John McCain had his shot in 2000 and didn't make the cut.  That should have been the end of his Presidential aspirations.  Don't get me wrong.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the man, but he should not have been our candidate.  A lot of people are criticizing the fact that he picked Sarah Palin for his running mate and some are blaming her for his loss.  Whatever.  Trust me, John McCain would not have done as well as he did without her.  All in all he ran a crummy campaign, period.  Obama ran circles around him on the Internet.  The Republican Party needs to play catch up big time in this area.  RNC are you listening???

What really hurt us was the fact that Republicans simply abandoned ship before the election.  There were so many retirements from the House and Senate by Republicans it was virtually impossible for us to take back either chamber.  That also left the McCain campaign weak as a result.

Last, but certainly not least, there is the news media.  What can I say?  Their behavior and Democrat bias has become so outrageous it is being parodied on television every week.  The way Sarah Palin was immediately savaged by the press when she was perceived to be a threat to Obama was absolutely ridiculous.  On a more serious note, the treatment that was given to "Joe the Plumber" should make everyone pause.  Here was an ordinary man that had the audacity to ask Obama a tough question when the candidate came to his own front yard.  The personal attacks on him that followed should scare the living daylights out of every American.  Officials in Ohio immediately started to pilfer his personal records and leak the information to a complicit media who took great joy in trashing this guy in front of the entire world.  Think about that for a minute.  Let it sink in.  That could be you.  These tactics are reminiscent of the East German Stasi or the Soviet KGB.  Scary stuff people.

Where do we go from here?  Well, we look forward and not back.  Reagan was a great President and he should serve as an inspiration.  Likewise, Newt Gingrich was a shrewd politician when he orchestration the Republican comeback in 1994.  But we cannot use the Contract with America as a template for a 2010 comeback.  Again, we have to look forward for a strategy and only look backward for inspiration.  We need fresh faces front and center representing the Party.  The torch needs to be passed to some of the younger Republicans.

Additionally, I believe education is the issue that we should focus on moving forward.  This is the Democrats Achilles heel.  They are against educational choice for parents.  They are beholden to teacher's unions. They have painted themselves into a corner and we need to take advantage of it.  

We need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and regroup for 2010.  I am confident that we can leverage the issue of education locally and nationally.  Let's get to work!