Blaise Ingoglia, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, spoke to the Republican Club of the Villages Thursday evening at their monthly meeting. Known for his Government Gone Wild talks, Ingoglia instead talked about the Republican Party, past present and future.
Ingoglia, a member of the Florida House of Representatives, serves on the government operations and technology appropriations committee along with Don Hahnfeldt. He thanked Hahnfeldt for his fiscal leadership in doing things better for less money.
He also thanked the Republican Federated Women of The Villages.
“You absolutely rock. A lot of people wouldn’t be in state office without the help of this organization,” he said.
He began his look back at the Republican Party starting in 2000, saying that this is when the Republican elected officials lost their way.
“They became Big Government Republicans, campaigning one way and governing another. They were trying to spend their way out of the budget problem. For the federal government money is always the answer,” he said.
Ingoglia said the party was becoming the party of PACs, lawyers and accountants. The day he was elected state chair he fired the consultants and lawyers and started concentrating on grassroots.
“It is grassroots that win elections,” he said.
Project 29 was put in place to make sure Florida delivered for Trump.
“This was done to save us from doom. A Hillary victory would be putting the last nail in the coffin for this country,” said Ingoglia. The concentration of Project 29 was to build up local clubs and organizations, up-grade digital campaigning, and getting people registered to vote.
As a guest on Lou Dobb’s show, on the Fox Business Network, the Sunday before the election, Ingoglia predicted that Trump would take Florida. He said that he based that on the fact that although there are more registered democrats than republicans in the state of Florida, he had seen a poll that showed that 200,000 more republicans than democrats were likely to go to the polls.
“This election shocked the world,” said Ingoglia, “the reverberations around the world are still being felt.”
Ingoglia said that winning the election is not like winning the Super Bowl; it is still game on.
“There is still a lot of work to do; this is going to take years,” Ingoglia said.
He went on to say that a lot of what has to be done is not hard, not rocket science. It is talking to friends, family and neighbors.
The formal work being done for the Republican Party in Florida is under the banner of Project Majority Red. It includes training for local clubs and organizations called Florida GOP University. The concentration is also on keeping first-time voters, who voted in the 2016 election for Trump, engaged. “People came out of the wood work to vote for Trump. If we can keep these first-time voters involved, we will decimate the Democratic Party in Florida.”
Looking ahead Ingoglia said now that we have the House, the Senate and the Presidency, “It is time for us to put up or shut up. We offer better solutions, which is why the Democrats oppose us. They know what we are doing works.” Going forward he said “We need to show tangible results to the democratic and independent voters out there. Results that change the lives of their families for the better. If we do that we will crush the Democratic party for generations.”
He concluded saying, “This is our challenge. Not to take our foot off the gas, but to work hard to get it right.”
