Getting Back to Basics...

It has been 25 years since I was a page for the Honorable United States Senator Strom Thurmond. What an experience for an 17 year old girl from Tans Bay, South Carolina. It was 4:30 am when I woke up and looked out of the window of the little house in Alexandria, Virginia that morning. To my great surprise, there was about 12 inches of snow on the ground, which was more snow than a girl from South Carolina could even imagine. I quickly found out that 12 inches of snow did not equal a snow day for the page school which I had to attend from 6am-9am daily. Slowly I pulled on some long underwear with snow boots and headed out in to the cold morning air. After walking about 1/4 mile, I reached my first bus stop. As I sat there, I had my first experience with a homeless person. I was overwhelmed with emotion about this person living outdoors. As thankful as I was to see the bus pull up and the big door open, I felt sorry for the homeless lady still sitting there on the bench in the snow. The bus dropped me off at the Pentagon where I successfully transferred to another bus that took me to a Metro stop. Bravely I jumped on the Metro and watched carefully for my stop. I was fascinated with the people who were on the train with me. There were military men in suits holding brief cases, business men and women reading papers and books, and of course there were a few people who looked like they had been on the train all night drinking Mad Dog 20/20. As I rode the escalator up from the Metro, the sun was rising over a snow-covered Washington, DC. The first thing I saw as I walked out of the Metro was the US Capitol. It was huge. The sun was rising behind the building and reflecting off of the snow. The building seemed to glow the most beautiful golden pink colors. I stopped still in my tracks... in complete awe! How magnificent it seemed that first time. My heart felt full and there was such a great sense of pride. Ronald Reagan was the president, the 100th Congress was being called into session, I was a Reagan Republican and I was a very proud United States Senate Page.

I tell you the things above to help you understand why I was involved in politics and the Republican Party. I wish every Republican could have the experience of feeling this pride. Senator Thurmond was an inspiration to those of us who worked with him. He talked with us and spent time making his pages feel just as important as his colleagues in the US Senate. He listened and he let us be involved. My involvement in his office was really simple but it was important to him and to the party. I worked with Mrs. Katherine Hooks in the Senate office. By 9am every morning the Senator received the NY Times, Washington Post and every newspaper from South Carolina. Before lunch every day, I would read and cut out anything that included the Senator's name, issues being debated in Congress, any item of interest to the Senator, any event he was involved with, and all of the SC obituaries. I would then paste these articles on a sheet of white paper, write the name of the paper it was taken from and the page number on the side. I always included a phone number for the author or the phone number for the living spouse or relative at the top of each page. I usually finished the project by noon. Then I would head down to the Capitol copy room to make copies for every staff member. The Senator always got the original on which I would carefully highlight important sections in yellow. When the Senator came back to the office in the afternoon, we made the obit calls. He would sit behind his big desk with the list of obits in front of him. Mrs. Katherine and I would get the closest surviving family member on the phone and then turn the call over to the Senator. He took the time out of each day to call every widow and widower in South Carolina to extend his sympathy for their grief and loss. It was amazing to me that a man who was the President Pro Tempore of the US senate would take the time to listen and to care about someone else in their time of need. Sometimes the Senator would ask the pages what we thought about issues in the Senate. He encouraged the pages to be involved and to express our ideas. He often said...the idea is where it starts. You have to listen to ideas, examine them and build from them.

In my opinion, over the last 15 years the Republican Party has not been listening, we have not been developing, we have not been progressing, and we have not been working with our members to develop their ideas. We have got to get back to the concept that every Republican is important and every Republican has good ideas. The leadership of the Party should take the time to listen to, examine and build from the ideas of its members. You may ask, "Should we just ditch our history and build something new?" No, that is not at all what I am saying. I believe we should take our history, examine it, see what worked and what didn't. We need to build from it, add in some new ideas, new concepts, and do something great to build a stronger Republican Party for our future. I think it is important that we not discount any Republican's ability, talent or gift. We need to find our volunteers' strengths and develop them.  The future can be better for our children, the GOP and our country.  We just have to be willing to compromise and listen.