Stephen R. Meyer has been on a now two-decade quest to grow Republican market share. In the beginning of this quest, Steve naively thought that political orientation was all about information and that minds could be swayed through reasoned debate. In this effort Steve self-published the book Rationally Right: An Explanation of the Conservative Paradigm. Although able to successfully market the book to conservatives, Steve could not get political opponents to read the book, and therefore the Republican market share growth Steve was seeking was not going to be realized through this effort.

In the marketing of Rationally Right, Steve had the great fortune to attend a speech given by economist Hernando de Soto just prior to the 2004 election. De Soto had undertaken a personal mission to solve the riddle of why the Developing World rarely advances to join the Developed World. Steve was intrigued when de Soto stated that the Developing World is unable to prosper owing to the inability of the citizenry to procure legally recognized property titles. De Soto had concluded that legally recognized property titles were required for people to understand the significance of property titles, an understanding which leads people to politically support a private property based socio-economic system, which ultimately leads to prosperity.

Aren’t the People of the Developing World and of the Developed World the Same?

Steve reasoned that if property rights were politically important in the Developing World, property rights had to be politically important in the Developed World. In comparing political trend data using the then most recent 2004 election and the nearly identical 1988 election (both elections featured liberal Massachusetts’s Democrat candidates versus Republican candidates who were father and son), Steve found that two property related factors were well-correlated with shifts in county vote. (Note: correlation does not prove causation, but owing to the secrecy of the vote, causation can never be claimed. Correlation is certainly more promising in there being causation than not having correlation.) Further work implies that the lack of property ownership is the most dominant long-term political factor in The United States.

Republican Sole Reliance on Campaign Strategy

Steve’s interests now include several politically related items which he has grouped under the banner of non-campaign political strategies. It is a misguided Republican norm for Republican entities to not be fully integrated political organizations. Unfortunately, Republican Executive Committees, the Republican Party of Florida, and the National Republican Committee self-limit themselves to engaging in campaigns.

Underlying trend data shows Republican market share losses of roughly .5% per year, or two percent per presidential election cycle, as the change is additive. Demonstrating this long-term market share loss is that between the 1988 and 2016 presidential elections, Democrats had increased their vote margin relative to Republicans by ten million votes!

Steve believes the United States is now at a tipping point from which Republicans may never recover unless Republican entities expand the scope of their efforts beyond just campaigning! Steve is proposing that Republican organizations be tasked with growing the Party’s base and that candidates be given the responsibility to maximize the vote from an electorate which has hopefully become more Republican through the efforts of the Republican organizations. There is currently no funding mechanism for such an effort as nearly all Republican resources go to candidates and their campaigns.

Elected Republican officials would also be tasked with the responsibility of implementing policies that enhance the growth of the Republican base. Currently the political ramifications of policy decisions on the political orientation of the base are rarely taken into consideration by Republican office holders.