No matter who wins the Presidential election, the Republican Party is clearly on life support. If the worst should happen, namely a President Obama with a Democratic-controlled Congress, some serious Rx will be needed to bring new life to the GOP.

I hear a lot of pundits saying that the solution is to find the next Reagan or simply get back to conservative principles. While these are thoughts I would agree with, they don’t represent a serious solution to revitalizing the Republican brand.

What’s needed are specific political reforms that the Republican Party must stand for. McCain and Palin were on to something when they started talking about “reform”, but they haven’t been able to provide a clear message on what the reforms will be. Additionally, the Party needs to actively develop national candidates and market the GOP brand. If successful, conservative principles and the next Reagan will have the opportunity to reemerge.

Here are the key reforms that need to be part of the ongoing Republican platform until they are implemented:

Congressional Reform

Term Limits – the country needs people in Congress who are there to serve their country, not their next reelection bid. The Executive branch has term limits and so should the Legislative.

 

Line-Item Veto – Congress needs to give the President the ability to veto any specific funding items in a bill while approving the rest of it. Congress can still override any of the vetoed items with a two-thirds majority.

 

No Earmarks – all Republican legislators must take a pledge to refrain from inserting earmarks into any legislation. Also, they must be fully committed to vote against any bill that contains them.

 

High Ethical Standards – all Republican legislators must pledge to uphold the highest standards of ethics and personal integrity.

 

No Lobbyist Money – Republican legislators will not accept any campaign funding from registered lobbyists.

Tax Reform

Fair Tax – the current income tax must be replaced with a consumption tax, such as the Fair Tax (www.fairtax.org).

 

Social Security – it will demand significant tax increases or reduced benefits if it is not addressed. It needs to be phased out and replaced with personal retirement accounts.

Energy Reform

The goal should be to achieve energy independence by 2025. It will start with eliminating all federal restrictions on accessing oil, gas & clean coal resources within our borders and in our coastal waters. Congress will also lift any restrictions on building and expanding nuclear power plants. Any promising alternative energy solutions will be able to obtain federal grants for research and development.

The reason for focusing on these specific reforms is that the majority of people in this country can enthusiastically support them, including Libertarians, Independents, Ron Paul supporters and Reagan Democrats. If the Republican Party can demonstrate commitment to these reforms, it should significantly help in getting Republicans voted into office, regaining a majority in Congress and then being able to push through the necessary legislation to implement the reforms.

This doesn’t mean that the Party will ignore its core beliefs of personal freedom and traditional values. Those will continue to be front and center. What the reforms will demonstrate is that the GOP is a party of action, not just a set of beliefs and values. It will allow candidates to tell voters what they plan to accomplish, not just give them platitudes about “fighting” for them or “standing up” for their beliefs. These reforms, when implemented, will result in limited government and economic growth that fundamentally changes the political landscape. These reforms will make it much harder for Left to use the federal government for their wealth redistribution and social engineering ideology.

Along with pursuing these reforms, the Party also needs to give itself a makeover with regards to recruitment and development of candidates and the initiation of an ongoing marketing campaign to promote the GOP brand.

Candidate Recruitment & Development

The Party needs to be more aggressive with ongoing efforts to identify future national level candidates. They need to actively vet, recruit and develop these individuals so they will be ready to take the national stage. They must provide training to improve their personal appeal, communication skills and understanding of national issues. These future candidates will also require fundraising and campaign support from the Party.

The objective should be to ensure that the Party always has a stable of high quality candidates for every Congressional race. With term limits in place, this will become much more important because there will no longer be career politicians who retain their seats for 20-30 years. The Party also needs to groom future Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and they should constantly be working on lists of prospects who can be projected out to the next two or three election cycles. Just imagine what Sarah Palin would be like as a candidate in this election, if instead of getting a last-minute crash course on national issues and foreign policy, she would have been tutored for the VP position for a year or more. Bobby Jindal should be getting groomed right now for a potential candidacy in four or eight years. This grooming would include establishing a record of accomplishments and successes as Governor, getting acquainted with foreign leaders and policies and developing a strong understanding of domestic and economic issues. The Party has been too passive in waiting for candidates to emerge. They need to take a more proactive approach that identifies individuals with the most potential, turns them into outstanding candidates and fully promotes their campaigns. There should never again be Republican candidates who are poor campaigners, have limited knowledge on key issues or have past indiscretions that can be used against them.

Marketing Campaign

As we have seen from this current election cycle, the vast majority of the mainstream media is the liberal media. This liberal media is worth millions in campaign propaganda for the Democrats. The Republican Party needs to hire a professional firm to develop an ongoing marketing campaign to counteract the influence of the liberal media. The campaign must include advertising in the liberal media (TV, print, radio and Internet), the unleashing of spokespeople who can convincingly explain Republican positions and a calling out of the “journalists” who are Democratic Party shills (“make them famous” as John McCain would say). It is also important to ensure that there are active College Republican groups at as many colleges and universities as possible. They should be provided with the necessary support to be able to sponsor Republican speakers on campus, as well as Republican-Democrat debates. These groups can then be leveraged as campaign offices during national elections to distribute literature and spread the word about the candidates.

The bottom line is that the GOP must take aggressive action to revive itself. If it passively sits there waiting for the next Reagan, then it will likely stay dormant for decades. On the other hand, if they can develop a reform strategy and recruit effective candidates to push it through, the Elephant may not only get back on its feet, but he could stomp the Donkey at the same time.