Republican Message
by Tom Pauken

President George W. Bush made his last campaign stop here in Dallas on Monday evening before Tuesday's election as he sought to turn out the Republican vote.  It didn't work. 

Democrats swept every locally contested, county-wide election in Dallas, sweeping a lot of good men and women out of office who happened to have the misfortunate of running on the Republican ticket in Dallas County this year.  As one losing Republican Judge noted, his Democratic opponent received fewer votes this year than his opponent did back in 2002.  Yet, the Judge lost because the Republican vote was down this year in Dallas.

The well-respected Republican candidate for District Attorney, Toby Shook, was defeated by a Democratic attorney Craig Watkins whose record clearly shows him to be unqualified to serve as DA.  Now, he will join a Democratic Sheriff elected two years ago who also has very few qualifications for her job.

The Democrats even picked a legislative seat in Dallas County as conservative  Bill Keffer was defeated by Democrat Allen Vaught in what was thought to be a relatively safe Republican district in the East Dallas/Lake Highlands area.

Democrats out organized Republicans in Dallas County as they put together a very effective grassroots operation.  The once-strong Republican precinct organization in Dallas County (which was the backbone of the original Goldwater movement in Texas) is little more than an empty shell these days.  Republicans have been coasting organizationally for a number of years now here in Dallas County, and it caught up with them this year.  They paid a heavy price for their neglect of the grassroots on Tuesday night.  Slick mailers alone don't suffice, particularly when it is a bad year nationally for Republicans.

Much deeper than the "nuts and bolts" problems for Republicans which need to be addressed was the message sent by voters in Dallas and across the country that the Republican party has lost its way in the post-Reagan era and no longer deserves the public's enthusiastic support. 

More than forty years ago, Barry Goldwater attracted many idealistic young people to the conservative movement and the Republican party by calling for a conservatism which would represent the "forgotten Americans", the Middle Class taxpayers who didn't have a lobbyist in Washington and weren't looking for loopholes in the law.  Although Goldwater lost his Presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan took that message of representing the average citizen all the way to the White House in the 1980 election.  That's when Dallas County first became a Republican county.

What Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan built over three decades has been effectively destroyed by a coterie of Machiavellian pragmatists and neoconservatives who have seized control of the conservative movement and the Republican party.  It is time to sweep that crowd out of power and start all over again as conservatives. 

We can begin by standing up for our conservative principles and start representing those "forgotten Americans" once again.  If we do that, the grassroots will soon be back with us.

Tom Pauken is a former Texas State GOP Chairman.