How Washington state's GOP can get its mojo back

Much has been written in the past week about the demise of the Republican Party in Washington state. But, I think a Mark Twain quote is appropriate for the GOP right now: "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Yes, many Republicans lost elections Nov. 4, most disappointingly Dino Rossi in the governor's race. But the party's candidates didn't suffer the across-the-board blowout which many predicted given the political environment they were competing in — a president with record-low approval numbers, a collapsing economy and an unpopular war.

A negative trifecta like that doesn't face Republicans every year, yet from the tone of some of the media coverage you might think all is lost. The Seattle Times itself has run editorials headlined "State GOP in dire straits" and quoted a Republican-turned-Democrat as saying "The Republican Party does not understand what it needs to do."

My experience over 20 years in Washington politics leads to different conclusions.

One of the most basic ones is that there is little to be gained by listening to advice from former members of the GOP. It seems their limited understanding of the party is that they felt they could not continue to get elected running in a primary against a fellow Republican, and are thus left to justify that inability — and their subsequent opportunistic switch to the other side — by implying the fault was with the party, not themselves.

Another lesson gained from experience — perhaps most clearly learned after the 1992 elections — is that major losses often bring new blood. For those, like the state Democratic Party chairman, who suggest Republicans have no candidate "bench," I ask who among them knew of Rick White or George Nethercutt in November, 1992? Those future congressmen, and others like them, saw the Democrats sweep everything in Washington state that year — the presidential race, a U.S. Senate seat, eight of nine congressional districts and majorities in both Houses of the state Legislature — and it motivated them to action.

And in 1994, Washington Republicans responded in this state by electing six new members of Congress, returning Slade Gorton to the U.S. Senate and picking up majorities in both legislative chambers. Our bench not only materialized, but these leaders moved into the starting lineup with tremendous success.

A second lesson — and one that can certainly be applied now — is to learn not just from your defeats, but also from your opponents' successes. The Democrats certainly did this after 1994, toning down some of the liberal excesses of their own party and developing a plan with their many outside special-interest groups for recapturing the lost congressional districts and legislative seats one at a time.

That is the approach Washington Republicans need to take. Develop a plan that builds on this election's successes — the re-elections of state Attorney General Rob McKenna and Secretary of State Sam Reed, and picking up seats in both legislative houses — and also learn from (and improve upon) what the opposition did well.

I see three crucial areas where the GOP has to lift its game to compete in the 2010 elections and beyond. Two of them are very tactical, but both of those depend on the successful strategic approach of the third one.

It's on the tactical level that the GOP suffered the most this year. Despite all the doom and gloom in the postelection reports, the GOP's top-of-the-ticket candidates were not defeated on ideological grounds. Both John McCain and Dino Rossi were ahead in the polls in September, before the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The ground shifted underneath their campaigns, and the debate shifted to the advantage of their opponents. And even then, it took a significant turnout advantage — and a consistent distortion of Rossi's minimum-wage position, which The Times pointed out repeatedly in its reporting — for Gov. Christine Gregoire to pull into the lead in October and win re-election here.

To reverse it tactical disadvantage, Republicans must take the technological edge back. For years the party built its fundraising advantage not on major donors, but on the legions of small donors who responded to the innovations in direct mail Republicans developed in the Reagan years. In this state, under the leadership of then-party chair Jennifer Dunn, the GOP utilized superior voter targeting to win King County executive races through absentee-ballot programs in the 1980s.

The Democrats deployed technology more effectively in 2008, utilizing social networking to motivate not just their base supporters, but also to engage new and infrequent voters. The intensity of that support was impressive — and allowed their candidates to raise massive amounts of money, particularly at the federal level.

The Democrats certainly beat us on the Web this year, but Republicans can make that a competitive battlefield — if the party and its elected leaders commit the money to making it happen. We saw what it could do for raising money and activating voters — and I believe there are plenty of GOP creative types who could help the party do better in both areas, if the research and development commitment were made.

Another benefit of improving its technological capabilities is that the GOP can use them to rebuild support networks. Coalition mobilization was another key Democrat advantage this year. From labor, to environmentalists, to tribes, to women's groups, the D's pumped their base up. That certainly manifested itself in a turnout tsunami for President-elect Barack Obama — and provided coattails down the ballot to lift candidates such as Gregoire, State Treasurer-elect Jim McIntire and Lands Commissioner-elect Peter Goldmark to statewide wins on just their margin of victory in King County alone.

That means Republicans must reconnect with groups that have been key segments of our victory equation in the past but weren't motivated enough by our candidates in this election. Whether it was small-business owners, veterans or soccer moms and dads, GOP candidates lost too many of them to succeed, particularly at the federal level.

We have to convince these parts of our winning base that Republicans are ready to govern again. Frankly, they lost their enthusiasm for the party over the last decade of budget deficits and government mismanagement.

This leads to the strategic direction Republicans must embrace, which is to focus on the concerns of suburban voter. This is not a new concept, nor does it mean copying Democrats or abandoning our party's commitment in the rural areas of Washington and the country. Rather, it means listening to the voters who elected Republicans in 1994, and voted for candidates such as McKenna this year.

Simply put, at this point such voters don't believe Republicans when we talk about fiscal discipline. And they are not sure we understand their economic and social priorities.

The GOP needs to stand for something again. Our mantra need not be change, but rather trust. We need to re-establish that trust first, and then not overpromise on what we can do about the things that matter in the suburbs so we keep it.

Fortunately for Republicans, there's another postelection tradition likely to work for us — and that is the winning party thinks it's invincible, and overreaches to satisfy all its supporters. That time bomb is ticking on the Democrats right now.

Randy Pepple is a veteran Republican political strategist and former chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Rick White, R-1st District.