It has to Start With US

The LA Times has an article we all need to read and make notes on.
'Tea party' activists filter into GOP at ground level
By Kathleen Hennessey

The conservative movement is urging its members to seek positions as Republican precinct representatives. Their goal is to remake the party - and U.S. politics - from within.

First there was the "tea party" protester. Now meet the Tea-publican.

Conservative activists who once protested the political establishment are now flooding the lowest level of the Republican Party apparatus hoping to take over the party they once scorned -- one precinct at a time.

Across the country, tea party groups that had focused on planning rallies are educating members on how to run for GOP precinct representative positions. The representatives help elect county party leaders, who write the platform and, in some places, determine endorsements.

"That's where it all starts. That's where the process of picking candidates begins. It's not from [GOP leader] Michael Steele's office down. It's from the ground up," said Philip Glass, whose National Precinct Alliance is among the groups advocating the strategy. "The party is over for the old guard."

Read it all here.