Below is a talk I found a few years ago that I thought was really applicable.

The talk linked to below discusses "poisonous people".  While the video is pertinent to "Open Source Software Development", the principles apply to any community of people.

This is almost an hour long, but well worth the investment.  Think about how this applies to the Republican party.

WE are the leadership, my friend.

For the party to become stronger, we together must become stronger.  Do you really thing we need a single, solitary leader for this?

I get tired of being pissed every time I hear people call into Rush and Hannity asking "what can we do, oh great Maha".  Tell us what we need to do.  It's absolute crap.  How can a party of individuals who believe in individual rights just give up and subscribe to the collective wisdom of one man?  

For every person who says "Saul should have done more", I ask them:  What are YOU going to do more of?  More than half of the people criticizing Anuzis didn't make calls or go door to door for any candidate.  They did nothing substantial.  (I don't care which ones of you did, you're halfway to the finish line if you really DID.)

For those who DID do something, I ask - "Can you bring 3 more people with you when you do it again?".  I also ask "what do you think can be done better?  What didn't you like doing?".

WE are the leadership.  WE run the party.  It's OUR consensus that makes the party.  Let's hold OURSELVES accountable first, and seek a leader that reflects our own desire for accountability and results.

On the misnomer of "kicking people out"  I'm not advocating kicking people from the party.  I've said it four times, so I'll summarize here.  There are people who bitch and moan and threaten to walk away if they don't have their way.  LET THEM GO.  We can afford to lose people who are going to distract us and damage us.  If we spend our time worrying about individual whiners, we detract from our goals and waste our precious resources.

Your opinion is your opinion, and that's fine.  People are upset about losing 19 house seats.  We did it to ourselves, and it's the same attitudes telling us to "tear down and rebuild from the ground up" that is going to lead to the same results in 2 years.  We lost by 8m votes and MANY narrow losses.  We hardly need a teardown, and we hardly need to reinvent the wheel.  

The "little l" libertarians are not the ones poisoning the party, and almost all of them are working positively to make changes.  They're not threatening to go.  But EVEN if they did, let them go.  I'm not going to succumb to threats and ultimatums that waste our time.

On the RINO issue  No doubt there are those who are indeed RINOs.  But many people have taken the term too far.  If there's a disagreement with an elected official they're a RINO.  

I've heard people call Engler, the greatest Conservative this state has ever elected, a RINO.  I'm sick of it.  There are several out there, like Olympia Snow.  There are some who would be RINOs but for their district, like Joe Lieberman.  I think many people viewed John McCain as a "traitor" with the Gang-of-5 and Gang-of-12 and other crap.  That was his own doing, his own choices.  But that doesn't mean we have to punish others down the ticket who were good Republicans who didn't forego their "conservative roots".

This process might be difficult at times. I hope you'll always feel worth it as I do. I've really appreciated your time and patience.

If we read our words in the future I think we'll all see that we are growing something here. It's strong and good,

We are saying a lot of the same things in different ways. We shall endure and look back on our growing pains as a small moment.

I wish I could have a conversation about the handful of things that could be our narrow focus. I know people will have various preferences but I'm thinking of that general and narrow preference. Perhaps I should post a story with that and ask what would be on the list. Like education and protecting our borders.