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Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the 2012 election please allow me to give some initial thoughts about moving the Conservative agenda and this Party forward. First, I congratulate John Taylor for another successful election. My thanks to all our other candidates, you ran good campaigns against long, long odds. I want to meet with all of you to review what you did, what you learned and what you see as important for our future.
We did more work this year than any I have ever seen, and I’ve been involved working elections since 1974. Our Victory Centers made more calls and knocked on more doors than any Philadelphia Republican organization has done in memory. Everyone should be proud of the work we did. And, we got smoked.
How did we lose to a very weak incumbent in both the presidential and senatorial elections? We lost because we have allowed the left to control the debate for years. We’ve made progress and it hasn’t been enough. I’ve asked people why they voted for Obama and the answers all are based on what we know to be half truths or outright falsehoods.
This means we’ve allowed elections to come down to personalities and sound bites. If your personality doesn’t come through strong in the beginning of the campaign, if you make a silly statement or misquote a fact, the other side brands you before the real campaign ever begins. Those of us who understand the fundamental principles on which this country was built can see past those personality quirks. For us, the individual doesn’t matter as much as the principles on which he or she stands. Understand the principles and you are far better able to sort through the media blather and find the truth.
But none of us were born knowing those principles. None of us came into the world understanding the God-given rights we brought with us. None of us were born knowing that our precious individual rights and responsibilities were given by the Creator and not by some government. We had to be taught. In order to change the outcomes we need to do the hard work of mentoring an entire electorate. That job in Philadelphia will be long and hard. And if we want to elect quality people no matter what their personality quirks that’s what we are going to have to do.
Next year we have elections for District Attorney, Controller and Judges and we need quality candidates for all of them. We also need to build on the work done this year by Annie Havey and elect Minority Inspectors in every division in the city. In addition, we need to begin identifying candidates for future elections. Waiting until the year of the election to choose candidates is never going to work.
And, while we are doing all those things, we need to begin an education process that teaches the principles we understand and are sorely lacking in the majority of the electorate. We have our work cut out for us, and we can do it. We need to start now when the noise of an election is just a memory. We need to be ready to respond to every falsehood we see or hear in the Philadelphia media. Eventually our message will get through, the truth always does.
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