What now?

My essay last summer, "Why Peg?" laid out my reasons for working on this campaign. We lost. Now what? The reasons we fought have not changed. We still care deeply about life, the most basic issue. That hasn't gone away, nor is it likely to in the near future. Nor will we. We have no choice but to continue to fight for life.

From a wider perspective, we still see the many injustices in moral, economic and political life which stem from the anti-life perspective: contempt for the voter, the citizen, the healthcare patient, the worker, the disabled... Government still serves itself, and its cronies, not the people. And we have to change that, because injustices by their nature cry out for correction.

Change won't be easy. It's not easy to start a new party or to take over a state the size of Pennsylvania. The other two parties have been here for a long time, and there are still a lot of people who just "pull the lever" on Election Day. Overcoming that will take some work. But it has to be done.

And it can be done. We have made a good start. Considering the "good economy," the power of incumbency (ever see as many Pennsylvania tourism ads as during the last two months courtesy of "Tom Ridge, Governor"?) and the incredible amount of Ridge TV advertising, we did pretty well. One Democratic leader said if he spent that kind of money he could "elect Joe Stalin....maybe even Ivan Itkin." He's probably right. If we are going to consider doing this again, we will need more money. Not as much as Ridge spent, but more than we had. And we will need more people in the field, better trained and better prepared. More poll watchers and election judges. We had the best campaign in the field, but it apparently wasn't good enough.

All this can be done. But it will take planning, time, and a lot of effort.

We have already accomplished a great deal. Tom Ridge had to spend so much money to overcome our modest TV buys, he has apparently lost whatever national credibility he might otherwise have had. So we have done some good, sparing the Republic from Ridge. The Federal agency, HCFA, is investigating the proposed closure of the disabled centers, and will almost certainly stop it, as they recently did in California. So the disabled will be protected - and it was our video and news conferences (and some words with friends in Washington DC) that made that happen. Another reason for satisfaction, whatever the final vote count may have been.

Peg and the party have gained credibility with the media. We have identified a lot of natural leaders. We have fought the good fight.

What went wrong? Some think there was voter fraud. Others think we did not do enough, that too many people had not heard of Peg, despite our grassroots and TV efforts. Still others think that many voters knew about Peg and her message, but did not vote for her, even though they are ostensibly pro-life, and pro-family. Many believe that Clinton and the national Republicans turned the election into a referendum on impeachment - at least for the R and D lever pullers - and that we were swept aside in the last few days by the national agenda.

Our media adviser is of the opinion that the leaked Ridge poll numbers (mid-30s for Peg the end of September) were quite credible, considering what we did on TV in September, but that our inability to reach the TV peak we needed (1100 rating points statewide in each of the last two weeks) led to our final result. He argues that another $250,000 might have done it - and adds that Ridge overspent, that multi-million dollar TV budgets can generate boredom (if the same message is run and run and run) or confusion (if multiple messages are run). His bottom line: raise a little more money (not a lot) and start a little earlier.

No doubt there is some truth to each of these suggestions.

What this means for the immediate future is we need to begin organizing at the precinct level - identifying people who will go door-to-door, making relationships, selling their friends and neighbors on the party and its principles. (After the campaign debt is settled, we will consider making a brief video to help with this.) We need to begin recruiting and training candidates to run for local office, and for the statewide offices up for grabs in two years. There is a lot of political nitty gritty which needs to be done, which we will start in January.

To help with this, there will be lots of bad policies generated in Harrisburg, which will need to be opposed. There will be some reforms which will need to be supported. There will be plenty of issues to provide fodder for our efforts, and as government becomes more and more intrusive, we may find more and more voters willing to listen to our message.

The culture also needs some help. (After all, politics at least partially reflects the values of the people, although I believe the people are better than the governing elite.) We are considering several possibilities here, all of which are intended to help people learn to make the connections between religion and politics, between attitudes towards life, human rights and specific issues. On the table are radio and TV talk shows, and training speakers to convert others to a pro-life perspective (using methods we have developed in Seattle), to mention only two.

Over the next few weeks, we will be brainstorming and planning for the future, and will begin implementing the plan in January. In the meantime, stay tuned, make suggestions, and continue to listen to Peg Talk and read the website (which will be reorganized). And God bless you all.