Progress: One Step at a Time

No, Arnold's not singing in that photograph, but he might be after he and other moderate Republicans learn of the groundswell of support for leaders and candidates like them.

In other words, we are making progress on "The Letter."

After the RLC's Kate Whitman emailed me earlier this week (see the note at the end of this post), we hit a minor snafu. Other bloggers picked up on the text of the letter, and some characterized it as the work of the moderate-R groups listed in earlier drafts. That caused concern and sidetracked us, and understandably so. I only meant to list those organizations as examples of the type of groups that are helping organize moderate Republicans. Instead, it was read as either an explicit or implicit endorsement (by those groups) for the letter. My bad ... entirely.

And so, to avoid any further confusion, I revised the letter to delete that listing of groups (for now) and notified every blogger who I knew had linked to the earlier versions.

Subsequently, the executive director of Republican Majority for Choice emailed me; we talked; and now she's working with Kate and others to organize a multi-group conference call to discuss the letter and the various organizations' collective point of view on it. The good news: She thinks it's a worthy effort, and something the mod-R organizations had previously talked about doing anyway. Her encouragement – plus the half-dozen signatures (at last count) ready to be attached, plus the positive pick-up elsewhere in the 'sphere – all leads me to believe we might really be on to something and that the time might just be right for this type of statement.

Of course, we could always move this forward without the major mod-R groups – make it a purely grassroots driven, from-the-ground-up effort – but I don't think that's the smartest approach. I'd rather relinquish some control, get the backing of the big dogs, thus reach an even broader audience and group of signers, and thus have an even greater impact. Because, at the end of the day, this is about real and lasting reform of the Party, not just compelling ideas.

Stay tuned ...