Hold The Presses! OMG, The RIGOP Is Cash Strapped!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! If you’re a Rhode Island Republican, start drinking now…

The Providence Journal today tells us “Cash-strapped GOP split on fall strategy,” as if it were actually news. Have you ever read “State GOP coffers flush with cash; party undecided on how to spend it all” or “State GOP members in agreement on everything”? No, and you probably never will.

There has been a considerable amount of discussion by e-mail, as well as by phone and in person within recent weeks, regarding our expenditures as a state party. I think that discussion — so long as it remains civil — is a good thing which will ultimately prove beneficial to the state party for the long term. I don’t believe in letting problems fester until they become so bad that they cannot be remediated. This is a simple problem of expenditure vs. income. This is absolutely a problem which can be fixed.

As a member of the RIGOP State Central Committee, and a dozen other organizations, this isn’t exactly news to me. Although I am generally closer politically to RIGOP Chairmen’s Caucus Chair Dave Cote, than to RIGOP State Chair Gio Cicone, I don’t think Dave and Gio are nearly as far apart as it may appear at first glance. Both of them want a viable state Republican Party which can be in the best position possible to accomplish it’s main goal: electing Republican candidates at the state and local level.

One observation which Dave made in one of his e-mails was: “People say you have to spend money to make money,” … “Well, not if you don’t have any money.” On that, he’s absolutely 100% right.

Dave’s main concern is that we as a state party have significant regular expenses — mainly related to our two current employees — but we do not seem to have a regular income stream [at present] which can support them indefinitely. As of the last quarterly campaign finance report, our state party’s finances were in a rather grim position. At first glance, it would look like were spending ourselves into oblivion. It would be entirely natural for anyone who was reading them — who had no other reference from which to draw a conclusion by — to say “were did all our money go?” or “how are we going to afford to keep paying our staff?” Dave spoke out. I think that’s a good thing.

However, simply firing the already small staff and literally “hoping” that volunteers will do their work is not a reasonable course of action. We have enough problems getting volunteers for most party events. We’re not all of a sudden going to convince people to start manning the phones and sending out myriad correspondence, interacting with the media, and doing all the other necessary day to day tasks at the state GOP headquarters (presuming we wouldn’t be shutting that down, too — and instead start operating out of a UPS Store mail box). It’s just not practical.

I believe that Gio’s response that a paid staff is vital to operating the party is correct. However, besides appearing to lose his cool, Gio also made certain inferences and conclusions which were not supported by what Dave actually said. Gio said “His suggestion is we give up on 2008, fire the staff, hope for the best, and then focus on 2010.” Dave did not once suggest “giving up” on 2008; only that we should switch to “all volunteers.” Dave made the “all volunteers” suggestion, based solely on what he had read, and could readily infer, from our publicly available campaign finance reports. To him (and to many others), it appeared we were quickly heading down the Road to Serfdom, to borrow a line from F.A. Hayek. Nor did Dave say “wait until 2010.” We need a functional state party going into the 2010 elections. A “non party” Republican Party doesn’t benefit anyone (other than entrenched and corrupt Democrats). If you want to build a pyramid, you need to first build the base. Right now, I think that’s being done.

That being said, we do have an expenditure vs. income problem. Frankly, I can’t remember when we haven’t. But how could that happen in Rhode Island you say? Kidding aside, we can either do what we can to increase income, such as convincing more Republicans to give money to the party (with the clear understanding that their money will be well spent) — or we’ll be forced to cut back on expenses. I think that many Republicans hold back giving, because they are not convinced their donations will actually go to help the party (and especially, its candidates). I think that we also need to place a much greater focus on encouraging donations from those with non-executive level incomes; not just from those few and far between donors who are in a position to write $1000 checks on a whim.

I believe that Gio — in keeping with his libertarian leanings — has made a very good effort to curtail costs, as well as to not incur debt. However, there is probably more that we can do to run a tighter ship. As far as I’m concerned, total transparency, as well as clearly and regularly explaining to RI Republicans why we’re making various expenditures (explaining “cause and effect” is always a good thing), will go a long way towards mending any fences which may need to be mended.

Again, the goal is the same: a better state party; able to complete with the Democrats. It’s the “how do we get there” which is the issue before us. Let’s get it done!

Monday, March 17th, 2008, by Will Ricci and is filed under "2008 Elections, Republican Party, Rhode Island ". Both comments and pings are currently closed.