If you haven’t seen, weren’t born yet, or don’t remember the very popular 1996 movie Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise, then put it on your list. In the movie, Tom Cruise’s character (Jerry Maguire) has an epiphany one night that the best way to achieve happiness and fulfillment is to shift his focus away from more money and fame to less clients, more personal attention.
In other words, quality over quantity.
Following the election this November, I believe that the Republican Party needs to adopt a more Jerry Maguire-esque mentality.
One could argue that since the 1960s, Conservatives in America have been building empires. In 1964, the American Conservative Union was established. Just a few years later in 1968, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the National Right to Life were founded.
These three organizations – and many others – came about after the resounding defeat of Barry Goldwater in the 1964 Presidential election. Americans who believed strongly in limited government, protecting personal freedoms, and local government rule were feeling the effects of re-electing one of the largest government expanding presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson.
Republicans wanted to build up grassroots organizations that promoted ideals that were opposed by most elected officials.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It’s the same story that’s playing out today, nearly 60 years later.
The Republican Party in the 1960s had to regroup after Goldwater was trounced, much like conservatives need to regroup today after the losses in the pro-life movement this month, as well as unnerving trends away from limited government mindsets.
This democratic republic we’ve been entrusted with is only ours if we can keep it, to loosely quote Benjamin Franklin.
Expanding the size and scope of the federal government will only bring destruction and the demise of everything this country was founded upon, and we will lose what Franklin and so many others entrusted to us.
In order to counter this, I suggest we turn our focus away from large, national organizations and get back to basics using the Jerry Maguire method – fewer organizations, more personal attention.
Word of mouth remains the strongest form of endorsement and influence. You ask advice from those you trust. You tend to align yourself with people who think similarly, or whom you look up to.
Conservatives have been isolating themselves for years. We only talk to people who think, look, have stickers, belong to the same clubs that we do. This does nothing to move the ball forward, it only makes us feel better about what we think.
Churches know this strategy, only they call it church planting. Instead of focusing time, money, and staff resources on building mega churches around the world, they raise up pastors to begin church plants.
Church plants are faster, cheaper, easier ways to grow the Gospel message because it’s easier to invite a friend to come and grab coffee one-on-one, than it is to come walk into a 30,000 person auditorium on a Sunday morning.
Conservatives need to go back to basics. Have neighbors over for coffee. Join a local town Board, Commission, HOA, etc., and get to know the people in your community so they can learn that most of the time, Democrats and Republicans see the same problem; we just disagree about the method of solving the issue.
The large, national organizations in the conservative movement should focus their attention on building up local grassroots activists who can strategically influence their communities. The left does this exceptionally well and we fail at it, over and over again. Stop spending all your time and money on one piece of legislation and instead focus on influencing school board races in dozens of districts that can have an impact on education curriculum, gender ideology, religious persecution, gun control, etc.
This strategy can not only stop some progressive policies before they gain traction, but it can also train up future generations of leaders, elected officials, and policy makers.
