Scott W. Graves

California Republican Party Chairman, Ron Nehring sent over his latest article. It appears in full over at the Politico.com. Nehring makes the case that regardless of the electoral map and the natural inclination to focus on 2012 battleground states, the GOP should rally its resources to develop strong organizations in all 50 states.

Nehring is right. To build out organizations on only a select group of targeted states, the GOP would miss the opportunity to more effectively compete at the grassroots level throughout the country. 2012 is just one hurdle in a long race. It is important to understand that if the political right is going to reascend to positions of power and reassert its conservative values, a long-term, grassroots strategy is the only solution.

Here is the article:

A Republican 50-state strategy?

By Ron Nehring
January 27, 2009

Within the Republican National Committee, there has been a great deal of discussion surrounding whether our party needs a 50-state strategy to reassert itself nationally.

It’s an important question. The answer: It depends on how one defines a 50-state strategy.

Elections are won and lost on the margins, so if one defines a 50-state strategy as allocating resources equally among 50 states based on population, or some similar formula, the answer would be no. From an Electoral College standpoint, resources will inevitably be allocated first to those states that are on the margin, with an eye toward reaching 270 electoral votes for our team in 2012.

Yet if we define a 50-state strategy to mean that our party makes a national commitment to building the strength of our party in every state, the answer is yes.

The difference is this: In the first model, only a de minimis level of attention is directed at any state where the November 2012 outcome in the presidential election can today be reasonably assumed.

A better approach is to realize that our party has a direct, national interest in ensuring that in every state and congressional district, we have the ability to organize and communicate and perform the basic campaign functions that are vital for any modern political party.

Simply because a state is not likely to be “in play” in the 2012 presidential election does not mean we have no national interest in any congressional, state legislative or local election in that state. In fact, precisely the opposite is true: Building organizational and communications capability — and expanding the ranks of congressional, state and local officials from our party — makes it more likely a state will be competitive in a presidential election down the road.

Of course, election year resources will go to the battleground states. Fine. Yet we have three years and thousands of congressional, state and local elections before then.

A proper 50-state strategy has at its centerpiece the principle that every American should be within reach of an effective state party organization that can communicate, persuade and organize on a large scale. Operationally, this means developing a portfolio of organizational and communications functions that each state party should be capable of performing, plus a related set of functions for county and district party committees. It should be developed through a working group of state party chairmen, national committee members and campaign experts. While there are differences in each state, and within states, there are certain common functions that any modern political party needs to perform to be competitive.

Read the rest here.