Bill Stanley's Plan for the 5th District

So as many of you may have heard the race for Chairman of the 5th District Republican Committee is shaping up. The announced candidates thus far are Bill Stanley, Chairman of the Franklin County Republican Committee and Christian Schoenewald, Chairman of the Albemarle County Republican Committee. I threw my support behind Stanley earlier in the year when he announced:

Many of you know Bill Stanley from his unsuccessful bid for RPV Chair last May as well as his work as Chairman of the Franklin County GOP Committee.  As a local unit chair Bill has without a doubt distinguished himself and his committee as one of the best in the state and was named "Unit Chair of the Year" for the 5th District two years running. In Franklin Country, under the leadership of Bill Stanley, the GOP Committee has seen their fundraising and membership increase greatly. I worked on Bill's campaign for RPV Chairman and I can think of no better person to lead the 5th District GOP or RPV for that matter. Youth is something the RPV and GOP as a whole needs desperately. Like Greg, Bill will bring much needed youth to the leadership of the 5th District Committee. Additionally, there is much tension between Republicans in the 5th District at the moment as you may well be very familiar with via the massive amount of news media and blog coverage. The Republicans in the 5th District need an experienced leader with enthusiasm as well as new and innovative ideas who can bring the party back together to work for our common goals. That experienced leader is Bill Stanley.

Here is Bill's plan for victory in the 5th District:

- The 5th District should serve and answer to the Party’s activist and volunteer base.
- The 5th should provide the grassroots organizational structure for each local unit in the 5th necessary to help elect its nominees at every level of government.
- The 5th District should never be conformed to the image of any single candidate, campaign, or elected public official. Candidates, campaigns, and elected public officials come and go, but the Party has a responsibility to endure, reflecting the values and principles of its activist and volunteer base.
- The 5th District should ensure that nomination contests are fair, open and properly conducted, and it should never take sides in party nomination contests (even when incumbents are challenged for the nomination).
- The 5th District should reflect the values and principles of its conservative base, and should never shrink from, apologize for, discount, or diminish their positions on any given issue.
- The 5th District should focus its efforts on training our activists and volunteers at the Unit level, building the structure at every level that will both foster and elect conservative candidates.
- The 5th District should provide an effective, modern (including internet and social networking) structure of communications with the both the activist base and the public.

Raise Money

If elected, I would immediately set in motion significant fund-raising efforts in order to raise at least $250,000.00, to be used by the committee in its efforts to defeat Tom Perriello in 2010, and to strengthen the local units.


Meetings

Because this year is so critical in returning the congressional seat in the 5th District back to conservative hands, the 5th District committee must agree to meet on a more regular basis than in years past. This committee must be dedicated to the process of victory, and this process will take the best and most dedicated efforts and strengths of all of its unit chairmen and members in order to be achieved. I believe that this requires regular planning sessions, strategy meetings, and a regular and consistent interaction between the units.


Establish a Plan for Victory

Make no mistake, Tom Perriello is no pushover, and his funding and campaign organizational skills caught us off-guard in 2008. I personally met more people from Connecticut and New York at local polling places in my county during the last congressional election than I ever care to meet again. We must expect the same tactics, and we must be prepared. In order to win, we must out-prepare, out-organize, out-work the democrats, and execute a cohesive political strategy to beat our opponent. We are Virginians, we don’t need help from outsiders to determine the future of our region. To quote a famous line in the movie “Rudy”: No one, and I MEAN NO ONE, comes into our backyard and pushes us around. We will not allow this to occur in 2010. Therefore, we must establish a specific plan for victory that utilizes all of our best resources and organizational skills in a manner never before seen in 5th District politics. And, we need to do this now.

Education of the Grassroots Volunteers/Local Candidates

The 5th District Committee owes to each of its units a fundamental obligation to train the membership, future local candidates and grassroots volunteers in order to achieve success at the local ballot box. As chairman, I will ensure that the 5th District establishes an educational and training program for both local candidates and grassroots activists. We must raise a well-trained army of Republican volunteers that not only utilizes each individual’s talents to be used throughout the District, but also we must prepare and equip them with the skills necessary to defeat Tom Perriello at each polling place. If elected, I promise that each unit will have all the necessary resources needed to win. There must not be a polling place within the 5th District that goes unmanned, there will not be a door that has not been knocked on, nor a call not made; we will not fail because of a lack of effort in 2010.

Assist Local Units in Fundraising Efforts

If elected, I will implement programs of joint partnership with the local units to raise funds for the operations of each unit. A well-funded local committee, is a successful committee that fosters the growth of local conservative candidates. The candidate that each unit develops and supports is a potential conservative that will lead us in the future on the state level. We must support the autonomous growth of our party’s future leaders within each unit.



Public Relations/New Media

For too long, our units within the 5th have acted independently, and without a cohesive message. We must be able to come together, as one unit, with one voice, and with the singular goal to defeat the well-funded incumbent Tom Perriello. If elected, I will implement a Public Relations strategy that gets our conservative message out to the constituents and to the media on a constant basis. This will involve a focused effort on traditional media outlets, as well as a complete utilization of new media. We must establish a new method of having each committee in the 5th communicate on a real time basis with other units, in order to create a cohesive and seamless political operation.

Strengthen College Republicans

We have a great resource of colleges throughout the 5th District that must be tapped into. Not only are these members the future of our party, they are an excellent volunteer resource. The Committee needs to foster and grow its relationship to these clubs at every college within the 5th, and we must integrate them fully into 5th District political operations.


New Member Outreach

The 5th District must energetically enact programs and establish objectives to double the membership of each unit in 2010. We need to reach out to the disaffected, the disenfranchised, the youth, ethnic groups, conservative organizations, and the young professionals. The Republican Party is a big tent, and we must continuously strive to bring new and energized activists into our local ranks.

Voter Registration

It is our obligation to register new voters during each election cycle. Last year, I along with other Republican leaders in the 5th and RPV, established a target-specific voter registration drive of those unregistered voters in our District that held hunting, fishing and concealed-carry permits. This is an unregistered group of in excess of 15,000 citizens in our District alone. Although the registration effort was started with little time before the 2009 election, we were able to register a significant number of new voters within our district; the second amendment is an important issue in light of the democrats’ recent efforts to limit our right to bear arms. If elected, I will continue this voter registration drive in the 5th District, and will pledge to have our committee lead the effort in registering 10,000 new conservative voters before the 2010 election.


Create a Level Playing Field in all Elections

It is the responsibility of the 5th district to guarantee a level playing field for all Republican candidates who run in contested primaries. I pledge to you that all candidates who have the courage to run for public office, in both the upcoming congressional election and future elections on the local and state level, will be afforded an equal opportunity to reach voters in the units within the District; that they will be treated with respect, and that we will guarantee that they will have their message heard by all of the members of our community. This is critical for us to provide every voter with a full and complete opportunity to decide for themselves, free from the influence and without the interference of the party apparatus, just who is the best candidate to represent the Republican Party in each and every election, whether it be local, state or national.