One of the biggest problems with the RNC effort in the 2010 midterms was a lack of effort and funding for get-out-the-vote functions, for which Michael Steele has to answer in his bid for a second term as RNC chair.  A rival for the slot has offered an idea that could reasonably be seen as a GOTV project, charging up the voter base and recapturing the Tea Party momentum for another election cycle:

A candidate to lead the Republican National Committee warned Monday that the GOP will hand a second term to Democratic President Barack Obama if the party doesn’t elect a chairman who can harness voters’ frustrations, prevent a third-party presidential candidacy and raise money quickly.

The first step is to put referenda against the Democrats’ health care law on ballots next year.

“We at the RNC (should) lead a campaign to put referenda on the ballot to repeal Obama Care in as many states as state law allows, which is nearly two dozen,” said Gentry Collins, a veteran operative who most recently was the RNC’s political director. “What that does, I think, is prepares us for 2012 from a turnout perspective. But in 2011, it gives some constructive, positive place for all the energy that exists in the grassroots, in particular in the tea party, for conservative change.”

Activists from the loosely organized tea party helped Republicans take control of the House and narrow the Democratic Party majority in the Senate. Republicans also picked up 10 governorships and gained control of 19 state legislative chambers. Strategists worry, though, that those new-to-politics voters might form their own political party and complicate Republican efforts.

The concept isn’t new.  Republicans pushed initiatives in key states opposing same-sex marriage in 2004 as a means to inspire the base, which paid dividends in the re-election of George Bush.  That same strategy failed to blunt the 2006 Democratic wave, however, and that defeat created some pressure on the GOP to reconsider its culture war in 2008 and 2010.

That problem won’t exist with ObamaCare as a target.  The PPACA (the official title of ObamaCare) remains deeply unpopular with the public.  In Missouri’s primary this year, an anti-PPACA referendum got more than 70% of the vote and helped clarify the stakes of the general election in that important swing state.  Putting similar referenda on the ballots of swing states in 2012 will do the same thing — clarify that a vote for the Republican nominee will mean an end to ObamaCare altogether, and a vote for Obama means its perpetuation.  Even if the referenda end up having little actual legal impact within the states, it gets the people energized against the massive regulation of the health-care industry out to the polls.  It also manages to do that by focusing on fiscal conservatism, a strategy that played out well for the Republicans in 2010, especially among independents.

Regardless of who wins the chair, this is a strategy that the RNC should implement to frame the 2012 election properly.