The President is using the current economic crisis to implement a federal government takeover of a significant amount of our free market economy and our liberties. The “trojan horses” he is using are the bailout, stimulus and omnibus budget bills, which he claims are necessary to get the economy back on its feet and create jobs. Instead, these bills will set up the federal government to permanently control the banking industry, auto industry, education, health care, energy and significantly expand the federal bureaucracy and entitlements. Additionally, there will be no further efforts to stop illegal immigrants from entering the country and those who succeed will be given ever increasing amounts of federal benefits (education, health care, welfare, voting rights, social security, etc.). Our liberties will be gutted in areas such as the right to bear arms, private property ownership and school choice. Doctors will be forced to perform abortions against their moral convictions and enemy combatants will be given the legal rights of U.S. citizens. The funding for all of this will fall on businesses and taxpayers who are the major producers in the economy. They will be hit with higher income and payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, cap-and-trade energy taxes, inheritance taxes and will lose deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property taxes, state taxes, etc. However, this will not be enough to cover this massive expense and the government will need to go further into debt or print more money which will devalue the dollar and spur inflation.

The President and Democrat-controlled Congress are poised to use these trojan horse bills to transform this country for generations to come. They are trying to divert attention from them by blaming the problems on Bush, ignoring the stock market response, starting a fight with Rush Limbaugh and flat out lying about not believing in big government. They are also trying to equate the stock market response to the false idea that the bills do not include enough spending and that more is needed.

Other than the unanimous vote against the stimulus bill in the House, the Republicans have been pretty much flopping in the wind when it comes to making a case against these socialist directions that the country is heading. A big part of this stems from the fractured leadership within the party. Without a Republican president or a dominant candidate for 2012, several individuals have tried to fill the leadership gap such as Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Bobby Jindal, etc. While they all have good ideas and oppose Obama's radical transformation, their disconnected, and sometimes conflicting, ideas are not providing a consistent, coherent message to the American people. Without that, they will not be able to stop or even slow down the transformation, nor will they convince the American people to vote them back into office in 2010 and 2012. Not having a single individual who the GOP can rally around, means that they will need to develop a leadership team and a plan to carry their message and take the necessary actions to regain control of the Executive and Legislative branches of government.

This can be accomplished by first organizing a GOP convention. The attendees would include the national and state party officials, members of Congress, aspiring candidates for Congress and governorships, current governors, former governors and members of Congress, College Republicans, conservative talk show hosts and columnists, bloggers and various policy experts. The agenda would be as follows:

Day 1 – Key Issue Presentations; policy and subject matter experts would present facts and perspectives on the key issues that the country is facing such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, illegal immigration, taxes, education, health care, energy policy, climate change, trade agreements, national debt, social security, etc. The objective is to get everyone up-to-speed on the issues and on common ground with them.

Day 2 – Pundit Forum; conservative talk jockeys, columnists and bloggers will get the chance to present their views on the direction of the Republican Party and the issues of the day through individual speeches or by participation on panel discussions. They will be able to weigh in on the previous day's presentations and provide their perspectives on the solutions and positions that the party should promote.

Day 3 – Platform Development; small groups would focus on specific issues and develop solutions and positions that could be adopted for the platform. Hopefully, these would include many of the reforms I mentioned in my previous post titled “The Elephant in the Room: GOP Rx”. Especially important now is getting tax reform with the Fair Tax, challenging man-made global warming and carbon taxes, opening up oil and gas exploration in this country, building nuclear power plants, defending marriage, preventing terrorist attacks, making health insurance affordable, dealing with illegal immigration, balancing the budget and cutting entitlements and insisting that people take responsibility for their mistakes (i.e. no more bailouts).

Day 4 – Platform Adoption and Designation of Champions; each plank in the platform would be presented by the small group responsible for it. Discussions would ensue and possible refinements made until the plank was officially adopted. Also, 3-5 “champions” would be assigned to take these positions public. These champions would consist of a mix of former and current governors and members of Congress. Their objective would be get interviews on news programs, write opinion pieces, do speaking engagements, develop bills in Congress or fight against ones proposed by Democrats and find any way possible to deliver their messages to the general public.

Day 5 - Candidate Lists and Gap Analysis; documentation would be provided that identifies all of the potential candidates for the each open congressional seat and governorship for the upcoming 2010 and 2012 elections, along with presidential candidates for 2012. Many of the challenger candidates (vs. incumbents) would have the opportunity to give a short speech to introduce themselves to the convention attendees. The objective is to have at least one Republican candidate for every open seat, so the gaps will need to be identified. These gaps will become the responsibility of Republican National Committee (RNC) who will work with state affiliates to identify and prepare new candidates.

Day 6 – Liberal Indoctrination on College Campuses; documentation would be provided that lists all the colleges and universities that have College Republican organizations on campus and the number of members. Major universities without a Republican organization would also be identified. College Republicans would participate in panel discussions that address how to form a organization, overcome resistance from school administrators, recruit members, sponsor speakers and debates, disseminate marketing materials and position papers, develop an Internet presence and discuss ways to counter the liberal biases of most professors. The Young America Foundation would provide a presentation on how they successfully bring in conservative speakers to college campuses. The RNC would be responsible for identifying individuals who would be willing and able to start up a College Republican organization at each of the schools that do not currently have one.

Day 7 – Media Bias; liberal bias has corrupted objective journalism for several decades, but with this past election the liberals in the media blatantly became campaigners for the Democrats and tried to do everything they could to downgrade Republican candidates. However, this day is not to figure out ways to fix that, but to discuss ways to deal with it and use it to Republican advantage. The entire list of media organizations (print, Internet, television and radio) will be graded on the strength of their liberal bias, along with key individuals in those organizations. Panel discussions and presentations will provide ideas on how to handle hostile interviews containing “gotcha” questions and unfair challenges. Also, how do Republicans successfully counter liberal propaganda that poses as objective news? Can conservative views make significant inroads into other media besides talk radio, the Internet and FOX News? (By the way, this is the only day that will be closed to all media organizations.)

During the convention, all potential candidates and current office holders will be asked to sign the Commitment to Integrity Pledge which has these tenets:

• Members of Congress will not add any earmarks or pork spending to any bills.

• Members of Congress will vote “No” on any bills containing earmarks or pork spending.

• Governors will refuse federal money that is for earmarks or pork spending.

The convention will also kick off the RNC's new goals:

• Identify, recruit and train candidates for every congressional seat and governorship before the next election.

• Establish College Republican organizations at every major college and university during the next four years.

• Expand conservative voices in the mainstream liberal media.

• Raise a boatload of money to support candidates and the marketing of the GOP positions.

Holding a convention like this sometime in the next few months could provide huge benefits for the GOP. It would show that the party is not going to just wander in the wilderness for the next four years, while waiting for the next Reagan to lead it to the promised land. It will help them shed the “party of no” label when they oppose Obama and the Democrats because they will have documented, opposing positions on all the issues. They will be much better prepared for the next election through aggressive recruiting of quality candidates and will be actively countering liberal indoctrination in the schools. They will have a cohesive and consistent voice with which to speak to the voters and be able to successfully articulate how Obama's trojan horses will destroy the greatness of this country.