Let 1,000 Republican Flowers Bloom

This week is the Oakland County (Michigan) Republican Convention, and to be honest, I'm still a little annoyed about the last one. At the last convention- which I wrote about here- each precinct choose leaders for the county executive board, which plays a large role in shaping the direction of the party at the county and state level.

I stood up and volunteered my services, and spoke about my youth, enthusiasm, and new conservative take on politics- and lost to a group of old same-old moderates. Many people liked me, but were unwilling to support me for any sort of leadership, fearing change and lacking hope.

If there is one thing that I took from Obama's rise to victory, it is that as Republicans, we need to embrace change and speak once more of the hope for the future- and both change and hope are indeed deeply conservative ideals.

Let me quote a bit from William Kristol's article:

Republicans, newly liberated, need to resist calls to shackle themselves to prematurely announced agendas and already anointed leaders. This is the time for a thousand Republicans to bloom. Congressmen used to looking to the White House for guidance or approval--or fearing disapprobation--should show some healthy ambition and unleash their inner policy entrepreneur. Backbenchers need to come forward with heterodox ideas. There should be vigorous debate. Disharmonious disarray is in the short term much less of a danger than a false and stultifying unity.

If party leaders and ideological guides had succeeded in buttoning everything down, if there had been harmonious unity and a coordinated strategy and an agreed-upon message in early 1977, there would have been no Reagan Revolution. And if politicians--or for that matter pundits--had been deterred from changing their minds, worried over charges of inconsistency, there would have been less progress during those years. When you're out of power after having been in power for a long time and when there are new realities requiring fresh thinking, a foolish consistency really is the hobgoblin of little minds. Or at least politically unsuccessful ones. So a little chaos, lots of debate, tons of political entrepreneurship--that's what we need.

I'm all about chaos, debate, and testing new methods of politics- what I am running up against as a conservative Republican are those people who lost us the last election, those people who want to play it safe, stifle debate, and do things the old way- those people who want to play not to lose rather than play to win- I'm running up against the Republican Party that wants to lose again.

At this next convention, if I can find a way to, if I can find the means to, I will speak about liberty and freedom, I will speak about founding principles and the bright future of our country, and I will fire up our party and try to spark debate and new ideas- if I can figure out a way around the safe, staid, confining rules that bind the Republican Party convention itself.