North Star Writers Group

In the wake of its electoral defeat last Tuesday, the Republican Party has little time to lick its wounds. It needs to regroup and get back on offense if it is to keep the Democrats from cementing their power for a long time to come in 2008. Now that they do not have an ideologically divided, razor-thin majority to defend, they are free to be what they should always have been – unapologetically conservative. More than that, they simply have nothing left to lose. And the stakes are too high to worry about being over-aggressive.

The GOP can count on the Democrats to overplay their hand to some degree. Control of Congress changed based on a few thousand votes for "moderate" Democrats over incumbent Republicans. It was not, by any stretch, a choosing of far-left liberalism. But the practical effect of their victories was to inflict far-left liberal ideas and policies on America just the same. (Whether these freshmen "moderates" really are moderate is beside the point. They have no significant power yet, and incoming Speaker Pelosi isn't about to indulge her right flank nearly to the extent the GOP leadership did their left one. Maybe these voters should have been able to see that ahead of time, but that ship has sailed.) Given 12 long years out of power, their unhinged personal hatred of President Bush and the fact that hard-left liberals are pretty much all that's left in the Democratic Party, they'll not be able to help but go overboard. Their glee at sticking it to Bush and the GOP will be almost orgasmic.

The only "benefit" of this sorry spectacle will be that when folks see Democrats implementing policies that they didn't select with an intensity and a fervor they don't share, they'll be open to switching back to the GOP, provided the GOP delivers the proper message with which to win them over.

The utterly biased mainstream media will run total cover for the Democrats. No matter how off the deep left end the Democrats get, only a smidgen of that fact will ever get through the media to the voters. The mainstream media are one great big press secretary for the Democratic cause. (Witness Chris Matthews already offering advice on leadership post appointments.) This may inadvertently motivate Democrats to overplay their hand all the more, as they listen too much to the non-stop rabid cheerleading coming from the Fourth Estate. But if voters don’t recognize this because of the way the media misreports it – or simply ignores it – what price will the Democrats pay for it?

The GOP needs to realize that communication is its single biggest obstacle to regaining what it has lost. They must be 10 times the speakers that the Democrats are and 100 times more tough and persistent to take on the mainstream media and get their message through unfettered. In fact, the GOP may have to simply put the Democrats aside for the moment and simply focus on the media as their primary opponent. They may have to go as far as tapping some of their bigger pocket donors for the purposes of buying and flipping existing media outlets, or starting their own parallel media infrastructure from scratch. Whatever the case, the GOP cannot continue dealing with the mainstream media the way it has been. Republican tactics must change, as must the nature of them media itself, if the Republicans are to have any shot at all.

Finally, a reckoning must occur within the GOP. Republicans must decide what they really believe and what they're really willing to put on the line to achieve it. Are they really a conservative party? (Certainly, they are more now than before Election Day with some of the incumbents that are no longer in their ranks.) Are they willing to put aside selfish concerns and favor the cause first? Are they willing to show some guts by filibustering and vetoing like Daschle and Reid have spent the last 12 years doing even though the hypocritical media will absolutely crucify them for it, whereas they scarcely ever mentioned Daschle's and Reid's obstruction-mania? And are they able to unapologetically explain why and stick to it in a way that will get through the media buzzsaw and connect with voters?

If the GOP either cannot or will not, then 2008 will see not only a long-term cementing of Democratic power, but very likely the worst-case scenario of all – the election of President Hillary Clinton. It's going to be hard enough to stop her with the media helping her and the aura that will develop around the whole "first female" bandwagon. The openings are there (in the form of her personal dislike poll numbers being very high), but like the Democrats overplaying their hand, it won't matter a whit if the GOP isn't loaded for bear and firing on all cylinders so as to exploit those vulnerabilities. And more than that, if it doesn’t have the will to do it.

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