The Liberal Boogeywoman

That was essentially the GOP election strategy in '06. It is clear that much of the GOP went into this election thinking that all they needed to do was to hammer on how liberal Nancy Pelosi and her party's candidates were and how obviously bad that is for the country. Unfortunately, for them, the Dems had some conservative Democrat candidates running in a lot of places. Add to the mix, the fact that most people don't know who the heck Pelosi is, and its a recipe for a big time loss. In close elections, politicians need to give the voters a reason to vote for them, and not just against the other guy, or someone not on the ballot. A lot of the Congressmen and Senators couldn't point to their own conservative accomplishments when the Congress had pretty much abandoned their principles for the sake of maintaining their own power.

The lesson to be learned from this for 2008 is clear: The GOP needs to nominate a good conservative candidate, with a good record to run on. They will not be able to nominate any old "it's his turn" politician and win running on a platform of "At least he's NOT Hillary!" That won't work. That election is still a long way away, but we need to get it in our heads right now that we have to have an appealing agenda to run on and a good nominee who will inspire people to vote for him (or her) and not just against the Dem nominee. Like we always say, you can't beat something with nothing.