Kevin D. Williamson of the National Review Online recently wrote a piece about how it was Republicans who must save the cities. In Houston, and in every city in America larger than San Diego, governance has been practiced under progressive, new urbanist, rules for decades now. The result are urban areas rife with high-unemployment, poor schools, high crime rates and terrible financial problems. Last night the city basically declared itself insane as it elected politicians of the same stripe to fix a problem that they have created.
How did this happen? Why are Republicans so feckless in municipal elections? Just how big of a hill will they have to climb to regain relevance?
For the most part, the municipal unions don't want to be saved. They are quite happy bleeding the city dry in order to preserve their pension system. There are a lot of them out there, and they don't care one iota about tax increases etc. because they understand that they are the beast that is being fed.
Right now, this is the most powerful voting bloc in Houston. They are organized, monolithic and never, skip an election, even giving themselves paid-time off to go vote on bonds, and political elections important to them. Like it or not, this is going to be an impossible nut for the Republicans to crack. Even the threat of City bankruptcy isn't going to stop this group, or make them become civic minded. In most, not all, but most, cases their leadership views the everyday citizen as an enemy to be beaten.
Republicans don't "do" local. At least, not to the level they need to in order to win. You won't find many 'community organizers' with an R behind their name. And you won't hear a whole lot of local issues at Tea Party gatherings, or many R gatherings for that matter. You might hear an occasional local nugget in the run-up to the election, or occasionally a firebrand issue such as HER Ordinance will stir the natives but, for the most part, Tea Party and Republican meetings are a laundry list of rants against Washington D.C., Obama or whatever RINO (a useless political term these days) has done something stupid now.
Again, this is going to be a tough nut to crack. Local politics, uncovered by Fox News or the Blaze or other news outlets, is hard. The talking points on issues aren't laid out in front of voters by Hannity or Laura Ingram. And local politicians are typically not the sharpest tools in the shed. Because of this getting and keeping the attention of voters takes money, and a whole LOT of effort. Effort that is frequently going to be rewarded by defeats and a progressive machine that is going to ignore you, a media that is going to treat you like a 'no to everything' crank and citizens who are going to be apathetic at best.
Many inner-city voters have been ignored by the Republicans for so long they've given up on them. It's no accident that Sylvester Turner only won in 21 of Houston's Majority White precincts. Nor is it a surprise that King did poorly with the Black community. Yes, there is the matter of candidate race, where King (Caucasian) and Turner (Black) were always going to do well among voters of the same race. Turner especially had the advantage of incumbency for those who reside in his State Congressional District (one of the poorest districts in Houston FWIW) and are used to pulling the lever for him.
The fact remains however that the monolithic Black vote kills Republicans in urban areas. Despite years of governing that has broken their communities and destroyed their family structure, for the most part Republican presence in these neighborhoods is nil. The best thing Republicans can do is outreach, sustained outreach within the communities that doesn't just center on elections. To do this Republicans are going to need to identify local leaders who are willing and able to do this hard work. Again, initially this is going to be a thankless job, with a future that includes many political losses, outright hostility in some cases and being treated as a crank by the local media. This person is going to need a quick wit, and thick skin.
The local media is firmly behind the machine. This is true in all cases, especially in Houston. And while it's easy to point a finger at the Houston Chronicle it's also wise to take a look at local television news. For instance, ABC13 assigned to Sylvester Turner a reporter, Miya Shay, whose husband is a Democratic State Legislator and was actively campaigning for Turner. At no time did Shay disclose this conflict of interest, or bias, nor did they mention that it probably led to her being granted the first interview with Turner.
In the end, the media are courtesans just trying to be given an audience with those in the royal court. They're hangers-on who like the access to power and the feeling that what they are doing is "making a difference". Republicans have tried, to some degree, to counter this through the use of alternative media, but blogs have lost, Facebook is an echo chamber and Twitter is nothing more than a place to shout over one another in dumbed-down sound bytes.
In Houston, the local Republican party is a-shambles. There were party members publicly campaigning against Bill King, party leadership is a disaster right now, and Jared Woodfill, Dr. Stephen Hotze and other of their ilk won't go away. King and Frazer were the exceptions to local R candidates in Houston. City of Houston Republicans have a shallower bench than Texas Democrats at the Statewide level. And if you haven't been paying attention, that's pretty shallow.
Even when Houston Republicans get united behind an issue, which is very seldom, there's typically no one to lead them to victory. Paul Simpson seems to be an earnest man but his leadership on local issues seems distracted, at best. Amazingly the chair for the local government committee is VACANT and has been during the entire run-up to this election. During a time when Houston was in the process of determining who it's new government would be, this is inexcusable.
Already I've seen tweets and writings by local Republicans congratulating themselves on "coming close" or "almost getting there". These are inevitably followed by exclamations that "we'll get 'em next time."
The problem is, unless Republicans get to work now on local issues, they won't. And it's going to take a LOT of work to get there. Mr. Williamson is correct in his assessment that it is going to take Republicans to save the cities. The one thing he has neglected to mention, is that they seem to have no idea how to get started, and little motivation to do so.
Until they find their path the Houston Area Leadership Vacuum will continue to expand.
