A bit of advice

I have a couple of cliches for my Republican brethren:

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched

The election ain't over until all the ballots are counted, all the challenges are adjudicated, and all the court fights are over.  Yes, the GOP will probably pick up a lot of seats, but don't start making plans for who gets what committee and who's going to investigate what until after the election is decided.  Keep your eye on the prize, as I've heard someone say, and concentrate on each and every precinct that's in contention.

Pride goeth before the fall

Remember the Republican Revolution back in '94?   Yeah, we took the congress, and made Clinton's remaining time in office a living hell for him, but we still had our heads handed to us in '96.  That year we ran an ABC (Anybody but Clinton) strategy, and we lost badly.  In 2000 and 2004, we won by the slimmest of margins, mainly because the Democrats couldn't find a candidate with a pulse.  If we're looking beyond the mid-terms to 2012, we need to start laying the groundwork now to show that not only are we not Obama, but we have something better for the country than what he's proposing.  If we make the election about him and his cronies, then all he has to do is improve in the short term to undermine us. If we make it about our policies and our beliefs, then no matter what he does, the voters will know why they should vote for us.

So we need to stop crowing about the ass whooping we are about to deliver upon the Democrats, and stop making American politics about Obama. He'll mess up his career all on his own.  We need to concentrate on our near term goals of taking back the Congress and reversing the bad legislation of the past two years, and then work on our long term goals of finding a set of good candidates to choose from in 2012.  Don't bring us the usual gang of idiots who are nominated because it's their turn.  We want real leadership.  We want someone who can speak his mind and have it strike a chord with voters across the country.  We want someone who will not only be good at winning an election, but also be good at governing.