BOSTON GLOBE

GOP upgrades outreach efforts

Essex Club uses Web to inform; help candidates

By John Laidler, Globe Correspondent, 10/30/2003

Republicans hope an old organization armed with new techniques may be the recipe for bolstering their political standing in Essex County.

Area GOP activists are reviving the Essex Club, an organization of county Republicans that became dormant in recent years. But in its new incarnation, the club is not likely to resemble the Essex Club of old, which was mostly known for its social gatherings.

Activists say they envision the club as a dynamic organization that will use technology to help Republicans win seats in the county, starting in 2004.

Organizers are rebuilding the club through the use of a website, EssexClub.org, and e-mail.

Updated each week, the website includes news about Republican candidates and party happenings around the county. Barely noticed when it launched in January, the site now averages about 450 hits per month.

For the time being, the group is calling itself EssexClub.Org, with the intention of adopting the old name after it registers with the state as a political action committee and formally organizes, according to John Racho, a member of the Republican Town Committee in Ipswich. Racho has teamed with state Representative Bradford R. Hill of Ipswich to organize the club.

Racho said starting with a website is a way of helping the club define itself to party regulars.

While many remember the old Essex Club as a "fancy dinner and speakers forum, we are trying to keep this more campaign and grass-roots based," he said.

The revival of the club comes as the Republican State Committee is organizing teams to recruit Republicans to run for state House and Senate seats in 2004. Republicans are badly outnumbered in the Legislature, holding just 23 of the 160 seats in the House and six of the 40 seats in the Senate.

Hill and Racho say the Essex Club will assist with the recruitment effort, and help mobilize party regulars across the county to help Republicans who decide to run.

The club's efforts will also extend to candidates for non-legislative offices, including nonpartisan races for local seats such as mayor, city councilor, and selectman.

Once a formidable force, the GOP's influence has diminished in Essex County. Currently, there are just four Republicans among the 27 state legislators who represent parts of the county (22 seats are held by Democrats, and one by an Independent).

Meanwhile, the two members of Congress who represent Essex County are Democrats, as are the county's two governor's councilors, its two registersof deeds, its register of probate, and its clerk of courts. The county's only regional Republican officeholder is Sheriff Frank G. Cousins Jr.

But club organizers think the party can become competitive again by better knitting together its grass roots. They say their inspiration comes from Governor Mitt Romney's campaign, which used technological tools to quickly build a statewide grass-roots organization.

Romney carried some of the county's legislative districts, which indicates that "Essex County is fertile ground for this kind of organizing," Racho said.

"What it showed us is if you really work hard and put forth a great effort, you can accomplish things you [would not] think possible," said Frederick T. Golder of Lynnfield, who was a local coordinator of the Romney campaign and is involved with the start-up of the Essex Club.

"The main purpose [of the club] is to get all of the activists working together, and basically to use our resources in a smart way," Golder said.

"In the last election cycle, we had candidates who needed physical help with sign holding, literature dropping, and making phone calls," Hill said. "But unfortunately there was no organization to pull that all together." He said the revised Essex Club is designed to meet that need.

Racho said activists are reacting positively to the initiative.

"What they really like about it is the esprit de corps they get from it," he said. "Knowing what is happening in other cities and towns they can learn from some of their fellow activists' activities and publicize their own activities."

Terry Hart, chairman of the Republican Town Committee in Georgetown, said information sharing is vital for Republicans. Finding out early who is running will "allow us to mobilize our town committees and any other town Republicans to support those candidates," he said.

Racho said the club has already begun to spawn "a lot of cross-attendance" at Republican events. "So maybe before Beverly [Republicans] would have a dinner and just folks from Beverly attended. You now have folks from Ipswich, Nahant, and Lynn showing up."

"I really think it gives Republicans in Essex County a good platform on which to build," said David

C. Abdoo, a member of the Republican City Committee in Lawrence.

"It's not your grandfather's Essex Club." Abdoo said. "It's an Essex Club for the 21st century."

Racho noted, however, that while giving the club a different focus, "we are motivated by the principle behind the original Essex Club, which is simply bringing Republicans together and energizing them."