I will respond after restating your suggestions:
1 Drop the formal opposition to Affirmative Action : This mutes the charge of “historical opposition/indifference to civil rights”. The opposition to AA/Quotas can remain in principle.
* Affirmative Action is de facto raicism. It denies equal protection under the law and is an unintended admission that one race is non-competitive with another, something I doubt you want to say. The problemm is not opportunity, but the attitude to succeed. Waves of immigrants for centuries have proven this to be true.
2 Drop the formal opposition to “Amnesty” for Illegal Immigrants: Focus on securing the borders. The status of the 20 million or so illegal immigrants is now more or less an Obama/Democrat problem and has been essentially a lost issue for the GOP. We in opposition to Obama will need to cut into his Hispanic support in 2012 in order to defeat him.
* So, rule by law is no longer operative?
3 Drop formal opposition to Environmentalism. Yes, I know that environmental extremist are nuts, but the GOP must recognize when a battle is probably lost and not waste precious political capital on what I consider minor issues (especially when there will be major battles to be fought over major issues). Remember this is just a formal dropping of an issue, but not the issue itself in principle.
* I think you might have something here but not for the reasons you offer. While the science of “global warming” is highly suspect, there are many reasons that we should be thinking about better environmentally friendly policies. But not drilling in Alaska makes libs look ultra-stupid.
4 Focus on middle class, middle class, middle class!
* Correct!
5 Focus on domestic/economic/education issues. Less on foreign policy. To be sure there will certainly be new issues of both to tackle in ’12, but I can guarantee with the failed economic policies put in place by The Obama administration-—domestic policies will again be front and center.
* You obviously got bored with WOT. Not over yet. The Cold War is re-emerging. Foreign policy is more crucial now than ever before. We are losing our Super-Power status.
6 Build bridges to unions/working class. Historically Unions and the GOP have been arch-enemies. But the alliance between big business and the GOP in decline. Big Business seem to have found a new love REDs-—“Rich Elite Democrats”. We need to counter this with courting some of there core constituencies. This may have already have begun in West Virginia and among many Hillary Clinton Dems.
* Nixon and Reagan did build some bridges, but they did so without sacrificing philosophical conservatism. They made a case that Teamsters and others saw made sense. Unions are inherently socialistic. Taking steps toward that is NOT what we are about, especially the open ballot legislation.
7 Continue with strong opposition to Gay “marriage”, Abortion and Adult Euthanasia.
* Black babies are disproportionately being killed. Jesse Jackson raised this issue until the “white man” told him to tow the line and take his place among Democrats. Wrong is wrong.
8 Continue with strong opposition to Islamic Extremism, and Socialistic Liberal Extremism.
* Correct!
9 Continue to be strong on crime, the death penalty and gun ownership rights.
* Correct!
Because the 14th amendment has been twisted to grant anchor babies of illegal immigrants citizenship, you have tens of millions of children growing up in households where they have no loyalty to the United States and no understanding of our constitution. Therefore they are Democrats by definition.
Most of what now calls itself environmentalism is really a front for what you correctly called Socialistic Liberal Extremism. 90% of environmental legislation has nothing to do with Spotted Owls or fresh water mussels, it has everything to do with crippling capitalism.
Pop quiz: who was the only union member to be elected President? Ronald Reagen. Who was the only member of a union household in this election? Sarah Palin.
Economy and education should be a top priority. Unfortunately, the two candidates in this election were indistinguishable. The problems with both were too much government. The solutions to both are less government.
America is slowly becoming weaker. The thugs and dictators of the world smell blood (See Osama Bin Laden referring to us as a paper tiger after the Somolia debacle). Foreign policy and domestic policy are forever linked. If our foreign policy is weak our economic position will be also. If we have a weak domestic policy then we have no bargaining position in the world.
Amen.
Well Said.