Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Roadmap To Success

I like this:

Georgia Republican Tom Price offers a proposal:

The Republican Party is at its best when its leadership has a bold vision and is rooted to conservative principles: personal responsibility, liberty, limited government, traditional values, providing for the common defense, and optimism about the future.  But Republicans seem to have lost the ability to intelligently or ideologically define these principles and convey them to the American people.

Moreover, elected conservative leaders need to act immediately in order to facilitate the rebuilding of the Republican Party and reconnect it to the conservative movement.

.     Back to basics: The first step starts with a little bit of self-reflection and "re-learning" the core principles of conservatism.  Only through understanding the past can our core principles be applied and developed into meaningful solutions to tackle the challenges facing America.

.     Party of Solutions: A new Republican platform of ideas and language must be created and championed, built on a foundation of conservative solutions.  It will also need to be built from the ground up from fresh and innovative ideas.

.     Rebuild the party's infrastructure and coalitions: There must be a specific focus on nurturing the grassroots, shoring up ties with existing coalitions and leading thinkers, and creating new infrastructure to meet the challenges of politicking in a new century.

.     Hold Democrats accountable: This begins with a proactive and coordinated strategy between elected conservative leaders and outside allies.  Americans need to be reminded on a daily basis that Democrats want to play politics and centralize power, raise taxes, cut defense spending, and undermine traditional values.

.     Go on offense, engage and educate: Yes, Virginia, someone in Washington is fighting for you.  And when Republicans stay on offense and engage, then it garners attention and provides opportunities to educate every American on conservative solutions that work.  Look no further than the Energy Revolt on the floor of the House of Representatives this past August which gave Republicans a needed voice and identity.

.     Remain unified and disciplined: Hostile Democrat majorities and liberal special interests are more energized than they have been in decades.  Without unity and discipline, the differences between the two parties become blurred, and conservatives have every right to question allegiance to Republicans.

.     Reclaim the American lexicon: Democrats have been successful in altering the mindset of what made this nation great through language and institutions. Once, Americans valued "responsibility," "self-determination," and "hard work."  Now, these ideals have been replaced by fuzzy appeals to "diversity," "fairness," and "social justice."  No longer can Republicans cede the language or institutions.

.     Broaden the appeal: Republicans win elections when they run on an across-the-board conservative solutions-based agenda. However, the appeal must be broadened to acknowledge and embrace the demographics in our country.  Failure to do so will relegate the party to permanent minority status.

In other words: grow a pair, pick some fights, and don't compromise on core principles which are attractive to most Americans.  Anyone who wants to join in can join in, but they must sign onto the core principles to do so.

I like it.  It just might work (because it has in the past).

There's my two cents.

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