NJ Common Sense

By Lon (Alonzo) Hosford

The uncertainty of Hamlet against what appears a sea of troubles may just what conservatives face for candidate selection to run for the US House of Representatives. Do we go the traditional route with the two parties and probably the Republican party? Do we go a third party candidate? Do we sit by and watch wish washy independents choose for us? Do we leave the country and benevolently overthrow a banana republic with American productivity producing wealth? GOOOH, pronounced “go” and standing for Get Out of Our House, is one more alternative that may apply no matter which way you go.

Revolution! is Required Reading No Matter How You Intend To Select 2010 US House Candidates

GOOOH With Whom?
GOOOH is the brainchild of Tim Cox who is a business person from Texas. Tim set aside his business and in 2008 started working on the GOOOH concept. I was introduced to GOOOH November 19th 2009 at a mock candidate selection workshop hosted by an ad hoc conservative action group out of Morris county where I met Tim Cox and acquired his book Revolution!. He  was offering the book free but I and dozens of others at the event left a donation.  Revolution! is a common sense analysis of what is wrong with our political system for selecting candidates. It outlines the sorry results we have gotten over and over because of failed candidate selection process. The book contains a detailed action plan to change that. There is a web site to assist, promote and carryout the plan. GOOOH is not about Tim Cox but is a framework for everyday citizens to work together and select a candidate for their US House District. GOOOH is about you.

GOOOH Where?
The GOOOH candidate selection is directly targeted at the US House of Representatives. The goal is to select candidates,  finance them and get them elected. This is a third party route with a national approach unseen except twice such as with the “loose” Contract of America. Thus you can run for your US House District and eliminate the nasty issue of financing. For that and other reasons I am running as a GOOOH candidate in District 7 where we have Leonard Lance (R). GOOOH is about anyone of us going to the US House of Representatives staying for one or two terms and returning to life in their district.

GOOOH How?
On an initial look, the mechanics of the GOOOH candidate selection system appear detailed. There is software and training  guides to carry out the details. The system is simple. You declare yourself as a candidate and work with other candidates in your district to select the best to send to the US House of Representatives.

The process entails passing a simple screening exam such as Constitutional eligibility. The screening goes further to include not being a politician or office holder and openly advertising if you are lawyer. Revolution! goes into details why these qualities contribute to the current problem. If you are one of those, GOOOH is not for you and thus you can run in traditional ways if you like.

The more rigorous step is to answer the over 100 debate question issues as for or against. These are used in the candidate selection process. Having done the questions, I guarantee your core values are challenged.

You sign a commitment letter which includes not taking money from anyone and promising to vote to reduce term limits in House of Representatives to two years until passed as well as having a self imposed two term limit. If you violate the agreement, then you are booted out of the GOOOH system as a candidate for the future. You may also suffer the wrath of the GOOOH members who had faith you live by your word.

Then you participate in a series of Saturday workshops with the other candidates in your district. The workshops are moderated by others in your district who are not running. The process of elimination repeated with 2 winners moving  forward until there are only 10. Those 10 pick the final candidate. The process is done by scoring in a round robin fashion so you really have no idea who is going to be picked in a workshop until the scoring is tabulated.

There is also a $100 donation required, but this is not needed until GOOOH officially announces they have enough participants to move forward.

GOOOH will handle getting selected candidates on the ballot and raising funds. Finally you campaign.

GOOOH When?
GOOOH is just about the US House of Representatives. GOOOH was in place for the 2008 elections. Tim Cox claims that the Presidential election was a strong distraction for GOOOH attention. GOOOH is now targeted for 2010 elections. GOOOH will start candidate selection in March with one condition. Tim Cox says that we need 500,000 candidates. This is on average about 1,150 candidates per district. If that number is hit by the end of February 2010, the system is go.

GOOOH $$$?
GOOOH will arrange for funding with the base being the donations from the candidates participating plus additional members who join GOOOH to support it. GOOOH will also run a national campaign to raise funds. Tim Cox believes that total available per district will be larger than either party running. Because this is a networking process, the base of the network is 500,000 candidates who then build more GOOOH donors by the mere action of running for office.

You GOOOH
A simple action you can do is to buy the Revolution! Book, read it. You can also and visit the web site. A more valuable action is to run for office in your district using GOOOH. This means you sign up at the GOOOH web site and do all the steps a candidate does to get ready for the selection process. You do not have to donate money.

Signing up as a candidate is how I learned a lot. I checked that I wanted to be a candidate and took 2 hours to answer the candidate questionnaire that eventually will be locked and used in the selection process. I am not formally committed to being a candidate or my answers until March and when I donate $100.00. I may stay a candidate even if I do not really want to run because I want to participate and make sure there are other candidates better than me that will be my GOOOH district candidate.

NO GOOOH?
GOOOH is a third party but only for the House of Representatives. It is not about the Senate or Office of President. A party name is yet to be selected, but GOOOH is the official name for the process. A large objection is a third party may cause Republicans to lose Districts to Democrats because a GOOOH candidate would take Republican votes. This argument is false because GOOOH is not about conservatives. It is about creating a candidate that is not selected by the political system. It is about people not politicians and lawyers selecting candidates and thus can include anyone. Thus a GOOOH candidate has appeal to all of the other ways we split candidates such as Democrat vs Republican, Independent, Conservative vs Liberal, Right vs left and so on.  The GOOOH candidate on the ballot was selected by other members of the district who are not in the political machine  and not beholding to special interest groups. They are practically untouchables when compared to all other names on the ballot.

STILL NO GOOOH?
You cannot dismiss the GOOOH candidate questionnaire. Introducing GOOOH to fellow conservatives who said no GOOOH, I suggested a simple test. If you are going the traditional candidate selection route, that you take all or a subset of the GOOOH candidate questionnaire and ask your current elected incumbent you want to run or an opponent you like to run and ask them to answer them. GOOOH candidates must answer the questions for or against and defend their answers among their peers. Traditional candidates do not and are very likely to give you multi-part answers that contain “for” if this condition and “against” for that condition and will take15 to 30 minutes boring the hell out of you to weasel out of a commitment that will make or break their selection.

Revolution! Guide to What's Wrong With US House and How To Fix It

AND STILL NO GOOOH?
The book Revolution! is your guide to correcting the problem in the House of Representatives. I strongly recommend you read Revolution! so, which ever way you GOOOH, you know what you are trying to fix. Otherwise you may get the same result we have had for decades regardless of the House being controlled by Republicans or Democrats. This is something American cannot afford for one more term.