The loyal opposition…

The GOP is reeling from the election losses and trying too hard to re-group too quickly.  It is difficult to blame them for reacting this way.  People want to feel like they can take control of the situation.  But it might have been a better idea to just stew in the loss for at least one full day before reacting. 

To fully understand why your ass was kicked so very hard, one has to let the ass kicking sink in.  If you jump right back up off of the ground, you are bound to stumble around a bit.  But if you lay there for a few minutes, get your bearings, you’ll be much more stable when you stand up.  And if you come up with a really good plan while you are laying in the dirt, you might just keep yourself from being back down there again.

There are some people who are stumbling around after the great ass kicking and in their stumbles they are shouting that Sarah Palin caused the beat down.  Wrong.  They jumped back up too fast.  In fact, they came up with that idea two weeks ago before the knock out punch came.  In the midst of a brawl, it is much better to block punches and throw some of your own rather than open yourself up for a blow to the gut.  But that’s what they did and now they are making it worse for themselves and for the GOP. 

Now, some people are blaming former Mitt Romney aides, but I am suspicious of that.  Red State is promising to “name names” (Operation Leper) with the full support of people like Michelle Malkin.  I think this is a good thing.  I want to know who is trashing Sarah Palin so that I can avoid them and anyone they work for in the future.  Blind loyalty is no good but being a slime bag is even worse.  I welcome criticism of potential GOP leaders.  I just don’t want it the morning after a beat down, and I don’t want it to be anonymous.  Cowards.  Oh yeah, it should also be constructive…

Besides, the exit polling data shows that Sarah Palin saved John McCain from an even worse ass kicking. 

We need to keep the Sarah Palin voters as well as appealing to other voters.  We cannot win another national election by totally discounting those voters.  That is a given.  What is not a given and what needs some serious thoughts before we move on is how to win enough “other” voters to put us over the top.

That is where they laying down in the dirt and learning from the beat down comes in.  Jump up too fast and you start punching Sarah Palin instead of The One and the Democrats.  We need to regroup.  We need to think this through.  This country needs us to be a strong party and to be an electable party.  We cannot afford to screw this up because we may not compete in 2012 or 2016, not to mention getting back some members of Congress.

It is clear that we cannot be democrat-lite.  Out of control spending led to the ass kicking.  Pork leads to corruption which led to the ass kicking.  Republican voters hold Republican office holders to a higher standard than Democrat voters hold Democrat office holders.  We cannot be a party of liars and criminals and then expect people to vote for us.  The GOP turned out fewer voters in 2008 than in 2004.  We did not lose just because some of our voters voted for The One, we lost 2008 and 2006 because some of our voters stayed home. 

Did they stay home because the GOP turned them off with the spending and corruption?  Probably some of them did.  Did they stay home because John McCain was not their cup of tea because of his “maverick-ness”?  Probably some of them.  But what else kept them home?  That’s the thing we’ve got to figure out.

Again, jump back up too soon and you might think we need to jump on the amnesty train to get those hispanic voters.  Or that we need to find our own The One.  Or that we need to run a whole lot more moderates.  Or that we need to kick all the moderates and RINO’s out of the party.  Or that we need our own ACORN.  Or that we need to put Sarah Palin’s head on a pike and rid ourselves of values voters.  Or that we need to scrap the abortion and G_d talk.  Or that we need to listen to Ron Paul voters.  Or that we need to crush the neo-cons.  Or that we need to listen to Christopher Buckley and Peggy Noonan.  Or that we need to…  You see where I am going with this, right?

Clearly we need new leadership.  Perhaps it would be a good idea if that leadership was, you know, conservative.  Conservatism can appeal to independents and swing voters.  But it needs to be clear and coherent.  It needs to have messengers.  Who might those messengers be? 

Minutes after California was called for The One, all kinds of GOP’ers started making lists.  We’ll probably spend the next year debating those lists.  Nothing wrong with that.  In fact, here is a sample list:

Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford, Tim Pawlenty, Marsha Blackburn, Michael Steele, Jeb Hensarling, Eric Cantor, Thad McCotter, Scott Garrett, Duncan D. Hunter, Bob Riley, Roger Wicker, Mitt Romney… 

I’m sure I’ve missed some people.  They can be added.  There are probably some great people out there that we haven’t even heard of yet.  While we should consider the people that we already know, we should also look off the grid.  But we should make sure that we are finding future GOP leaders who are honest, conservative and tough.

We need to find a powerhouse to run the RNC.  That person should be able to bring in the cash and be held accountable for finding competitive Conservatives to contest races.  We need to have enough money so that we can retain our already great representatives as well as fund our upstarts.  The Left is well funded and now that they have power they are going to be cocky.  We need to be able to compete with that.  And yes, we need to take advantage of the minorities in our party by running them, fully funding them and standing by them. 

It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to focus some GOP attention of running good candidates for the various Secretary of State elections in the battleground states.  I’m not saying we lost 2008 due to voter fraud, but even a whiff of “my vote isn’t going to count because of ACORN” can keep some people at home on the couch instead of the two hour long voting lines.

We need to take a look at the 1994 Republican Revolution.  We need to go back to the things that worked.  That means we need a short, sweet, conservative message and the right people to deliver it.  Personally, I want to focus on taxes and spending.  If we keep promising smaller government and not delivering because it is almost impossible, we are going to lose.  So let us focus on efficient government.  Government that works and gets out of your way.  McCain tried that, but he wasn’t the best messenger.  There is the issue of judicial restraint, which will be an easier sell once The One gets to appoint one or two Supreme Court Justices.  It is a very important issue that we have failed to highlight in the past.  Of course, we need to focus on national security and the military, which should be easier once President Bush (G_d love him) isn’t the face of foreign policy.  Here is just one example of people who are trying to slim down the message.  It may not be the focus that you want, but it will give you a good jumping off point.

There are really great people in every state that are just waiting for direction on where to take this party.  I say, don’t wait.  Find your candidates and then force them on the GOP.  Find good men and women and support them.  In a couple of weeks, once the sting wears off, people need to get themselves involved with their state parties.  The GOP ground game failed this time around.  We will not win again without it.  We need people talking to their neighbors and giving time and money to the state races.  They won’t do that if they are not inspired by candidates chosen by the national party based on the flawed logic of 2006 and 2008.

We need to appeal to young voters.  Not that we already don’t, as I am a relatively young voter.  But we need to take advantage of the internet in the same way that The One and Howard Dean did.  Perhaps running younger candidates instead of the next old guy in line might help.  It can also help by educating young voters as to what conservatism means.  Young voters who followed The One with cult-like intensity have yet to really feel the sting of taxes being taken out of their paychecks.  Give them a couple of years in the work force and I think we can win them over.

Being out of power, or in the wilderness so to speak, might just turn out to be what we need.  Watching taxes go up and full fledged lefties in charge of the government is going to inspire the voters that stayed home and they voters that switched over to The One or those third party candidates.  But it is not going to do the GOP any good to run mediocre candidates.  If the party doesn’t learn the proper lessons from this ass kicking, we may not recover for decades.