Dale for RNC Chairman

Actually, no, I am not interested in the job and no, I am not on anyone’s short list to replace Ronna McDaniel either. In fact, there are less than a handful of people in D.C. who even know my name (thanks to Rep. Bill Posey, R-FL; Rep. Tom Kean, R-NJ; Rep. Chris Smith, R-NJ; and a few others for being the exception to the rule. I guess I could add Rep. Don Norcross, D-NJ, to that list, but only because we graduated high school together and played on the same JV soccer team. Our political views are polar opposites).

That being said, if you have Ronna’s cell phone number or personal email address, I sure would appreciate you forwarding my column to her… although I doubt she’d like it. After all, no one enjoys being told that they are doing a lousy job.

For those outside the Washington Beltway or with a life aside from politics (which is the vast majority of the American people, if only we would consult them from time to time), Ronna is the current chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. During her seven years at the party’s helm, the GOP has lost the House majority (2018), and both the Senate majority and the White House (2020). Republicans reclaimed the House in 2022 but posted the smallest opposition party gain in recent history during last year’s midterm elections.

Aside from the fact that Ronna Romney McDaniel is also Mitt's niece – you can pick your friends, but not your family – I figure that her less-than-stellar electoral record means she could use a few suggestions from the hinterlands. And so, here goes nothing...

First and foremost, please get outside the Washington bubble for an extended period of time. No, I don’t mean attend yet another champagne-swilling, country-club-hosting fundraiser in Palm Beach or Palm Springs. More like Palm Bay, a middle-class town just south of Melbourne FL, or for that matter, anywhere but the secluded high-society enclaves where the upper crust lives, works, and plays.

Talk to REAL people: the ones who shop at Walmart, follow NASCAR and the NFL, and consider Cracker Barrel and Olive Garden to be fine dining. And don’t just talk but LISTEN… and learn what makes them tick. Find out over some biscuits and gravy or the never-ending pasta bowl what issues are the most important to them. After all, deep-pocketed donors can fill the RNC’s coffers, but common-sense conservatives can fill the ballot box. You simply have to decide which is the more valuable commodity.

My second suggestion is to become known as the party of the family. I can’t take credit for that idea, because I stole it from Steve Doocy of Fox & Friends, but it bears repeating. Ask yourself what was the main reason for Glenn Youngkin’s surprise win in the Virginia gubernatorial race in 2021? Education… and more specifically, parental rights. Ride that pony for all she’s worth, Ronna, because it is your best defense against the reproductive rights radicals that are corralling the suburban white women vote.

Third – and this kills me to say as a strong pro-life advocate – find a temporary accommodation on the abortion issue until we can sway the American public to our point of view. Yes, life begins at conception and yes, abortion is murder. And yes, I gagged as I wrote the words “temporary accommodation.” But apparently, a majority of Americans support limited infanticide, which tells you just how far we have fallen as a country and how far we have to go to reclaim it.

Would I love to see a federal ban on abortions? Absolutely! Is the country ready for that? Sadly, no. So, please save as many precious unborn babies as you can now by supporting a national pain-capable measure – or better yet, a human heartbeat act that would outlaw all abortions after 18 days, which is when the fetal heartbeat first appears – and pray that voters' hearts will soften and change over time. Meanwhile, continue to paint the Progressive Left as the genocidal maniacs they truly are by calling them out on partial birth abortion and other prenatal atrocities.

We are the party of life, and they are the party of death. Repeat that phrase over and over again, splash it on billboards across the country, and put it to music until people are unconsciously humming it to themselves every night as they drift off to sleep.

While you’re at it, be the party that promotes adoption by proposing that the federal government cover all adoption fees and childcare expenses through age 5. I realize that that is a revolutionary – and very expensive – concept, but it would deflate the progressive argument that all Republicans care about are babies before birth but not afterwards.

Push for school choice, school vouchers, and school safety. Launch a national campaign to recruit and hire military veterans as SRO’s (school resource officers). Offer to pay for the first 10,000 from the RNC’s burgeoning war chest. Trust me; you can’t buy better advertisement than that.

I have many more suggestions – and much more unsolicited advice – to offer you, but I’ll save it for our private conversation. You have my number (actually you don’t, but Bill Posey does, so just ask him).