Matt,

There is nothing in this proposal that would stop GRP members running for statewide office in 2022. That’s what the Democrats and Republicans have been doing in the past and are doing now for many months. That’s not what has happened in our party in the past, and I believe that this is not what is happening now.

How many GRP members have you heard are running for statewide office in 2022? I wish that there were an answer larger than 0?

Except for Jill, how many GRP members do you know that have the capacity to run for statewide office in 2022?

Based on our history, the reality is that …

1. We need a GRP committee to do research, do some campaign planning, recruit candidates, and with the candidates, prepare a united statewide campaign with our slate.

2. Each candidate will need to recruit at least a Treasurer, establish a campaign organization and be willing to do some fundraising and agree to be part of the slate.

(Note: If we run candidates for higher office (Gov, Lt Gov, Attorney Gen), we will need 10,000 valid signatures. We successfully did that in 2002 and 2006. If only for the lower constitutional offices, we will need 5,000 valid signatures, which we did in 2010, 2014, and 2018. With a slate, you put all of the candidates on the same petition.)

3. The major purposes of a nominating convention is to reach out to the entire membership, invite them to a convention, nominate our slate of candidates (hopefully) and sign-up to support the statewide campaign.

To the best of our ability, we need to recruit a diverse committee and a diverse slate of candidates.

Based upon our past history, pulling this off will be a major undertaking.

Given the state of our party for the last couple of years, I wish that I would be confident of success.

The major question that this proposal brings to our party is … Should we attempt to pull ourselves together, unite behind our vision and platform, and strive to be, not the Alternative, but the Imperative?

If the answer is “NO”, then I suggest that there be a proposal before our 9/25 annual convention to dissolve our party.

I pray that we decide the former.

Love,

Mike Heichman

I’m a little confused about the order of events that this proposal is mandating. When do candidates become official? Are they added to CDLC and invited to participate in planning a Nominating Convention? If yes, then StateCom should officially nominate them first, and call the event a campaign season kick-off conference. The other possibility which the name “Nominating Convention” suggests, would be to ask candidates to appear and appeal for our support at the Nominating Convention. This would imply that the GRP organize independently from the candidates, and possibly create some suspense around the outcome of a Nominating Convention. Perhaps such an event could include a vote between different electoral strategies. I think it would be healthy to discuss the details of our electoral strategy, beyond getting 3% in a statewide election for ballot status.
I’m a little nervous about inviting candidates to be involved in developing the GRP’s strategy, since there could be a conflict of interest there. Of course, each candidate will want to prioritize their own campaign.

We’re a political designation hoping to regain party status.

This is addressing the core reason for existence of the GRP, namely the offering of an electoral alternative to the voters. A similar candidate recruitment effort led to the GRP slates in 2014 and 2018. We will need to recruit suitable candidates and collect about 7000 raw voter signatures to put them on the ballot. The GRP needs to assess whether it can make the commitment to make this effort succeed.

7/29—I have received email confirmation that Danny Factor and David Spanagel have agreed to cosponsor my proposal.

Thanks, Mike Heichman