Why We Lose Elections

Why We Lose Elections

(how an admitted 1% ‘er united the voters to beat the machines)

By Russ Harrison

I am a lifelong Republican, although there are those that would dispute that as I align myself with the terms “Moderate” or lately even “Progressive” Republican. I started as a door knocker as a child, later interned under Rep Don Deuster (R Mundelein Il) and ran crews to get out the vote in both Cook and DuPage counties. After moving to Kendall County, I have helped several local candidates attain and retain their elected seats. I am no stranger to campaigning.

 In the past I have campaigned for both Bush Jr and McCain for President, as well as Andy McKenna and Bruce Rauner for Illinois Republican Gubernatorial candidates in the Illinois primary elections. This General Election I will again be campaigning for Rauner. I am a Republican…but I am not a straight party ticket voter. I will vote for the person I feel is best suited to hold the office I am voting for…and I am not the unusual case in that decision. Many GOP members have either split their votes or left the party altogether in recent elections, and this is a condition that needs to be addressed….less our party be eroded beyond repair.

I am concerned with the loss of membership and participation in the GOP party, both at the National level and the local. It is undeniable that our party has been losing elections due to a lack of voter participation and candidates that can carry a large voter base. This last primary supports my concerns. Even when factoring in crossover votes (Democrats that were persuaded to abandon their ticket in order to vote as Republicans in an attempt to control the GOP candidate outcome) we had an abysmally low percentage of registered voters from either party actually cast their votes.

Unfortunately, low voter turnout is not the primary reason why we lose elections. We, as GOP voters, lose elections because we, as GOP members, have lost control of our party. We have surrendered our voices to special interest groups and industrialists that are willing to fund enormously expensive campaigns with seemingly unlimited finances in order to gain their objectives. Too often our platforms appear to be attacks against the poor instead of a war against poverty. Too often we appear to favor allowing corporate welfare while demanding cuts to vital social programs. This situation has left numerous members disgruntled and dejected. The opinion expressed by many GOP voters is that the voice of the common man in our party has fallen upon deaf ears. Our GOP Party, by our own doing, has created an environment of apathy that is ripe for abuse and manipulation that we have done little to nothing to remedy.

Those candidates that have chosen to deny the Tea Party extremism and the “fat cat” special interest groups and actually represent the common voter have suffered losses in the Primary elections. They have experienced personal attacks and have been victimized by slanderous campaigns from outside our party and, as recently shown, from within. Candidates that attempt to move our party from the far right back towards the center have been vilified. The process of expanding the voter base to appeal to the majority of voters has been turned into a reliance upon the smaller group of hard-line Republican voters that would vote for a chimpanzee over any other candidate that dared defy any parameters set by the National GOP.

This is an ironic situation in that the GOP has repeatedly expressed the goal of expanding their voter base.  However, we, once the champions of voter rights in the south, have proposed legislation to make it difficult for some social groups to vote…all under the unnecessary guise of reducing voter fraud. This has the effect of further alienating voters from our party. The GOP in general has been in a phase of absolute denial that we can do no wrong, that everything we do is correct and every candidate that gets the nod of approval from National is the best representative of our party’s goals and ideals… and we still lose elections .

To support my point, I cite the candidates for Illinois General Assembly 97Th District published interviews. While less than 20% of the general population states that they believe in creationism over evolution, each candidate stated that either they believed in creationism or demurred to a “softball” answer that supported a belief in it. However, this is an item that has such little priority in the voting decisions of the majority of voters as to be inconsequential in an election with a medium turnout. And yet, each candidate chose to include and address it as part of their platform. They embraced an ideal that was repeatedly rejected by the vast majority of the populace…for what purpose?

Likewise, Roe V Wade is a federal law, and the vast majority of voters from BOTH parties support a woman’s right to choose, but each candidate chose to oppose that law and some even voiced an objection to contraception. These items have no bearing upon the items that should take priority in determining legislation and a plan of action to bring Illinois back from the brink of total destruction that we face. These are MORAL issues, not state issues and to push these as priority items in a GOP campaign for a state position ensures that the majority of voters that do not agree with those stances will not vote to support that candidate.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a law that, despite volumes of misinformation and an abysmally ineffective launch has now shown to be a widely accepted approach to ensuring health care insurance for the general population. While it has several needed and even commendable components to it, it is still a confusing and conflicting approach to addressing the abuses and inequality in the health care insurance industry…but it is undeniably a substantial improvement to what we had in the past.

Watching the candidates loudly scream “We must repeal ObamaCare” is at best painful to watch, as it panders to the National GOP group, and is at worst …comical. It is obvious that these candidates have never experienced the financial pain of having to find a private health insurance policy for the protection of their family…or they are of such wealth as to deem those premiums reasonable while the average voter finds them unaffordable.

Not one candidate offered an alternative to an insurance vehicle that over 8 million Americans have willingly signed up for and is gaining momentum. Not one candidate could answer the question “Repeal the ACA and replace it with what?” This is yet another reason why we cannot successfully rally the votes of the general public as they feel disconnected from the candidates and the realities we face. Despite the fact that health care insurance premiums have risen at the slowest pace in 4 decades, and despite the fact that health care costs are slowly declining after the ACA went into effect,  each of our GOP candidates have called for the repeal of the ACA rather than choose to offer plans to revise and improve it. The undeniable fact is that many GOP members have embraced the ACA as a relief to their insurance expense and as a guarantee that they cannot be dropped from any ACA approved policy. The State of Vermont, with state wide GOP input and support is now moving towards a lower cost single premium single insurer system to further reduce the costs to its’ citizens and to reduce the number of uninsured citizens to virtually none.

Perhaps the biggest fault we as Republicans have is our reluctance to accept constructive criticism and our dismissal of instantaneous communication. We have become so focused in propelling our platforms and engaging in static communications that we have diminished our abilities to react in a dynamic fashion to an ever changing political landscape. Whatever our party says, whatever one of our candidates states, can and will be verified for truth and accuracy, sometimes within moments. And yet, we adhere to the policy that “tell a big enough lie and the people will buy it” as an effective campaign tool. While this action is undertaken mostly by Political Action Groups, we, as Republicans, are the ones that are left to face the blowback when it gets exposed as a “half truth” or even blatant (and sometimes amateurish) attempt to lie or misinform. This further alienates our own party members and reduces our ability to recruit from the disenfranchised voter pool.

So how did Bruce Rauner win the GOP election? He’s a guy that mistakenly gets categorized as “just another egotistical GOP rich white guy out to buy an election”. He certainly does NOT tow the GOP party line. He’s the father of 6 children yet supports a woman’s right to choose, despite being personally against abortion. He has heavy ties to the Democratic Party yet also has served as an advocate and advisor to high profile GOP candidates and did, in fact, win the general support of the GOP voters in his first attempt to become the Republican candidate for Governor of Illinois.

He received only one endorsement from any Illinois GOP Central Committee and yet defeated more seasoned repeat candidates from his party. In his first attempt ever to hold an elected office, Bruce Rauner managed to out campaign and out position career politicians with decades of experience in elected office. Many members of the GOP and public at large will state that he won because of his wealth…and they would be wrong.

Bruce Rauner won the primary election because he did NOT blindly adhere, nor succumb, to the National GOP parameters and mandates. His personal funds that he put into his own campaign are within 10% OF THE TOTAL AMOUNTS REQUESTED AS DONATIONS BY HIS FELLOW GOP GOVERNOR CANDIDATES campaigns PRIOR to his decision to run for office. He also was astute enough to garner the support of most of the other major campaign donors that had previously supported Brady and Dillard, and would have supported Rutherford. Bruce Rauner did NOT deny his ties to the Democrat party, nor did he overtly attack his opponents for their previous transgressions or conflict of interest. He did NOT engage in mudslinger tactics and disproven accusations. He actually ran a fairly honorable campaign that led to his victory. So why did he win when the attacks against him were so vicious and both parties united to ensure his defeat?

Bruce Rauner and his supporters won because he offered something no other GOP candidate had to offer… he effectively expressed a sincere concern and grasp of the situation our state is in regarding education, term limits, taxation, health insurance, and OUR fiscal disaster caused for the most part by special interest groups. He won because he listened to the people that truly matter…the citizens of the once and future GREAT State of Illinois. The people‘s voice was heard, and what they said was simple… WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH! For these reasons, I will continue to support the effort to Shake Up Springfield and to Bring Illinois Back.

I ask all voters, no matter what party affiliation, to defeat the gridlock caused by party polarization. Come towards the center and rescue our state from the abyss that we have found ourselves in. Support the Governor candidate that YOU sincerely believe will have a positive impact upon our lives, and the lives of future generations.