The Political Plan: The 2014 campaign season began the day after the 2012 election.

We have a good plan of attack why change things midstream? In a nutshell, our plan is our Foundation for our Future and is composed of three initiatives. Growing our Party 2020 Pathfinders Maryland Matters Growing our Party 2020 is our candidate retention and recruitment program. We have met with legislators, past and present, donors, volunteers, and former campaign staff to determine the legislative seats that will need to be actively defended, the ones we can effectively challenge Democrats for, and the ones that we should be able to hold without too much effort. On a local level, we will be working with our Central Committees to make sure that they are working on recruiting candidates for local races. We want to work with all of our candidates pre-primary to help them all run the most effective race they can, and post-primary, I want to make sure that everyone on the ballot is working together to get as many elected as possible - from the gubernatorial candidate down to the non-partisan (but Republican) school board candidates. As chairman, I will work to foster a spirit of cooperation and teamwork, with more experienced candidates helping less seasoned ones and utilizing State Party resources like the bulk mail rate and perhaps slate pieces in targeted races. If elected, I would create an ad hoc Candidate Recruitment Committee. They would keep a record of all potential and declared candidates for all races by working with the Central Committees to make sure they are on top of this recruitment process. We cannot wait until April 1, 2014 to find the candidates. They would also work with the Executive Board to insure that no statewide seat is left unchallenged as well. In looking further at the legislative seats, we currently hold 12 senate seats. In 2014, we will almost definitely be facing at least 2 of those seats with no incumbent to defend them and potentially as many as 5. So our first point of business should be to hold our 12 seats. We lost 2 state senate seats in 2010 and a repeat of that is unacceptable.

In the last election, there were four races where a Democrat won by less than 1300 votes even with redistricting we should be able to take at least three of these, a goal that should be more reachable now given the offensive assault on our wallets and our 2 nd Amendment rights by the General Assembly, especially when coupled with a little more directed help from the Party and other groups. That would bring us to 15. Growing our Party will not be a one election process it will take time to change the landscape. Rather than spreading ourselves too thin and risk losing even more seats, we need to build a sustainable base in 2014, then in 2018, we hold the 15 and work to pick up more 4 is our current target - to get us to the filibuster proof 19! I would like to optimistically say that we will grow our ranks to 19 next year but with the current registration numbers, the horrible redistricting that we will be facing, and the realities about raising money in Maryland, Im not prepared to gamble what Republicans in Maryland already hold - I would rather surpass my goal and have underestimated then to have made a promise that I dont believe could have been met. On the house side, due to redistricting and delegates leaving their seats, again we will have our work cut out to hold all of our seats, which we must do. But we must also work to pick up more 6 more would be fantastic and more importantly realistic. So how many more seats will we win? Well I cant predict the future, and it definitely wont be easy, but aside from the 3 senate seats and 6 house seats, we will work hard to take back Government House and win other statewide offices and are making a key focus growing our lead on the local level, where we have the opportunity for significant gains but will not know how many precisely until we are a bit closer. But to achieve all this, it is imperative that we find candidates for every race from local through statewide. And this will not be an easy task. It will take every one of us working together not just leadership, not just central committee members, not just volunteers everyone working together! We need to increase our numbers in both the House and the Senate, not just so that we can stop bad legislation from passing, but so that we can have a voice in the next redistricting effort if we ever hope to regain seats in Congress. Hence, that is why the plan is Growing our Party 2020. Second, our Pathfinders Program is training candidates, potential candidates, volunteers, activists, club members, and Central Committee members giving them the resources they need to run and volunteer for the successful campaigns of 2014 and beyond. In response to a specific need, I have added Sunday dates to the calendar. We have also added webinars to the schedule covering particular topics in greater detail so that you dont have to travel. Our staff is and will be available to help candidates and prospective candidates develop their campaign plans and provide one-on-one advice on running or volunteering for a campaign.

The Pathfinders Program will train approximately 400 candidates and their volunteers over 18 all-day training seminars, 36 Monday evening political planning sessions, and 32 Thursday night political workshops. Our candidates will start out ahead of where most of them did four years ago. They will have ready-trained staff and volunteers primed to get started from day one. They will know the best techniques and tactics to employ to win. And we will continue with the program, refining and editing as necessary, throughout this year, next year, and the years beyond. Third, Maryland Matters seeks to determine the issues that are most important to our members so that we can make sure the message that we are putting out there is the right one. We are reaching out to Marylanders across the State seeking their input. Instead of just assuming we know what is most important to our stakeholders, the voters in Maryland, we are working to determine what matters most to them. We will share this knowledge with our Central Committees and our candidates so that we can all send out the same message. We wont have to wait until Election Day to determine if our message is resonating with them. To the best of my knowledge, we have never done programs of this kind before, at least not in the recent past. With well-trained candidates and volunteers, candidates in every race, and a solid message, we will be more successful than we have before. This in turn, will give us a head start on 2016, where we will continue these plans, tweaked to reflect what we have learned along the way. And with a lot of hard work, we will slowly turn this ship around and set us on the right course. Beyond these initiatives, I believe we need to focus our attention now on the laying the foundation for our Get Out the Vote efforts (GOTV) through Precinct Organization. And I will work to help Faith Loudon and the committee she is chairing on Precinct Organization and Grassroots Volunteers (started by National Committeewoman Nicolee Ambrose). We must have a working Precinct Organization statewide in place for our 2014 elections, and the time to create that is now. Nor can we miss the opportunities provided by Early Voting and Absentee Voting. We need to work with our candidates to insure that we are driving our voters to the polls for Early Voting, and that we are effectively chasing our Absentee Voters as well. A successful political plan is composed of all of these facets and more. Most importantly, we must be adaptable to fine-tune this plan as required to respond to the needs of our candidates, volunteers, and other stakeholders. Working together we should make great gains in 2014. Thank you. Diana Waterman MDGOP Interim Chair