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Before we lose the election of 2014 we ought to consider how to conduct ourselves in the meantime. We have the House of Representatives and we have a filibuster sufficiency in the Senate. Those are potent forces. To understand how potent the forces can be consider the situation reversed with the Democrats out of the White House and in charge of the House of Representatives and filibustering in the Senate.

Of course, the media would not be writing stories about how the Republicans must compromise their views or face extinction, they would be writing stories about the absence of a presidential mandate and the need for the president to accommodate the real voice of the people as expressed by the House of Representatives. More to the point, Republican officeholders would not be sniping at other Republicans, they would they be breaking their written oaths concerning taxes, they would not, in short, be negotiating against themselves. But that is precisely what Republicans are doing today. Why?

The Stockholm syndrome? The understandable human need not to be beaten up by the media? Or, most likely, a lack of commitment to a set of conservative values. We conservatives, especially those who rise to the rank of elected office as Republicans, betray a lack of confidence in the virtue of conservative principles. We are apologizing before we even begin negotiating.

Politicians are easy to blame but they are really only mirrors of our own souls. The answer is not to turn our face from the process righteously and indignantly claiming the politicians screw us and therefore the system sucks, the answer is to do what the left does, build political forces that force the politicians to behave the way we want them to. Nor should we stop there, we should build forces which intimidate the media into reporting the news the way we want it seen and heard. It is time to start outing reporters and television personalities for their adulteries, their hypocritical closet homosexuality, their gambling, their excessive drinking, their illicit drug use, their tax cheating. Put the fear of God in them.

It is time to expand the concept of the Tea Party beyond applications only to economic issues, but to bring to play an emotional drive of the entire conservative electorate across the whole spectrum of issues. If the Tea Party wants to remain configured as an economic lobby group only, let us hear from an aggressive gun group, pro-life group, pro-traditional marriage group. If politicians are afraid to steal our guns it is not because they have come into a state of enlightenment, rather it is because, as Ronald Reagan said, "if they do not see the light make them feel the heat." Even the left, at least up until this election, has been intimidated by the NRA.

We have social media and the entire spectrum of new media with which to organize and broadcast these values. Mix a little sex in and you will get coverage by traditional media. If there can be gorilla marketing there can also be guerrilla politicking.

Never again should we let the other side define us in an election, never again let them steal the march. The campaign for the next election begins today and that begins with governing. Guerrilla politicking begins with unelected conservatives forcing elected Republicans to toe the line. I am advocating a full-court press now until the next election, full-court means multifaceted as well as end-to-end. At the cost of being called obstructionist, we will finally force our issues to be litigated. We have never really won the mushy middle anyway, we would not be sacrificing much for great gain.

Beautifully outlined path forward.

This running around like chickens with our heads cut off is not a winning strategy.

You’re spot on the money about building forces from within our conservative ranks. The visual of Americans (determined to stop the fiscal suicide being pursued by this administration), deliberately and quickly coalescing to stand together and face off against elected GOP weakness (and endless punditry of shock and woe over the election) will effectively throw power to the new conservatives in Congress (it’s the only thing that will — always does — get leadership’s attention).

The growth in conservative state houses lends credibility to the high probability for success in this move.

We have never really won the mushy middle anyway, we would not be sacrificing much for great gain.

Amen, brother! I am from NC and it is an excellent example of what can happen in just two years! From a Democratic wasteland of corruption, we have just elected only our third Republican governor since before the turn of the century and have veto-proof Republican majorities in both houses of the state legislature. In addition, Doug Forest, a political novice himself (although he is the son of retiring US HOR member Sue Myrick), just won a close election for LT Governor. His opponent was a well-financed black woman who was heavily backed by the NC State Employees' Association. If we will just stick to our conservative principles and use the power that the Republicans have in the "swing states" to enact reasonable voter ID laws, I am very optimistic about the future of the country.

Another reason that I am optimistic is that Obama's second term is going to be even worse than his first. His recent display of arrogance shows that he did not learn anything at all and did not mean a word of what he said about working with Republicans during the campaign. If we do what this article suggests and join the disparate voices in the party into one unified goal, as the Democratic Party was able to do years ago, we can overcome the failures of the past.

One of the most important things is to obey Reagan's number one rule: "Never speak ill of another Republican." The most amazing thing to come out of the election results was the finding that so many voters blamed GWB for the state of the economy after FOUR years of Obama's "misrule". President Bush was not perfect and I did not agree with all that he did, but Republicans (many on this board included) have been as guilty of bashing President Bush as was the media. If a serial rapist like President Clinton can be rehabilitated enough to have played a significant role in helping to reelect Obama, Republicans can resist the temptation to bash GWB and give him credit for what he did right.

I like the way you think. And the grassroots Tea Party (or rather, the Tea Parties that exist as individual entities in our respective communities,) must be careful not to let us be co-opted into a broad organization that carries the ‘title’ but not necessarily the intent. Same for candidates running for office. I don’t want a good think to be painted with a broad brush, or have some political candidate to try grabbing the mantle. We saw that but ooften the warnings came late. I see the need to organize on a larger, perhaps nationl or regionsl level but we must remain vigilant.

“It is time to start outing reporters and television personalities for their adulteries, their hypocritical closet homosexuality, their gambling, their excessive drinking, their illicit drug use, their tax cheating. Put the fear of God in them.”

i think you are right on the money. we need to put the MSM talking heads on the defensive so that they will become the news headline, and perhaps their influence might start to wane a little in the eyes of the slobbering public who only get their understanding of what’s going on in the world from these propagandists.

Same rationalization was spouted in Nov 2008. The GOP "leadership" had their way again this cycle with another annointed nominee and somehow managed to blow it even bigger than then.

That aside, we have reached and surpassed the tipping point in this nation. There are now more of us interested in "free" stuff from Uncle Sam than there are those of us who still hold to the principles of limited goverrnment and the personally responsible notion of pay your own way. Couple that with the fact that legal standards of requirement for citizenship and voting rights no longer apply and we have a perpetual state of takers stripping wealth and prosperity from the makers. No amount of GOP political triangulation for regaining power under the presumption that constitutional conservatism will magically grow roots again is going to reverse the process now.

It's going to take a watershed event to reset the political and cultural landscape. It's going to be downright painful, if not fatal.