The 2010 election season was marked by frustration and unrest from voters who were unhappy with the state of the state.

Cranston resident Patrick Sweeney is hoping to capitalize on that as Republicans look to make inroads in the 2012 elections.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Sweeney said. “I think a consistent message is what we need, but I think we can keep the momentum going.”

Sweeney last week announced his candidacy for chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party at the RIGOP Chairman’s Caucus meeting. A Warwick native, Sweeney graduated from Bishop Hendricken High School and then earned his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Northeastern University in 2003. From there, Sweeney got a law degree from the New England School of Law.

While Sweeney has always had an interest in politics, it was his work as a policy analyst in the office of the governor that whet his appetite. He joined the Young Republicans and has served on the board for the past two years. This past year, Sweeney served as deputy campaign manager in Rep. John Loughlin’s bid for Congress.

“It was a campaign in a nutshell. I learned so much,” he said.

Sweeney felt Loughlin had a strong message. He strayed away from the social issues that are often divisive in a traditionally blue state like Rhode Island in order to focus on the economy.

“I don’t think social issues play here. It’s a bad political landscape to get on your soapbox,” Sweeney said.

Jobs were the number one concern during the election, and he doesn’t see that changing. That’s one of the reasons he is concerned about the tenure of governor-elect Lincoln Chafee.

“The economy in Rhode Island is in such dire straits that even the one percent tax he’s proposing, it adds up,” he said. “I have not heard the word ‘jobs’ from his mouth once.”

Sweeney criticized Chafee for wanting to put gay marriage to a vote in the Assembly, rather than putting it to the voters. He also chastised the former senator for his opposition to e-verify, while simultaneously applauding Democratic Attorney General-elect Peter Kilmartin for wanting to strengthen immigration reform.

“The number one point of it is to prevent businesses from taking advantage of illegal immigrants,” Sweeney said.

Oftentimes, he sees liberals using e-verify and immigration reform to paint the Republican Party as racist. The same is true, he said, of the Tea Party movement.

“As the Democrats felt the pressure, they tried to paint the Tea Party as racists and right wing extremists, but it was a great groundswell of conservative activists,” he said.

The main message of the Tea Party was smaller government and lower taxes, which is exactly the message Sweeney wants to convey.

Educating voters on that position is a priority if he is elected GOP chairman. He believes transparency is key to show voters how money is spent in Rhode Island and dispel the myths of how conservatives hope to reform the state’s financial system. He used pensions as an example of topics that liberals and conservatives traditionally square off on.

“We’re not trying to take away your pensions; we’re trying to cut spending so we can fund your pension,” he said, explaining that the GOP supports a 401K system for new hires. That concept is vehemently opposed by unions, however, which have consistently gotten their ranks out to the voting booths.

“It’s a well-oiled machine,” he said. “For a lot of people, politics is number 12 on their top five list of things to do.”

That is not true for those with a vested interest, he explained.

In order to make progress in 2012, he thinks the GOP should do more to reach out to those disenfranchised voters, including grassroots efforts and the use of different social media.

“For the Republicans, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. I think it comes with the education, inspiring the conservative base to come out,” he said. “We just want balance, and we have to keep people engaged.”

When asked if he thought it would be possible to turn Rhode Island into a more conservative state, he said yes, pointing to President George Bush’s time in the governor’s office in Texas as an example of how a “compassionate conservativism” can garner support from both sides of the table.

With the checks and balances of the State House in question now that a Republican governor is on his way out, Sweeney says this could be the crucial time for conservatives.

“From a purely political strategy point, finally people can’t say you had a Republican governor and he has all the power. The veto can only go so far. [Carcierci] was a powerless governor,” Sweeney said. “Now we have a governor-elect who 64 percent of the population voted against. He’s basically a Democrat.”

If Chafee can’t fix the mess this state is in, Sweeney believes the Republicans have a real shot at getting the balance they are looking for. Immediately after the GOP elections in March, he wants the party to begin to get out their message, recruit potential candidates and rebuild the group’s infrastructure. He would like to see town captains as well as precinct captains in every city and town, calling it an “army of troops” to strengthen the party.

Rather than hoping for the best come election time, he pledges to have a strategy for putting more Republicans into office.

“My plan would be to target the seats we know we could win and also protect the seats we did win,” he said. “When I get in, my first thing is to just unify the party and basically develop one cohesive message to convey to the people of Rhode Island that will help resurrect the conservative base.”