The Island County Republican Party publishes a “semi-irregular” newsletter, which we are posting here. We believe that the statements made by the leadership of each party is of general public interest.
Chairman’s Brief
I wanted to drop a quick note to the ICRP thanking Richard Bacigalupi, Jessica Thompson, Tracy Abhul, Jim Spoltman, and Leif Johnson for attending this great event and being willing to share their experience.
We heard from a lot of great speakers and attended important and informative workshops. We are working on getting some power points to share. I can’t express how informative and insightful this weekend has been and encourage everyone to attend these events when they present themselves.
Timothy S Hazelo (USN Ret)
Chairman ICRP
Message from the editor
Hello to all readers of the first ICRP Newsletter of 2023!
I am having a little fun with the title because it will take a while to get a monthly update rolling. As Chairman of the Communications and Outreach team, I am in the process of organizing the team to create content for the newsletter. Be patient with us.
This first issue is all about the recent Republican Action Conference held May 5&6 in Kennewick WA. See
below for details and how this will affect the party as we move forward on the elections this year and
next.
Jim Spoltman, Chair, ICRP Communications and Outreach
Republican Action Conference Recap
This conference was an organizational event for the WSRP. It pulled together a diverse set of speakers and was focused on Grass Roots organization and Running for Office successfully. There was also some content on strategy for winning that I will cover. With that, let’s jump into summaries.
The first day was the meeting for the State Committee. Vice Chair, Tracey Abuhl, and our Committee People, Richard Bacigalupi and Jessica Thompson, attended. I heard reports of some good business completed and some rather interesting events as well. I will let our State Committee representatives share that as they see fit.
On the second day six programs were presented. Your editor was able to attend four of the six, so here is
my summary for each:
Campaigning 101: Building a Winning Campaign
Presented by Kaitlin Vintertun, Executive Director, League of our Own and Emily Strode,
President of Crimson Consulting
There were good points for anyone wanting to run for office. Know why you are running first and foremost. Be able to clearly state why you want the office you seek. Figure out what you need to win. Do an analysis of voters that can vote in your race. Break that down into who will support you, those who won’t and those you can persuade. Figure out how many votes you need to win, 50%+1 and focus your message on that audience.
The focus for getting voters is go out and talk to them one on one. Go door to door and hone your message with the individuals. For fundraising purposes if you hold an event, have a goal and audience in mind and measure results. Go ahead and use Social Media, Emails, Texts and Yard Signs, but realize those are the least effective ways of reaching your voters. Create a budget, manage it toward reaching your voters in the most effective way possible. That way you will know what you can focus on and if you need more. Yes, money is the Mother’s Milk of a campaign, if you don’t have enough, it will hurt your prospects. Finally, don’t let your opponent define you. Get out and let people know who you are and why you are running. Fail at that, and it can be hard to convince people you are the right person for the job.
Ballot Harvesting: Collecting Republican Votes
Presented by Krista Pittman, CAGOP Political Director and Matthew Frohlich, WAGOP Political Director
This one was absolutely fascinating. Krista related the CAGOP’s experience of jumping into this activity and how they were successful. In short, the CAGOP flipped 5 districts in the last election and Krista says Harvesting was a big part of that. California has several laws regulating Ballot Harvesting that the CAGOP meticulously followed. They kept very specific and accurate chain of custody records, made sure the collected ballots were always secure and went straight to the registrar’s office after being collected. Why be so careful? Because the state immediately sued the party accusing them of not having the right kind of secure program. That suit was dropped when it was pointed out that the Democrat idea of secure collection was a basket on a front porch. The primary message is that this can be done, it will be productive done correctly and the opposition won’t be happy about having someone else play with their toys.
Now a personal note from the editor. Folks, as much as Republicans are opposed to this kind of activity because of the potential for corruption, we must step in if we expect to win elections in our home state. Ballot Harvesting is completely unregulated in WA. We will be building a strong and secure program to go out and get the ballots from people who have a hard time voting, have lost hope that their vote counts or have been dropped from the roles due to technicalities. We will have to do a great job and show how this is done right without any level of corruption of the ballots being collected. Why is this important in an unregulated environment? Because if we’re successful, the opposition will use their power to put a stop to it.
There are two ways to stop things you don’t like:
Gain power and change the rules.
If the Republicans gain power, we could do away with things we don’t like: Ballot Harvesting and the Jungle primary.
When out of power, use the existing rules against your opponents.
Get more Republicans elected via Harvesting and the opposition will suddenly have an interest in better defined Harvesting rules.
Make many top two primary results both Republicans and I guarantee the opposition will want to change things.
End of editorial comments, feel free to share your views with each other and the ICRP as you see fit, make them constructive.
Grassroots Activism: Organizing for Victory
Matthew Frolich, WAGOP Political Director
This was a WA focused talk that included details on what happened in the last election and how to move toward victory in the next. Mr. Frolich is a numbers person. He showed several charts on who voted and who didn’t. The big surprise was how many Republicans just didn’t vote last election statewide. He is digging into why this is and what we can do about it. Had these votes been cast, we would likely have Senator Tiffany Smiley in office.
While that was good information, I’m going to relay how he started the session. He began by telling us his story and why he is here in Washington State. He showed a map of the outflow of population from WA and where they are going. Then he asked: “You are all Republicans, you know the situation. Why are you still here?” and let individuals stand and speak. The answers showed there are a lot of people willing to stay in WA and fight for the state. Some responses were practical, many were emotional. Nobody likes what is being done to our home and there are many people who are getting involved in politics for the first time because of it. It was a great way to show people that they are not alone in this fight.
There will be more information about the strategies for winning coming out. Watch the Facebook
page and look for communication from the ICRP.
Delivering your Message
Nick Clemens, Communications Director, RNC State Party Strategies and Jonathan Bingle, Spokane City Councilmember
This was a great discussion on how to build and deliver a consistent message when you run. It echoed some of the details of the Campaigning 101 session, but having Jonathan Bingle there to talk about his personal experience was gold.
When running for office, start with a message and be able to repeat it consistently and clearly. Jonathan noted that he made some mistakes along the way when talking to people one on one, but that was okay. He learned from those and was able to fix them before talking to large groups during the campaign. Make a mistake with one person and it will affect that individual opinion. Do that in front of a crowd, you affect many, many opinions.
In dealing with the media, be prepared for them to ask you uncomfortable questions and get good at the pivot to what you want to talk about. If they ask you something irrelevant to your message, move to something that is relevant. You need to have what is called “Earned Media” where they cover you for free. Do your best to have it contain your messages and not the irrelevant things.
Localize your message. For the ICRP, that means focus on Island County: Whidbey and Camano. Yes, we all care about state and national issues a great deal. However, if you’re running for a local office, keep the message local. If you get asked about state or national issues, talk about how those relate to what you are doing here in Island County.
In Summary
I loved the content of the sessions I attended, getting to know my fellow ICRP members who attended and spending time with like minded people that I met and spoke to between and during sessions and at the receptions and banquet.
If you have the time and resources to attend an event like this, I highly recommend it. We have a lot of work in front of us, the state party is putting together some strategies and tools to help Republicans win in the next two cycles. The ICRP Executive Committee and Central Committee will be working to localize those to Island County.
Since I am a horseman, I say, “Let’s saddle up and get riding.”
State Committee Report
The Spring Meeting for the Central Committee discussed two primary orders of business. The 2024 WSRP Convention will be held April 17 – 20 at the Spokane Convention Center. April 17th and 18th will be State Committee days, and the 19th and 20th will be the actual convention business days. The WSRP is proposing that it be an “Endorsement Convention” where official endorsements are selected – prior to primary voting. The purpose of an endorsement convention is to focus on party and grassroot selected candidates early in the races to keep the field from being too fractured. The number of delegates to the state convention is expected to rise dramatically to give the grass roots as much vote as possible on the endorsements. No vote was held on the subject and the topic will be discussed again at the next Central Committee Meeting (date / location). Second, the body soundly passed a strong message of condemnation on Senate Bill 5599 – which grants unprecedented power for the state to take away our children with no notice being given to parents on a wide array of personal and mental health issues.
I serve on the Messaging Committee. The party is moving forward with new branding. In discussion is reclaiming certain words taken over by the left. Choice is one of these re-claimed words. Other words include Transparency, Responsibility, Common Sense, etc. Choice was widely discussed due to its direct link to abortion. In the case of WSRP messaging, it would be the Choice of Life, School, Fuel, Right to Work, etc. Putting people ‘at choice’ in their own life is a powerful message. It would also give candidates leeway to expand on the messaging as they see fit within their own campaign.
There were several great speakers including gubernatorial candidates Semi Bird and Raul Garcia – each with excellent pitches for unified and conservative leadership. Kelly Anna Brooking, a 15-year-old dynamo, spoke on getting youth active in local, conservative politics. Brian Heywood spoke on the many state initiatives under his leadership. The keynote speaker for the GOP Action Conference was Liz Harrington, National Spokesperson for Donald J Trump for President 2024.
My takeaway from the State Committee Meeting and GOP Action Conference is a more conservative and unified message coming from leadership. The party appears to be focusing efforts on conservatives and winning. More to come.
The next State Committee meeting will be be August 11-12 at the Red Lion in Olympia. August 11 will be the E-Board meeting and welcome reception, August 12 being the State Committee day business.
Final Notes
It’s filing week! If you are planning to run for office in 2023 now is the time: Candidate Filing (votewa.gov)
There will be a Referendum on 5599: Supporting youth and young adults seeking protected health care
service. There will need to be 200K signatures for it to make the coming ballot. LetsGoWashington.com
will have details on petitions as well as initiatives soon.
Useful Links
ICRP Homepage: Island County Gop | Island County Republican Party | Oak Harbor
(https://www.islandcountygop.net/)
ICRP Facebook Page: Go Here
(https://www.facebook.com/groups/islandcountygop/?tn=%3C)
Voter Interests Project: Voter Interests Project | Exploring the topics on the minds of voters
(https://voterinterests.com/)
Let’s Go Washington: Let’s Go Washington (letsgowashington.com)
[Editorial Policy: The Voter Interests Project is a non-partisan organization. Part of our mission is to keep voters informed about the activities of elected officials and candidates for public office. We do not endorse or support any particular candidates; therefore, we omit all email links and donation links from candidate communications to supporters. If you are interested in supporting a candidate, we recommend you contact the candidate or their campaign directly.]
