or this without the spaces (hope this works)

What follows is a call for conservatives here to join the Party as voting members. Stop reading now if that is not something you want to do.

I’ve recommended this diary and there is much good here, and what follows is not meant as a criticism of the content or the writer. Or anyone else here at RedState.com.

“We are citizen patriots of a hundred different hues. We have differences, but we mostly agree. Yet we do not have a centralized organization, we do not have a unifying philosophy, and we fall victim daily to coordinated propaganda about us and our beliefs.”

We DO have a centralized organization, and we DO have a unifying philosophy, and it’s right in front of our noses if we’d just take a look and then USE it. It’s the Republican Party and its 2008 Platform.

This post goes on to say, “Then we must act – together – now.”

I read this post looking beyond this call to ACTION for the “what.” What kind of action? I continued reading and never found it. At least not one based on the Republican Party.

But I did find this: “One would have thought that after running a very liberal republican for president in 2008 and losing by a large margin, the Republican’s [sic] might have returned to our principles and values, but it has become abundantly clear that they will not: At least not without a very firm push.”

There is action we can take. And we can be the “very firm push.” We conservatives have to join (or, for some of you , re-join) the Republican Party as precinct committeemen so we can vote in the internal Party leadership elections and have an impact on who survives the primary contests (with adequate numbers of conservative precinct committeemen, the candidates winning those elections will be the conservative candidates). “The Republicans” are defined by its leaders, and its leaders get elected by the precinct committeemen. Want a Republican Party that’s more conservative? Well, if you think of yourself as a conservative, do you think maybe it would be a good idea to become a voting member of the Party? To change it? From within? Instead of just writing about it and talking about? Hoping that all that writing will make it happen? And my experience has been you don’t even need a majority of conservatives at any given level to make an impact. A lot of moderates in any given election warm up to the conservative candidate over the moderate candidate when the conservative candidate articulates his ideas well – because conservative values and principles are just that – principled values. Conservatives have better ideas than moderates.

Go read the Party Platform. It’s too long, but it’s worth the time. It’s a distinctly conservative document.

When I come to RedState.com, I feel as though I’m in an echo chamber. Lots of hollering and most of the hollering sounds the same. Lot’s of “open letters to so and so” as if those postings at RedState.com are going to be read by whomever “so and so” happens to be. Lots of words. But I see very little evidence of deeds. Actions. Very few pronouncements of “I recruited five more conservatives to become precinct committeemen this past week.”

As I said at the beginning of this comment, this is not meant to be a criticism of this diary. I recommended it. Or the poster. There are lots of good ideas here. I just don’t necessarily see all my neighbors watching a DVD I gave them, nor do I know how the DVDs will be produced, funded and distributed. But I do know this. If I’m a precinct committeeman, I’ll know which of my neighbors voted in the last four elections, and their party affiliation. And which are Republicans who DIDN’T vote in November. And I can go knock on their door and find out why. You know, little things like that. That might get them to make sure they get to the polls and vote in 2010 primary and general elections.

I just wonder how many of us here actually DO anything to change our Party from within? I wonder how many here actually voted in Republican Party leadership elections in 2008 or 2009? Because if you didn’t, then, at least with respect to the Republican Party (the biggest, most effective organization for stopping Obama and his socialists), you really didn’t make a difference. Is it not obvious that the Democrats most fear a resurgent conservative Republican Party? If that’s obvious, don’t you want to be part of it?

Seems to me a first step should be that all of us make a commitment to become active voting members of the Republican Party as precinct committeemen. Make that your first, highest priority. Then augment that action by whatever you think you are best suited for.

Right after Bill Clinton became president, he started issuing executive orders. Paul Begala described it this way: “Stroke of a pen, make a new law, pretty cool.” Here in Arizona, I think of becoming a precinct committeeman in sort of the same way: “Collect ten signatures of Republican or Independent voters in your precinct, get to vote for the Republican Party leadership, pretty cool.”