Well that worked brilliantly, didn't it?

I was nice to America and to the Democrats, but you guys have earned my criticism. It's time to scrap this cozy relationship with lobbyists. I don't care if they are helpful to the process of legislating. I don't care if the perks are nice. It is necessary for Americans to have faith and confidence in their elected officials. And enough voters thought that they could not trust us enough to vote for us. That's due to Jack Abramhoff. That's due to the Mark Foley mess. And that is due to the frustratingly obtuse concept of maintaining the majority and not governing.

I think we've lost our way, guys. I really do. Folks like Bill Quick and Uncle Jimbo coulda shoulda woulda voted for us, if they had any confidence that we would have done a better job with their trust and their vote. That they didn't illustrates how much we have lost our way. Let's stop this nonsense talk about maintaining our majorities and stick with what works. So what works?

First, detailing our plan works. The Contract with America should not have been a one-time, 1994-only stunt. It will go down as a stunt if we don't make use of this effective measure. We complained through much of this election that the Democrats didn't have any plan. But what exactly was our plan. Spell it out. Right now, we need to begin the process of formulating our plan for the 2008 elections. And that means we have to have a two year plan for how we would govern America. We won big in 1994 because we had a plan. We lost big last night, because our plan has grown stale and we have ignored instead focusing on what became a joke for Bill Clinton.

Republicans will have you believe that Democrats will tax you into the poor house and that you’ll meet a terrorist around every corner and trip over an illegal immigrant on the way there.

Some Republicans objected to the joke as an indicator that Clinton wasn't serious about terrorism. We even sounded like them in defeat. It is a funny joke, and it successfully deflected in a three second soundbyte that we didn't have a plan. As much as they were running on anti-incumbent and anti-Bush mania, we were running on a platform of fearing the unknown, namely Democrat leadership.

This is not how one wins re-election. It's trite. It's cynical, and it ticks off a lot of reliable voters, who instead pull the lever for the Greens or the Libertarians or write in Frank J. So priority one is to formulate a list of policies and proposals that will resonate with voters, not only the so-called swing voters, but also you disgruntled base. I'll be throwing out ideas in the coming months that you can use, but common sense should be able to allow you to come up with a list. And unlike past years where you could say that the mainstream media squashed your message. Point number three will detail how you get around this.

Secondly, get to work on recruiting good candidates for all 435 House seats. Find the folks who can win the Senate races that will be contested in 2008. Recruit good Gubernatorial candidates. We cannot concede the Northeast. We cannot concede California. Our principles work and our message is a winner in so much of our nation. If you look at the county vote chart for the past two Presidential elections, we live in a country that is full of folks who agree with a basic conservative agenda of tax cuts, limited government and strong national defense. If we can't win 52-55 Senate seats and 250 House seats int hat environment, then we need to seriously reexamine our political viability as a party. Thomas Sowell had a brilliant piece on NRO yesterday. Read it all. But make particular note of this:

You don’t see individual Democrats in the Senate going off to do their own thing in concert with the opposition and against the interest of their own party, as Senator John McCain has done with so-called “campaign-finance reform” co-sponsored with ultra-liberal Senator Russ Feingold, and as he attempted to do on immigration with liberal icon Ted Kennedy.

Democrats know better than to betray their base of supporters — welfare-state beneficiaries, the teachers’ unions, environmental zealots, the ACLU, and tort lawyers — the way the elder President Bush betrayed his supporters who relied on his “no new taxes” pledge and the way the current President Bush betrayed them by attempting to create amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

Republicans have too often forgotten the old-time admonition to the girl going to a party, to always remember to “dance with the one who brung you.”

Even some Republicans have said privately that the Democrats have the edge in playing the game of politics. Given the greater political shrewdness of the Democrats and the overwhelming bias of the media in their favor, it is remarkable that Republicans have had any political success at all.

That the Republicans are still a viable party is one measure of how far the Democrats’ policies and values differ from those of most Americans.

Nowhere is that difference greater than when it comes to defending the American people against crime at home and against military and terrorist threats from abroad. Liberal Democrats — which is to say, most Democratic politicians and all of their leaders — are ready to try almost any “alternatives to incarceration” of criminals and almost any alternative to maintaining military strength as a deterrent to enemy nations.

Our opponents are out of the mainstream, yet they tar us as being radical. We need to fix that image and fast. How do we do that? Easy, find likable, personable, articulate, smart candidates. You know whose those people are. They are our donors. They are our thinkers and writers. They are the folks who keep the party humming. They are the grass root folks. And some of them don't want to trade their current jobs for Government work. Their jobs pay more. Their careers matter to them. They do not want to disrupt their family life. And these are really valid reasons. But the ones who are persuadable need to be approached to consider a run for public office. We need to get away from career politicians and find guys with lengthy resumes in the private sector or in service to our nation in other roles. People like Tom Coburn.

In recruiting these people, we will need to reassure them that at some point they can return to the life they prefer. A life away from Washington. This requires serious grassroots party building. I have criticized the failure of the Connecticut GOP to recruit aviable challenger for the Senate race. That was an easy win. That we fumbled away turning out the vote for Joe Lieberman and not a winnign Republican. If we had a base fired up about a candidate, would Joe have considered a run, not really, and we could have cherry picked a seat in the purge. But the CT GOP is on life support. And we need a serious, on the ground party building effort to grow good candidates for 2008.

Third, the success of talk radio is wonderful. And Fox News is great. The outreach to the Internet communities is important. But it is time to launch a Cable/Satellite television network to give the GOP a face. We already have a number of amateur vloggers and podcasters out there, eager to get messages out. Hot Air and their affiliated shows, Realverse, the right wing of Pajamas Media all can provide content and talking heads for a venture like this. In addition, Podcasters and Vloggers are out there eager to present a case. When Al Gore goes out and creates a TV network, and the liberals constantly try to create a successful left wing talker, it is incumbent on us on the right to not surrender more of the media. We raise phenomenal amounts of money. Examine the cost. And find out if programming detailing Conservative positions and feelings can work. Get a little start-up capital and go to it.

Finally, we need to stop pandering to various blocs of voters. Garnering voters in blocs may win an election, but they do not create good governance. When you are beholden to Christian conservatives, you get Harriet Miers. When you are so focused on improving GOP standing with Hispanic voters, you misread the tea leaves and support a base jarring amnesty plan. Instead, make a compelling case for an individual voter to support the party, both with their vote and also with their time and intelligence. Party volunteers are committed folks, and the more people we inspire to vote, the more people we will inspire to volunteer. And that's how you grow a party.

When you talk to leaders of particular voting blocs, any perceived slight can damage the support of that bloc because they look to their leaders to lead. This invests too much power in oligarchical arrangements where leaders deliver blocs of voters. It is far better to engage individuals than the blocs.

Last night our triumph of 2004 was repudiated. Interestingly, we did not go that far right. But on Iraq, we have been perceived as not doing enough to win the war and allow the Iraqi people to run their own nation. In that regard the concerted efforts of the terrorists who are working overtime to foment sectarian violence is partially to blame. Now is not the time for a lack of resolve. Now is the time to double down and win this sucker, and fast. The election of the Democrats to the House gives our enemies the appearance that they are weakening our resolve. And our resolve on Iraq, because it is a war of preemption, is weak. In that environment, it is incumbent on us to strike with a ruthless brutality to disrupt the plans of our enemies, so that the war reaches a conclusion quickly. It will be harder to strike with that ruthlessness int he new political environment.

The road is long ahead. Buck up and get to work. We have no choice but to soldier on and do the best we can for America.