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I figure that the War in Iraq, House scandals, and general malaise cost us on average 8 points across the country, and possibly more.

On a level playing field, we would have not lost VA, MT, MO, RI, and possibly not OH, and we would have won NJ, and possibly MD, for a net change of -1 to +1.

In 2008, if we go into the year with the war, we're looking at a 1974 scenario. The Democrats will pick-up the Presidency not matter whom we nominate, expand their side in the Senate to the high 50s, and attain a large majority in the House.

The phenomenon of having very few elected Republicans will expand from New England and New York, to much of the rest of the country. We will be reduced to having a solid base in terms of elected officials, party infrastructure, donors, and so forth, to a regional party.

With Nixon, we were able to bounce back, after a few years, because he personally betrayed the nation and us. Bush, in spite of the accusations by some of the radical left, has not done anything of a sort. But, he has brought the Republican Party from majority status to the brink of disaster, by getting us committed to the war in Iraq.

We won that war in short order. Then, the mission changed from locating and destorying the weapons of mass destruction to establishing a viable democracy which would transform the Middle East. Talk about mission creep!

The result of attempting Operation Iraqi Freedom put OUR freedom on the line, and the one great duty we, the United States, owe the people of the world, is "to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity." Yes, extending the borders of freedom where this is pragmatic is in our interest, and I am not a neo-isolationist. But, risking our freedom to extend the borders of freedom is not only contrary to our interests, it jeopardizes the one real hope that mankind has for ending our sorry history of war and tyrrany.

Let me now consider an alternate scenario: We declare victory on the basis that, after three years of helping the new government, the future of Iraq is now for the people of Iraq through their democratically-formed government to determine.

We start bringing our soldiers home, continuing to aid Iraq through training and technical assistance, special operations units, air power and intelligence, and logistical support.

We get candidates for president and vice president that can lead us to victory, secure our base in the south, and restore our competitiveness in the north and the west. Candidates that we know that, when the chips are down, will come through for us, because they have come through for us in such situations in the past.

I am thinking of Rudy Guiliani and Haley Barbour.

Among the people we recruit to run for Governor, Senator, U.S. Congressman and state legislator are some of the very people who went down this year. And, I am thinking, because the stakes are so very important, that it's o.k. for a former U.S. Senator to run for a seat in the state Senate, or for a former U.S. Congressman to run for the county council. We have got to build our party back up in Colorado, New Hampshire, upstate New York and other places.

Here, in Virginia, I am thinking about George Allen running against one of our RINO state Senators next year, and of Tony Snowe running for the U.S. Senate to succeed John Warner. And, over in Maryland, I am thinking that Bob Erlich and Michael Steele need to get back up on the horse.

In Louisiana, Bobby Jindahl will again make a great candidate for Governor. He will lift the people of that state up out of their funk, and set the stage for us to win the Senate seat there in 2008.

And we need a policy agenda that appeals to all of our major constituencies (which means that it can't be everything each of our major constituencies wants).

The pro-lifers, for example, might not get "no exceptions," but they were never going to get "no exceptions" anyway, and the alternative is that the Democrats will start harvesting human tissues from clones.

The libertarians aren't going to get marijuana legalized, but maybe they can get medical marijuana available on prescription in states where this approved.

The conservatives aren't going to get the illegals expelled, but we can definitely seek to bring illegals out of the underground, pay taxes (and back taxes), and give them a TEMPORARY workers visa, deport them if they violate the law or become welfare dependents, and make them get on the back of the line for permanent residency.

Such pragmatic policies, combined with a vibrant economy and a military build-up, will restore us to majority status.