do incumbents receive special consideration when seeking re-election? First, we recognized that in partisan elections, the Republican electorate decides who shall be the Party’s nominee, and thus who will carry the Party’s endorsement. During primary campaigns, we would thus leave it to candidates to try to convince Party members that they will do the best job representing the Republican Party and Republican ideals in office and Republican voters would decide the issue.

But in “non-partisan” elections, with no primary, the responsibility to make that decision falls upon Republican voters’ representatives: the County Central Committee members Republican voters have elected to serve in that capacity. County Central Committee members are elected to “conduct the Republican campaign,” which includes endorsing candidates for local office.

Some argue the Party should make no endorsement when more than one Republican is running. We discarded that notion as impractical. The Republican Party cannot be neutralized in every race with more than one Republican candidate. As a duly-elected representative body, the County Central Committee represents the Republican electorate in choosing to endorse — or not endorse — any candidate. Contrary to what we expected, we faced few instances where more Republican candidates than there were seats available requested the Party’s endorsement. In those few cases, the Party either endorsed the incumbent seeking re-election, or made no endorsement at all.

The principle of endorsing incumbents seeking re- election is important. Republicans elected to local office are far more interested in building a successful Republican Party when they recognize the Party (1) will support them, and (2) provides real, tangible benefits for those candidates it endorses. In addition, a general posture of re-electing Republican incumbents promotes unity, while encouraging would-be challengers instead to seek an office held by a non-Republican, or one with no incumbent running. This maximizes the Party’s ability to increase the total number of offices it holds in the county.

Another reason for our endorsements: California’s policy of withholding local office candidates’ partisan registration from voters can keep them ignorant not only of candidates’ party but, to some extent, of their governing philosophy. Experience told us Republican voters want that information so they can make an informed decision. By and large, Republican voters want to know who the Republican candidate is for school board, city council, or judge, to avoid voting for someone who will not reflect their values.

Of course, in a county of more than 580,000 Republicans, a simple endorsement is not enough. Republican voters must be informed of just who the Party supports for local offices. That information is passed to voters in a variety of ways. Candidates can feature the information in campaign literature and the press can report the endorsement. Our list was posted on the Party’s well-visited website. But, far and away, the most effective means of telling voters which candidates the Party supported was through the new Republican Neighborhood Precinct Organization, described below.

Strategy Three: Increase Republican voter turnout.

In September 2000, American Political Science Review published a study by Yale University’s Alan Gerber and Donald Green comparing the impact on voter turnout of get-out-the-vote phones, mail, and in- person visits. They found that live telephone calls have absolutely no impact on turnout. This may disappoint Republican volunteers like me who’ve spent hours working at campaign phone banks, but it stands to reason. How do you respond to a stranger calling you at home asking you to do something?

Direct mail appeals specifically aimed at increasing turnout were only slightly more effective than the totally ineffective telephone calls. A 0.8 percent increase in turnout for a single piece of GOTV mail. This result also should not be surprising: what do you do with most unsolicited advertising mail you receive? Why should voters in general behave any differently?

The most dramatic result came from in-person voter contact. A voter visited by a volunteer, in-person, during the final four weeks of the campaign was 10 percent more likely to vote than someone not visited in person, all other factors being equal.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Considering the Yale study, we knew the Republican Party of San Diego County could not have a major impact on voter turnout relying on phone calls and mail. We had to change the way we thought about voter turnout.

We established the Republican Neighborhood Precinct Organization. A full description of that organization could fill a book. The final report generated by Chip Englander, our 2002 director of Precinct Operations, runs to more than 100 pages.

The program’s thrust is this: organize Republican volunteers to visit Republican voters personally, in their neighborhood, during the final weeks of the campaign, drop off a list of Republican candidates, and remind them the election is close and to vote on election day.

The entire program is organized around this basic approach.

First, in-person contact with the voter is everything. We live in an information-drenched society. Junk mail, e-mail, 300 cable TV channels, radio, telemarketing calls ... we are swamped with impersonal forms of communication. Yet, a human being standing on a voter’s doorstep cuts through that fog and makes an impact as nothing else can.

Second, Precinct Representatives visit only their own Republican neighbors. This appeals to volunteers because they walk in their own neighborhood, not somewhere across the county, and they’re visiting Republicans, so in 90 percent of cases the person they visit already agrees with them on the message. The goal is to increase turnout through that in-person reminder.

Third, the piece of campaign literature left behind is critical. In San Diego County, our volunteers distributed more than 250,000 doorhangers, each listing the array of candidates endorsed by the Party and providing a tear-away reply card Republicans could send in if they wanted to participate. Listing all the candidates on the doorhanger provides each candidate an incentive to funnel his own volunteers into the precinct program, maximizing the number of Republican households visited.

Finally, full-time management is required to develop and implement the program. In San Diego County, the precinct program entailed 1,460 Precinct Representatives, 50 area leaders, eight Assembly District leaders, a director of Precinct Operations and two support staffers. Of course, smaller counties would require fewer participants, but having the right people in the right supervisory positions to keep everything moving is critical to so massive an undertaking.

In the 78th Assembly District, where Republican Shirley Horton overcame a Democrat advantage in both voter registration and money, the precinct program produced nearly 100 percent coverage on Election Day, with the campaign providing paid walkers to go into those precincts where no Republican volunteer could be identified, recruited, trained, and deployed in time. Horton won by less than 2 points.

Strategy Four: Engage Republican volunteers throughout the election cycle.

San Diegans are concurrently blessed and cursed. On any given day, our volunteers could be out doing just about anything: Little League, golf, shopping, beach-going, hiking, off- roading, or trying to figure out how to pay their taxes. The same is true throughout California — there’s no shortage of things to do besides politics. The challenge for political leaders, then, is how to keep volunteers involved, and continually add to the list of those calling themselves volunteers?

I presided over only one Central Committee meeting at its traditional location: the San Diego County Administration Building. For years, the Party met there for one reason: it was free. As with anything else, the Party got what it paid for. The supervisors’ public meeting room in that building is a dark, dank, medieval torture chamber kind of room with a dais on one end and about 50 painfully small audience-style seats on the other. Meetings were long, plodding, and featured many seemingly endless reports. People brought books and other reading materials to keep busy. About 60 people attended the meetings once a month.

We turned that format on its head, redesigning the meeting around a monthly speaker and limiting the business to that which demands full Central Committee attention. Reports are put in writing, circulated by e-mail, and discussed in Executive Committee meetings held at Republican headquarters on a different night and open to all Central Committee members.

At full Central Committee meetings, a social hour precedes the business portion of the meeting, and a private reception for the Party’s 700-plus donors who contribute more than $100 per year is held with the featured speaker prior to the meeting.

The meeting no longer simply serves as a meeting. Rather, it is an event, one that combines business, a social gathering, education, inspiration, and a bit of fundraising. At the November 2002 meeting of the committee — after the election — 252 volunteers attended. Almost every meeting held in this new format has drawn at least 200 people, more than tripling the attendance of previous meetings.

Of course, not everyone can attend a meeting once a month, so a biweekly newsletter, the Republican Political Report, keeps San Diego Republicans informed of events, news, and developments of interest to Republicans.

Republican volunteers are treated as some of the most important people in the Republican Party, because they are. No amount of money can replace the dedication and hard work provided by those who selflessly give their time to this great Republican cause.

To do it, Republican volunteers need resources. So the people who give of their time, must be aided by those who give of their money.

Strategy Five: Raise the funds necessary to implement Strategies One through Four.

In volunteer politics, leaders need four things to raise funds of any amount, from the person who sends in the $10 check once a year, to the business leader who routinely writes checks of $10,000.

1) Credible leadership. Political donors act like investors insofar as they share a common interest in knowing their contributions will be well spent in pursuit of a commonly agreed-upon goal. The Party’s leadership provides that personal credibility, and backs up the commitment, that, yes, we will fund important programs with your generous donation, and, no, we’re not going to spend it all on lottery tickets.

2) Vision and a plan. Donors want to know that their vision for California is shared by the Party, and that the Party has a realistic, measurable, effective plan to realize that vision. Donors cannot be expected to advance interests they do not share any more than volunteers can be expected to contribute their time to advance interests not their own. The plan must also have a level of credibility so that it can stand on its own merits, rather than simply relying upon those who endorse it.

3) Progress in executing the plan. The best evidence of a plan’s success in the political marketplace is that it is already underway and producing the anticipated results. Donors can then be asked to invest in a product and a leadership that is demonstrably working. Don’t ask a donor to invest in a theoretical idea, ask the donor to contribute to the ongoing success of a working product.

4) An ability to show donors they are not the first to write a check. Donors are rightly suspicious when no one else has yet made a financial contribution of a similar level they are being asked to give. What do others know that I don’t? Citing other donors who have already made the decision to fund the Party’s programs can make all the difference between walking away with a check, or walking away with “I’ll think about it.”

Provide for various levels of giving

Just as volunteers are capable of contributing differing amounts of time, donors are able to give vary- ing amounts of support. As a result, a successful party finance program creates programs aimed at donors and potential donors at various levels.

• Direct mail: The most effective means of reaching donors who will contribute $100 or less in response to a solicitation is through an ongoing direct mail fundraising program. These programs produce the best results when they are carried out systematically throughout the year. The Republican Party of San Diego County raised more than $100,000 in direct mail contributions between September 2001 and October 2002. The Washington, D.C.,-based Leadership Institute provides classes in beginner, intermediate, and advanced level direct mail fundraising.

• Events: Donors capable of giving between $50 and $250 can be reached through fundraising events where the revenues are derived from individual ticket sales, table sponsors, and larger sponsors. Caution should be exercised to avoid relying too heavily on events, since overhead expenses tend to run 30 percent or higher, in contrast with more profitable direct mail and personal solicitation programs. The Republican Party of San Diego County holds three events each year: a Lincoln Day Dinner in February, a Salute to San Diego’s Republican Elected Officials in July, and a low-dollar Holiday Party in December.

• Donors programs with fulfillment events: One example of a donor club is the San Diego County GOP’s “Century Club.” Members contribute $100 each year, and in return they are invited to complimentary, no-host receptions before each monthly Central Committee meeting with that month’s speaker.

More than 500 local Republicans have joined the program, raising more than $50,000 each year. Costs for the fulfillment events are kept low, allowing 90 percent-plus of all dues paid to go toward supporting Party programs and operations. Reagan Club members contribute $250 each year, and Chairman’s Circle members contribute $1,000, with donors in higher level programs receiving more fulfillment events and benefits of membership.

• Personal solicitation: While it’s not practical to make personal solicitations for contributions of only $10 or $100 at a time, making a personal visit to donors who are capable of contributing $1,000 or more can be an important part of any finance operation. We use a PowerPoint presentation that walks donors through our leadership, vision, plan, and progress to persuade them to support our efforts. These personal solicitation visits can be done one-on-one, or to a small group, either by a Finance Committee member or the chairman.

• Proposition 34: While candidates for many local offices may raise funds only in small increments (San Diego City Council campaign donations are limited to $250, and may be made only by individuals), political parties may raise and spend unlimited funds for “member communications” — defined as communication aimed specifically at the party’s registered voters. To take advantage of this aspect of Proposition 34, the Republican Party of San Diego County coordinated with Republican candidates in communicating with Republican voters, as well as in doing the fundraising necessary to support these programs. Unlike an independent expenditure committee (IEC), party member communications can be fully coordinated with the candidate’s campaign under the FPPC regulations currently in effect. A portion of funds raised for member communications are used to help offset the party’s indirect costs such as staffing, headquarters, and volunteer support. The success of programs like these in San Diego enabled our Party to erase more than $20,000 in debts and raise more than $800,000 to support operations and programs in 2001 and 2002.

Final Word: A Unified Coalition

The programs I’ve outlined, when applied to the Republican Party of San Diego County, generated an unprecedented level of support for Republican candidates, and an incredible sense of progress and accomplishment among donors, volunteers, candidates, and elected officials. They also provided another, unanticipated, result: a way out of the ideological box that too often defines and perpetuates intra- party warfare. These programs work as well for Democrats as for Republicans. They are the basic blocking- and-tackling, core campaign programs that must be at the center of any modern, successful political party.

Implementing this plan, we discovered there is no “moderate” way to raise money, no “conservative” way to run a precinct program, and no “liberal” way to register voters. By keeping our eye on the ball, and our focus on performing these core functions, we were able to transcend the ideological divisions that had paralyzed our Party for years. We could come together in ways that helped to put Republican candidates into office, and ideas into action.

That’s how we’ve come to define ... victory.

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