After the Deluge | National Review

Getting the Republican party back on track.

Defining Pelosi early before the mainstream media can attempt its extreme makeover of the “First Female Speaker of the House.”

Identify the districts which conservative groups need to be focusing on.

Shifting the GOP’s attention to the future, not recriminations.

Encouraging strong congressional challengers (including many narrowly defeated incumbents) to step into the ring in 2008.

Republicans need to call immediately on Democrat representatives in red congressional districts (the ones that went for Bush in 2004) not to vote for Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. It won’t be successful, but it will help educate the voting population in the districts Republicans should hold.

Newly elected Democrats need to be scorched in paid media in proportion to the percentage of time they vote with Speaker Pelosi.

Voters in the target districts that were identified as Republicans in 2004 and 2006 should receive a detailed mailing highlighting the new committee chairmen and their views.

While it is unlikely that Pelosi will cooperate as much as Newt did in her own image implosion, she will not be able to hide from the national media for long.

Making the Democratic Majority Talk

Understanding her precarious position, Pelosi will probably not embark on any large, risky, and substantive efforts. Instead, she will employ a two part strategy of industry demonization and investigation.

Republicans need to force her and her congressional party to explain what they will do on the big issues of the day and not let them waffle and hide. They need to explain how they will save Social Security, or Medicare, for example.

Look for an Outsider as the 2008 Standard-Bearer

This mid-term election is looking more and more like most mid-term elections: a current and retrospective electoral judgment on the party in power.

But not all elections are about the past. Some presidential elections are about the future.

2008 will be a colossally important year, if for no other reason than the next president will likely shape the Supreme Court for a generation.

Conservatives cannot risk a presidential loss in 2008. If Iraq fatigue continues and the 2008 elections shape up as another retrospective judgment, the GOP needs an outsider candidate who had no role in Iraq or the scandals of the past few years.

– Robert Moran, a pollster, is senior vice president of StrategyOne.