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The Southern Party: Strengths and Weaknesses
Statement from Executive Committee - as we start our 5th year & 3rd election cycle

In Part 1 (See: Many ask, "Why a Southern Party …?"), we provided a brief explanation of the reasons that the Southern Party of Georgia exists. In this article, Part 2, we provide a summary of our strengths and weaknesses resulting from our efforts in our first two election cycles.

Note that we are including both positive and negative aspects. It is pretty unusual for a political entity to include both, but we do value being honest and truthful.

This is a grassroots effort, it is your effort. Those who have contributed and given your support deserve an open and honest accounting of what we have accomplished. Those of you who have not made a decision to give us your support but are considering doing so, need to have the facts and know that you will always be given the truth.

So a brief summary of the major categories of our effort follow and we invite all supporters to feel free to ask questions.

Elective efforts:

The only purpose for a registered political body in Georgia is to offer candidates, espousing our platform, in elections. Other functions can be performed without a political body. Even though we do lobby for or against legislation, provide candidate evaluation, voter guides and information about issues, this summary will concentrate only on aspects of offering and electing candidates.

It is our policy as a grassroots effort to start at the State Legislature and local level as opposed to running candidates for statewide offices that we can not adequately support.

In 2002 we met our goal of running two candidates and exceeded the goal of getting at least one on the ballot, both achieved ballot access by nominating petition. The candidates received 10% and 20% (in three way contests) of the actual vote in November and it was considered an excellent showing for a new party's first effort.

In 2004 we fell short of our goal of having four candidates as we only fielded two. We fell short of our goal of having half of the candidates achieve ballot access as neither qualified by petition. In both efforts, the petition requirements were several times higher than the requirements of the 2002 races.

However, the positives from these four campaigns deserve attention. In each one there was a very positive response from the public. Our message of restoring Our Founding Principles has widespread support with the general public. In the campaign for Senate District 51 by Mike Crane last year, over 3,100 petition signatures were obtained in roughly 60 days which was the highest number of signatures submitted by any petition candidate last year in Georgia. 70% of the citizens who were asked -- signed the petition -- and a large number of unregistered citizens filled out voter registration forms.

In addition to the excellent reception from the public, the campaigns have been considered issue oriented -- no mud slinging -- and have received positive comments from members of the major parties. The media has treated us fairly, although we received no endorsements.

Overall the efforts have been totally lacking any of the aspects claimed by the doomsayers who claim that by taking a principled stand on our Founding Principles, Christian Heritage and Southern Heritage, the politically correct would erupt into a feeding frenzy.

The only truly negative aspect is the lack of organization and funding resources to overcome the hardest ballot access laws in our entire country! If our plan (next article) receives your continued support, the probability of elective success is reasonable.

Campaign tools:

Developing tools of the trade is one of our major assets at this time. Recognizing that the major parties have both organizational and funding resources way beyond anything we can hope to achieve in the near future, we face a major challenge. Instead of complaining we have been actively working to meet this challenge.

The Southern Party has developed and/or deployed the best set of campaign tools available for non Republican/Democratic campaigns.

• We have our own direct mail capability. Some of you have seen the first deployment of the online voter database (eLobby features).
• A telephone issue line will soon be integrated with the web site. The telephone system will also operate stand alone and will be capable of message distribution and polls.
• We have secured excellent purchasing capability on many campaign items; yard signs, door hangers, etc.

Our goal has been to produce campaign tools and capabilities that are structured for independent campaigns at costs that are within our expected campaign budgets. We are trying to be good stewards with our supporters' contributions.

Organizational efforts:

To have any continued success a political entity must begin to build organizations across its elective districts. This has been our greatest shortcoming. We have started several county parties, but have not been successful in helping most of these become viable organizations. This shortcoming is of course one of the major reasons that we have fallen prey to the tough ballot access laws.

This is not unusual in the early years of an effort. However it has been identified as one of the two critical areas that must be improved if we are to move to the next level of running competitive candidates with our share of election victories. As you will see in the next article, we will be presenting a plan to overcome this weakness if we receive your support.

Platform:

Our platform and position on the issues has received an excellent reception from the public.  We have now taken formal positions on an increased number of issues; Fair Vote, Immigration, Outsourcing, Display of Ten Commandments, Limited and Open Government, Tax Reform, ending the unholy influence of the Metro Atlanta Chamber on our State government - to mention a few. The acceptance of our principled stand, devoid of pandering to political correctness displayed in our platform is a strong asset.

Communication:

We have mixed results on communication. For internet communication we are setting the standard in Georgia. On direct mail or telephone communication with our supporters we have failed to meet an adequate standard of performance.

Internet: The Southern Party of Georgia web site is by far the highest traffic and ranked political web site in Georgia and possibly the entire Southeast. Averaging 40,000 - 50,000 visitors and 150,000 page views a month it far exceeds the ranking of any other political site in Georgia. To put this in perspective, the site has an Alexa ranking on the average higher than the Republican National Committee (rnc.org) and on the average as many page views as the Democratic National Committee (democrats.org). These are amazing statistics since we can not afford any paid advertising.

On written or telephone communication with our supporters we need major improvement. Those of you that are members will certainly not disagree and we hope that you will like the steps we are proposing to correct this shortcoming.

Fundraising:

We have been able to raise the minimum level of funds to meet our ongoing efforts. The two campaigns that achieved ballot access in 2002 were able to meet their campaign plans. Our radio commercial effort for the rigged March 2, 2004, referendum was much more successful than hoped. So we owe all of our supporters a loud and resounding thank you -- your support has been greatly appreciated. We hope that as you read this you are satisfied that we are putting your support and confidence to proper use.

Looking forward we need to improve our fundraising efforts. We have to provide more assistance to our candidates in overcoming the toughest ballot access laws in the country and their capability to get their message out to the public.

Summary:

To summarize, the status to-date, as we start our third election cycle:

• The reception of our campaigns by the public has been better then expected. But we have not met our goal for the number of candidates and face serious ballot access restrictions.
• We have developed campaign knowledge and tools that are the best available for non Republican/Democrats and may exceed even major party campaigns in some areas. But we are behind in organizational efforts and fundraising.
• We have developed the highest traffic political web site in Georgia. But we are behind in direct communication with our members and supporters.
• The application of Our Founding Principles to the issues of today has been well received and we have had limited success in starting a debate on these issues. But we are lacking the capability to distribute our message to larger audiences.

Now comes the real question. Where do we go from here?

In the next article we begin to present a proposed plan on how to utilize the strengths and to improve the areas where we have fallen short.

Starting a grassroots effort in today's world is difficult. Starting one that does not pander to political correctness is just plain tough. There are many such efforts that  have started over the last few years, but most have fallen to the wayside. They have fallen to the wayside by either folding, or worse yet - caving in to political correctness.

But the Southern Party of Georgia has neither folded, nor caved into political correctness run amok in Georgia:

Despite our small size and politically incorrect name, there is finally a voice for those who believe in returning to our founding principles and ending the reign of political correctness run amok in our land.

How much we grow is up to you. We appreciate all assistance in forwarding this material to those who should be interested.

Part 1 Many ask, "Why a Southern Party …?"

Part 3 The Southern Party: A Plan for 2006 Election Cycle

Part 4 The Southern Party: We need your help!

Progress Report: Update on The Real Choice Newspaper mailing