Many of you have been asking where Save the GOP is likely to go from here. We do not just want to be a blog, rather we would to really be a place for ACTIVISTS, who do something. As such, Save the GOP will be entering its second stage over the next few months.

We’re currently looking at what platform to move to which will give us more power than the normal blogging features of WordPress. Ironically one of the strongest contenders is CivicSpace, which is based on the old Dean for America technology. Dean may have lost the campaign but his people knew what they were doing when it came to technology.

Anyways, this is going to be a big project and would love help from folks who are familiar with PHP/MySql/Apache development. (We’re an opensource shop here, none of that Microsoft junk). Also if you do graphic design or CSS/xHTML stuff also drop me a line, because we are looking to do a total graphic redesign along with rolling out the new system.

My goal is for a preliminary launch sometime around September 1. Email me at mark@savethegop.com if you want to get involved.

Hattip to Patrick Ruffini (a good party guy, who knows his stuff about technology) who posted a review of the new DNC site and as I’ve been doing political tech consulting for a little bit I thought I would offer my two cents.

DNC Review

What is going on over at the DNC, this page, while slick looking, is caught in like 2001 as far as technology goes. The usual grassroots tools such as email your legislator, write a letter to the editor, are enitrely GONE. I mean gone. I have to think they are just being retooled and will come up soon, but as such still embarassing.

One upside is it is a totally tabeless CSS design which is one of my personal petpeeves, but the loss of the functionality is just astounding. Moreover the lack of internal navigation with breadcrumbs or some alternative is mindnumbing. Another thing is that while they have an XML feed for their press releases they have absolutely no archive of releases, which again hurts the brain.

Where is all the Dean for America stuff? I mean it just appears to be totally missing, which I think proves the point many have made in the past: Dean’s rise was due to Joe Trippi’s genius not Howard Dean. The DNC should be begging Trippi to come and save them from this disaster they just wandered into. I would have thought the DNC’s redesign would have involved all sorts of innovations to hook the base into the party and make their blogs and other areas more consistent echo chambers for the DNC’s talking points, as well as hooking them into the grassroots machine better.

Daily Kos Redesign

Now this is a man who gets technology. The redesign is nice, functional, and gets the point across. My only complaint is that the ad bar runs down the middle of the page which gets annoying. The consistent color theme is nice and you can easily navigate around the site and find everything you want.

dKospedia needs to be brought into the same design as the main site, as right now it still is stuck in the old design, but as it is a semi-independent (and 100% certifiably insane) site it is forgivable though. I’ve never been a fan of Scoop, which both RedState and DailyKos run on but that’s just my two cents.

Anyways, add your comments…

This man does not deserve to be in our party. I don’t care how conservative you vote, and McHenry does vote conservative, but when you call and threaten CRs as a sitting Congressman you DO NOT deserve your job.

The Hill story is here, I’ve exceprted it below.

“He said, ‘Elizabeth, I thought we were friends, that you cared about getting me elected,’” Beck said. Then, she added, McHenry warned her that he would not help her or her school’s College Republicans in the future unless she voted for Gourley for CRNC chairman.

“It was requested from Gourley to McHenry. McHenry told me [that],” Beck said. “Basically, he said, ‘Y’all are screwed.’ It was one of the worst days of my life because I do like McHenry.” She felt threatened and disappointed because “before that, I felt like I had a relationship, like I had connections, a career.”

Another College Republican, who declined to be identified, was standing next to Beck during her conversation with McHenry and recalled that she was intimidated. “It was very pointed - if you don’t do this, there will be consequences,” she said, summarizing McHenry’s words. “If you don’t do this, it will be bad for your political career.”

Steal an election, collect 15 grand.

President Bush is set to give what must be a monster speech tonight. I am counting on it to mark a positive and pivotal turning point in public opinion. Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal has this great piece today arguing that the Vietnam metaphor - incessantly perpetuated by the media - is actually appropriate when discussing the Iraq War. While the liberals use it to imply we have been defeated in Iraq - just as we were in Vietnam - the article argues that the lessons of Vietnam should remind conservatives that total victory in Iraq is attainable and critical to American national security: “Rather the Vietnam metaphor is apt today because the U.S. is in a war it can win and is winning, if only those inside the Beltway would stop preferring defeat to victory and disgrace to honor. ”
This may be the best part: ” As in Vietnam, the stakes in Iraq today are much larger than simply allowing millions of people in one country to descend into chaos and oppression. We fought it out for a decade in the jungles of Southeast Asia, losing more than 50,000 American lives, because we knew that handing communist insurgents one country made it more likely that they would soon grow hungry for another. Do we think it is now any different with Islamic insurgents just because there is no longer a Soviet Union out there ready to back them? If the U.S. walks away from this war and leaves it to Europe to hold back Islamic extremists, we might as well just accept right now that the terrorists will topple more of our skyscrapers–or worse. ”

We are indeed faced with Vietnam-like circumstances in Iraq. The question is, will we make the same mistake again and cut and run when the going gets tough? By staying tough in Iraq, perhaps we can redeem our nation for its failures in Vietnam and destroy the defeatist, “blame America first” syndrome that the Vietnam war tragically begetted.

With Al Gore inventing the internet and all I thought they would realize that we can see which sites they came from, but alas….

Tanbark check this out. I’m posing as Chuck Colson on http://www.savethegop.com/archiv…6/26/moving-on/

There’s little wide eyed wonders over there whining about Davidson’s loss to Gourley. I’m tryin to toughen ‘em up by giving them some Repub election highlights and spelling out why they need guys like Gourley if they’re gonna win.
Chuck Colson | Email | Homepage | 06.28.05 - 10:55 am | #

Apparently the Battle of Trafalgar was won in vain, as the celebration of the great British naval victory has been taken over by PC EU-nichs and the like. I can’t comment sufficiently on such lunacy, so check out the article. Mark might want to give “props” to Anna Tribe, 75, the great, great, great granddaughter of Lord Nelson:

“I am anti-political correctness. Very much against it. It makes fools of us.”

Huzzah!

I think a fun exercise might be to find other battles that have been “won in vain.” The Siege of Vienna springs immediately to mind. Any others?

Gary, Alex… I know this is going to set off a blog civil war between our pro and anti Lincoln folks but how about Sen. Barrack Obama (Commie-IL). I think Obama has a point, though its hard for me to take seriously any man who at one point advocated POST birth abortion.

“In Lincoln’s rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat - in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles. He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life - the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams,” Obama wrote in a package dubbed ‘Uncovering the Real Abe Lincoln,’ on newsstands Monday.

Obama, a Chicago Democrat who is just the fifth black senator in U.S. history, also raised questions about Lincoln’s role in ending slavery.

“I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator,” Obama said. “As a law professor and civil rights lawyer and as an African-American, I am fully aware of his limited views on race. Anyone who actually reads the Emancipation Proclamation knows it was more a military document than a clarion call for justice.”

Apparently the lefties in Germany want to get rid of the memories of how evil communism was, and they want to do it badly. On July 4th they will demolish a memorial to all the people who died trying to cross into the freedom of West Germany from the communist East. I guess “Never again” really doesn’t mean that to these people, how sickening. (HT: Alarming News)

More info here

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Roman Catholic. You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you. Roman Catholic 100% Neo orthodox 82% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Charismatic/Pentecostal 50% Emergent/Postmodern 43% Classical Liberal 36% Modern Liberal 32% Fundamentalist 32% Reformed Evangelical 25%

This is a great article about the importance of teacahing and preserving our nation’s epic story. I am reading Daivd McCullough’s new book “1776″. It is an amazing book. Anyone who thinks history is boring should read this book. Going back to the article though, here is one of the best parts of the article:

“When Ronald Reagan delivered his 1989 farewell address to the nation, he noted there was “a great tradition of warnings in presidential farewells,” and he would make no exception. He told his audience that the “one that’s been on my mind for some time” was that the country was failing to adequately teach our children the American story and what it represents in the history of the world. “We’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion, but what’s important,” he said. “If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I am warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.”

Here is more on China from the Washington Times. The reason I do not want the Chinese company to buy out the American oil company is because businesses in China are often times just fronts for the Chinese military. This allows them to buy dual use technology and gain access to information and for infiltration.

“China’s communist leaders view the United States as their main enemy and are working in Asia and around the world to undermine U.S. alliances, said a former Chinese diplomat.
Chen Yonglin, until recently a senior political officer at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, Australia, said in an interview that China also is engaged in large-scale intelligence-gathering activities in the United States that, in the past, netted large amounts of confidential U.S. government documents from agents.
“The United States is considered by the Chinese Communist Party as the largest enemy, the major strategic rival,” Mr. Chen told The Washington Times.”

In another victory for secularists the Supreme Court ruled today that it was unconstitutional to display the ten commandments in the court room. It was a 5-4 decision and beyond a terrible precident. Looks like the founding fathers are going to have a lot of rolling over in their graves to do.

UPDATE: Apparently you can display the Ten Commandments on gov’t buildings that are NOT courthouses… weird.

UPDATE: Awesome excerpt of Scalia’s disent

What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle. That is what prevents judges from ruling now this way, now that thumbs up or thumbs down as their personal preferences dictate. Today’s opinion forthrightly (or actually, somewhat less than forthrightly) admits that it does not rest upon consistently applied principle. In a revealing footnote, ante, at 11, n. 10, the Court acknowledges that the Establishment Clause doctrine it purports to be applying lacks the comfort of categorical absolutes. What the Court means by this lovely euphemism is that sometimes the Court chooses to decide cases on the principle that government cannot favor religion, and sometimes it does not. The footnote goes on to say that [i]n special instances we have found good reason to dispense with the principle, but [n]o such reasons present themselves here. Ibid. It does not identify all of those special instances, much less identify the good reason for their existence.

A MUST read.

The Corner has a great post on this whole notion that if the UK didn’t join the Euro zone they would see a major drop in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), well of course the opposite appears to be true.

“Foreign investment in France and Germany, the two largest economies of the European continent, fell sharply in 2004, according to figures released yesterday (23 June) by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris. In France, inward investment almost halved last year, falling from $43bn to $24 bn. In the case of Germany, foreign investors actually withdrew about $39bn from the country, reversing the inflow of $27bn recorded in 2003, the OECD said in the report “Trends and recent developments in foreign direct investment”. On the other side of the Channel, foreign direct inflows into the UK more than tripled, coming up to $78.5bn in 2004, according to the report.”

Hmmmm interesting… appears I am a Weslyan / Catholic… I guess I am a bit of a freak

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God’s grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Roman Catholic 79% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Neo orthodox 75% Fundamentalist 54% Emergent/Postmodern 39% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Reformed Evangelical 36% Classical Liberal 25% Modern Liberal 14%

UPDATE: The NJCR Blog (Hat Tip) had this great quote from Davidson’s concession speech:

I would encourage you all to unite behind Paul. Don’t ever forget the reason you’re here. And don’t forget about integrity. Most of you have it, some of you have lost it. But no matter what, have it. If you don’t have your integrity, you don’t have nothing.

Amen Michael Amen

Again, I do not want to dwell on the past, I want to talk about real solutions for the future. So I would like to play a little game where I am going to layout what I think the positive vision for the College Republicans is and what we can ALL do to be a part of it and move past and on from this crap. But to get there we need to get two things out of the way:

1. Public Open Audit - There is an absolute neccesity for an audit to get the trust of half the CRNC back. As a good non-profit this should be done anyways, but a good clean bill of health for the CRNC’s finances will go a long way to getting people like myself back to being cheerleaders for the Krank.

2. Missouri - I have serious concerns over the allegations of forgery of the Mo. delegates and would like to know the real story here, because the longer the rumors are allowed to circulate that the whole deal was forged the more damage it will do.

Once these issues are resolved we can move on to bigger and better things, and I think the regional field program is something that I hope Gourley will consider implementing, because its GOOD POLICY. Take the best of Michael’s platform and integrate it in. Also I think Paul’s vast expierence in the grassroots can mean GREAT things for the organization. We need him out there working to improve the field program and the fieldman school. I am sorry these programs are good but can always use improvements. I think a regional field director will go a long way to helping correct the short falls of the CRNCs field program, but also just re-evaluating everything we teach..

Also aiding chapters through providing local media lists in their begining of the year box is a simple way to give these chapters aid in a concrete way. Providing a copy of the CR logo in a high res format is another easy example.

I really think great things can be done if CRs work together and return to as both Davidson and Rep. Pence said: integrity. The CRNC should release copies of ALL their new fundraising letters so we can make sure none of this happens again. We need more openness in the budgeting and block grant process, so that we are beyond even REPROACH of corruption.

I do think Paul Gourley can be a good national chairman but he needs to go out and earn our trust and respect again through a full external audit and explaining what happened in Missouri. Once that is done I, and I am sure many others, will be happy to work to really make his chairmanship a success and work together.

This article from the Washington Times details China’s growing military capabilities and their motivation. energy and oil are going to become more and more of an issue in the future I believe.

There is a rally between 1-4PM today at Taft Park by the US Capitol. If anyone is in DC they should attend find out more info here.

In the light of my negative, yet I believe 101% accurate comments, I also want to say some real positive ideas and would like others to also propose some:

1. Expanded State Assistance: Working with state chapters to achieve indepdence in fiscal and legal sense. Each state chapter should be helped in developing their legal standing, opening a bank account, raising money, maintaining a house list, etc. I think this is somewhere the Krank could make a huge difference. I know they get some training now but actual assistance during the year and further aid coudl be immensely helpful.

2. Focus on campus activism: I know I may be in the minority on this point but I don’t think the CRs are just slaves for Republican candidates. I think there is often a tendancy within the organization to ignore the other activism aspects and this needs to end. We need to spend more time building future republicans on campus through making students aware of how the conservative agenda benefits them. For example next National Convention why don’t we have small breakout sessions where students can network and exchange ideas about events to have.

3. Membership management: I think both candidates promised this but it can not be understated. The CRNC needs a national membership database, though obviously with tight restrictions. (ie: They can’t sell that list to ANYONE, EVER).

Those are just a few… keep the powder dry folks and shoot away at other positive ideas for the Gourley administration.