Ringing In 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Let us, fellow Republicans and Conservatives, resolve to make the upcoming year a productive and positive one as we ring in 2009.

Let us resolve to become active and vocal as we move forward as a party.

Let us resolve to embrace the opportunities before us. After much reading and pondering and listening to smart people with common sense I have some suggestions to make.

Let us resolve to support and lend our voices to some emerging groups with the mission to rebuild our party. It is in the best interests of everyone to become active, on whatever scale manageable.

Here are some that I have chosen to support and lend energies: Rebuild the Party has a 10 point plan for the future of the party. All but one of the candidates running for Chair of the
Republican Party has signed on to it.

Top Conservatives on Twitter is bringing social networking and media to all. With 2008 now known as the year that journalism died in our country due to its blatant campaigning for the Democrat candidate, social media is more important than ever. Republicans have been slow off the mark but that is all changing now.

Smart Girl Politics is "A Conservative Women's Movement". This network consists of conservative thinking women across the country. Blogging posts, special interest groups, regional groups and a sense of political involvement flourish.

Several Web sites have emerged to move the party along. The Next Right is one.

Let us resolve to educate ourselves about the business of winning campaigns while maintaining our ideology. Our party succeeds when we demand our elected officials remain fiscally responsible, open minded in problem solving and humble by listening to us, the voter. We hire them, we fire them. No more spending sprees to maintain power.

Let us resolve to acknowledge our country is still a center-right country. In the exit polls after the 2008 Presidential election, 38% self-identified as conservative, 24% as liberal, and about 40% as moderate/independent. Though the new administration would have you believe the election results are a mandate for liberal governing, that is not fact.

Let us resolve, in light of our country remaining a center-right country, to expand outreach to moderate/independents of all stripes. Remember, Republican candidates win with conservative and moderate Democrat support. If only the base of either party is accommodated, no one wins. Most of all, the country. We must grow our party with inclusion, otherwise it will continue to shrink.

Let us resolve to rise to the challenge of rebuilding the party. Blue Dog Democrats and Moderate Republicans are welcome. Common sense is our guide. Our candidates must stay on message and refrain from the non-issue rhetoric viewed as unimportant to voters. The vast majority of voters only think about politics as they go to the polls. In order to get the vote, the candidate must engage and inform the electorate of his/her solutions to everyday concerns.

We live in exciting times. The time is now to rise to the challenge.

Yes, we can.