Recognizing their party is beaten, but not broken or out of the match, area Republicans are looking to change their formula in the wake of difficult economic times to boost GOP support and end one-party rule.
U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock said Republicans must rally behind primary candidates and work to capture the African-American and Hispanic vote to get a one-up on Democrats who are annihilating them with voter mobilization drives and blows in recent election cycles.
"We need to communicate our message in superior ways to everyone in the state," Schock said Saturday. "It is no secret that most statewide Republican campaigns in Illinois have written off vast segments of the population and therefore not campaigned in those areas. As Republicans in Illinois in 2009, we cannot write off the black vote, we cannot write off the Hispanic vote, and we cannot write off Cook County.
"There is a way forward and a way to win."
Schock was the keynote speaker at the 42nd annual Tazewell County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner at the Embassy Suites Conference Center. The event drew nearly 600 people.
In his transition from an Illinois state representative to a congressman, Schock said he continues "to see the Illinois way infect Washington with the most irresponsible overspending, overborrowing and overtaxing in our nation's history."
If the party reaches back to its core principles at a grass-roots level, Schock said it will see comeback triumphs similar to what happened in 1980 and 1994, when the Republican Party gained a majority in the U.S. House for the first time in decades.
Illinois' Republican national committeewoman, Demetra DeMonte, said the GOP is on the road to recovery and has a unique opportunity to take back the gubernatorial seat as well as the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. It's currently held by Roland Burris, a Democrat who is embroiled in his own controversy.
The key is getting out the message using current technologies, including texting and e-mail, DeMonte said Saturday.
"Great political transformations begin in times of adversity," she said. "The Democrats may have the machine and the unions, but they can't match us in passion, ideas and principles."
Schock criticized Obama's "far-left" agenda he said includes reinstatement of the death tax, raising the capital gains tax, gun control measures, instituting measures that will increase the possibility of voter fraud, closing off domestic supplies of energy such as coal, oil and gas drilling and scheming redistricting to make permanent legislative majorities.
He said he plans to introduce legislation that currently is in draft form calling for a zero percent federal income tax and zero federal capital gains tax to incentivize new, renewable energy development and production.
"I say to liberals and conservatives alike, if you want our energy produced here in America, if you want the economic benefits to stay here, if you want to wean us off oil, then place the maximum incentive to produce the next generation of energy," Schock said.
He also is co-sponsoring a bill with a Missouri Democrat that would give federal research dollars to companies researching the use of manure as a petroleum substitute for asphalt, among other legislation.
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