Thoughts on the Aftermath

Last night I went to sleep with the ill feeling of knowing that the most liberal and under-qualified person to run for the office of the President, was elected by the people of this great country to be our next President. I take some solace in knowing that the damage was mitigated in the House and likely the Senate too. I am still hopeful that we can limit some of the most extreme elements of the Obama agenda with Senatorial filibusters. I am also hopeful that only the most liberal of Supreme Court Justices will retire before the Republicans can retake the Senate and White House.

That being said, I am already hearing sniping and back-stabbing of Gov. Sarah Palin by some of the McCain campaign. This is just disgusting. Senator McCain lost this election (or you could say Obama won it). To blame Gov. Palin as a “drag” on the ticket is appalling. Those staffers should be ashamed of themselves and the job they did during this campaign. This is a time for introspection, not external blame games. Republicans voted for McCain in the primary. That is the first place the Party needs to look. Each Republican that pulled the lever for McCain this past winter and spring needs to ask themselves if they voted for the best person to represent the Party.

On the national level as a whole, the Republicans did not learn any discernable lessons from 2006 and paid the price for those same issues again. The Republican Party needs new, younger, more conservative leadership. It needs leaders with new ideas and a new image. The Republican Party needs to focus on the things that all Americans agree on. Newt Gingrich, and his American Solutions PAC, has put together an agenda that is pro-American and, for lack of a better word, populist. Americans are tired of the bitter political rancor and want solutions to real problems. America is a center-right nation, and the Republican Party is going to make the most sense to most Americans in the end. If we can get our bearings straight, look past the old tired lines of “smaller government” and “lower taxes”, and actually present ideas that display those beliefs rather than just spouting them as talking points, I wholeheartedly believe that we can retake the White House in 2012.

Over the next several months I will dedicate this blog to advocating ideas based upon my core center-right (conservapendent) beliefs. It is my hope that these core beliefs and ideas will be shared by the Republican leadership in Washington D.C.