Alex Mooney running for GOP chairman or 1VC

Dear Member of the Maryland Republican Central Committee,

I am writing to ask for your vote to serve as either the Chairman or the First Vice Chairman of the Maryland Republican party. Before making a decision as to which office to seek, I want to first ask for your input. After suffering a disappointing loss in my close election, I will not be returning to Annapolis after spending 12 years representing Frederick and Washington Counties as a State Senator, fighting hard for our Republican values.

Nonetheless, I am determined to continue to do battle against the liberal Democrats who operate an oppressive political monopoly on the citizens of Maryland. I have won four Republican primaries and three general elections, in addition to one hard fought loss. My experiences have given me valuable insight to help move our party forward by electing more Republicans to the state legislature.

First, I want you to know that I am a committed conservative. I am unabashedly pro-life and pro-Second Amendment. I signed, and kept, a pledge never to raise taxes when I first ran for office twelve years ago and proudly served as Taxpayer Protection Caucus Chairman in the Maryland Senate. Our party needs to be the party of tax and spending cuts. The role of the other officers of the Republican Party of Maryland is to support Republican candidates for public office. Merely offering advice and wishing candidates “good luck” is not enough.

I received most of my campaign training before I ran for office from a conservative training organization called The Leadership Institute (LI). Morton Blackwell is the President of LI and has been Virginia’s National Republican Committeeman since 1998. Mr. Blackwell served in the Reagan Administration and offers excellent training and guidance such as explaining that being right, in the sense of being philosophically correct, is not sufficient to win and that conservatives owe it to themselves to learn how to win.

Republican Party officials need to offer significant material support, including but not limited to:

• Funding
• Polling
• Voter registration drives
• Phone banking assistance
• Absentee and provisional ballot programs
• Early voting strategy/assistance
• Get Out The Vote (GOTV) program
• Information and research on issues and votes

This support needs to be provided by both the local Republican Central Committees and the State Party to those we encourage to seek office and especially to those in targeted races. When I first took office in 1999, there were three Republican state senators from Montgomery County (two were entirely within the county and one had part of the county). Now there are none.

In fact, no Republican candidate for the State Senate in Montgomery County this year even received 40% of the vote, failing to capitalize on several very divisive Democrat Senate primaries in these districts. We had some good candidates - they just did not have enough Republican Party support. Likewise, the last Republican House of Delegates member in Montgomery County was barely defeated in 2006 and there were no competitive Republicans for the House there this year. We cannot afford to give up on entire counties such as Montgomery.

You are likely aware of candidates in or near your area who would have greatly benefited from additional support from our party in their campaign. The Maryland House of Delegates picked up six seats, for which I congratulate them. I am proud that two of them were within my Senate district. Yet in the State Senate we lost two Senate seats by only a few hundred votes, and also missed picking up two seats also by a few hundred swing votes.

My point is that even a small amount of effort targeted in the right way can really make a difference in close races for candidates who work hard and make serious personal sacrifices to run for office and defend our values. We all need to work together toward that end for the next election. I caution you to beware of anyone seeking party leadership who simply thinks that all we need to win are a better set of talking points. While I agree that we must stick to our conservative Republican principles, we must also have a plan to raise money and use political technology to win elections.

The new incoming Republican Party chair should be willing to invest a significant amount of time to the important work recruiting candidates, fundraising, managing staff, talking to the press, meeting with elected Republican officials and other duties. I applaud Audrey Scott for her recent service doing this job full time in this election year and note that being chairman requires at least part time job hours – it is not merely a side hobby.

It is this time commitment away from gainful employment, along with making sure I have enough time for my wife and two small children, that gives me pause in running for party chair. If I am unable to make the commitment needed to run for party chair, then I will certainly seek the position of first vice chairman. I am also interested in seeing, as I hope you are, who else is running for party leadership and what plans and specific commitments they are able to make in seeking your support for that position. As Republicans in Maryland, we must require a serious commitment to hard and effective work from our leadership.

Since you are a duly elected member of the Maryland Republican Central Committee, I would like to hear back from you about your vision and concerns for our party and I’d like to ask for your support to serve as party chairman or first vice chairman.

Sincerley, Alex X. Mooney
State Senator, 1999-2010Senator Alex X. Mooney P.O. Box 669 Frederick, MD 21705
www.alexmooney.com alex@alexmooney.com 301-620-0200