WoodbridgeVa, I agree:  That is why I support Ken Blackwell

Your comment actually reminded me a lot of Ken Blackwell's letter to the RNC members.  In it he noted that all the candidates for the chairman position are emphasizng the improvement of our use of media & technology, and that no matter who we elect that is probably going to get done out of necessity. 

But, as Blackwell wrote "It is time to completely remake the Republican Party by returning to our core philosophy (limited government, traditional values and a strong defense), reaching voters more effectively (by better utilization of technology, targeting and voter identification and turnout), and reorganizing the RNC itself (spending smarter, replacing staff and consultants and modernizing our fundraising infrastructure)."

Blackwell is not the flashiest or most well known choice.  Palin or Steele would probably satisfy those criteria.  But, Blackwell is the wisest choice for the long run.  He believes the right things & knows how to stick to his guns even when he is facing very difficult opposition.  He has a long track record of successful campamigns in a moderate state, and has never backed down from his strong fiscal conservative ideals.

Over the next 4-8 Obama years, Big Government is going to become very popular.  We need a chairman who wont back down on this issue.  Holding to our limited-government guns may cause us to loose in 2010 and 2012, but because we know big-government will fail, the republican party must have a chairman like Blackwell to be there to say to the nation "we told you so."

Dan.

1- I don't know how many fiscal conservatives would be excited about her....it was her socially conservative views that fired up the base. she clearly doesn't have any grasp on fine policy details and a lot of fiscal conservatives already feel like their needs are being ignored

2- Do you think she is capable of overseeing such a large organization? Fundraising, findng candidates, reaching out to new members, building a coalition? I don't see it at all

Bottom line- she appeals to a small group of people....but people on the far right that have always voted republican and always will; and I don't see how appointing her to that role would accomplish anything. I guess you could make the argument that she would "excite" the base, but (in addition to my first point) that base is limited and reliable for elections anyway.

...directly on point about the particular political relevancy of Sarah Palin, entitled:  GOP 5.0: What next for Lincoln's party?
 
HUGH HEWITT: There have been four modern GOPs: Barry Goldwater’s, Richard Nixon’s, Ronald Reagan’s and George W. Bush’s.

In the next year, a new GOP will begin to take shape, one that could make significant gains in the congressional elections of 2010, but only if it takes key steps quickly and commits to core reforms completely.

I have spent a lot of radio time on the subject since the election, talking on-air with, among others, former Govs. Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and former Bush adviser Karl Rove, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer, would-be RNC chairmen Michael Steele and Saul Anuzis, and three of the GOP's brightest tech gurus on the technology gap that currently yawns between Republicans and Democrats.

The diagnoses are so many, and the proposed cures so varied, that I have written a book that will be published soon by Townhall that collects all the best of the thinking, but a summary has to begin with the obvious fact that what we had here, to quote the captain in "Cool Hand Luke," was a failure to communicate. A massive failure to communicate.

Yes, corrupt individual congressmen derailed the message time and again.

Yes,  Bush was unpopular because of the difficulty and awful costs in lives of the war, even after the surge had undeniably turned Iraq toward stability and victory.

Yes, the president-elect had the entire MSM blocking for him, and the “debates” were low points in modern media.

And yes, the economic crisis created an incredible headwind for the party.

But victory was being achieved in Iraq, the U.S. had not been attacked since Sept. 11, 2001, 25 of 26 previous quarters had seen economic growth, social issues still mattered, and the GOP has been a party to which the country turned in a time of economic crisis in 1980.

The difference — a 6-point, 8 million vote difference, it turned out — was in the GOP's ability to communicate its ideals and its vision for America. The party lost its voice at precisely the moment it needed to be full throated. Gov. Sarah Palin's enormous popularity was primarily because she was unafraid to speak into the roar of disapproval of the media elite about the virtues of the classic GOP platform, including its belief in protecting unborn life and in economic liberty. As Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) noted after his blowout win — which also energized the GOP nationally — Palin’s barnstorming drew enormous crowds and allowed his runoff campaign to peak at exactly the right time. Palin draws the crowds because she believes, and she does not hesitate to say so.

If the GOP is going to take advantage of its minority status as it did in 1995-96, it will have to learn quickly how to communicate its core beliefs with energy and enthusiasm, using every opportunity to do so.
 

With a Big Three bailout on the table, the GOP should be demanding that the corporate tax rate for all companies in Michigan and Ohio be dropped to Ireland's 12.5 percent as part of a rescue package.
 

When Nancy Pelosi pushes embryonic stem cell research to the House in January, the GOP’s best speakers should use the moment to educate the public on the facts of the debate and the ethical issues involved, not shirk from it.

And at every turn, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, led, respectively, by Rep. Pete Sessions and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, should be asking for the money necessary to fund challengers — not incumbents — to make inroads in 2010 with an eye toward a majority in 2012. Both committees need to appeal to the base with a strategy that identifies the key Democratic seats early and commits to using funds raised via such appeals to bankroll challengers only. Communicate a plan to play to win, and the base that was dispirited in 2007 and 2008 will be back.

New and smart voices must emerge even as veterans of the Congress use their experience to slow down the worst parts of the new administration's agenda. Huckabee, Palin and Romney are clearly on the front bench for the GOP, along with Govs. Bobby Jindal and Mitch Daniels, but the GOP needs to identify as well a core group of elected officials and public intellectuals who are leaders in key areas and credential them and dispatch them.

A particular care must be taken to re-engage the under-25 vote, which has an impact via technology far beyond these voters' numbers at the polls. Here, conservatives are blessed with some great new journalistic talent in folks such as Guy Benson, Mary Katharine Ham, Ben Shapiro, David Freddoso and Amanda Carpenter. The RNC has to figure out how to push these voices — which will sometimes be critical of the GOP — and others on to college and university campuses, knowing that the freshmen who arrive in the fall of 2009 will be the class of seniors powering both the Obama reelection Web effort in 2012 as well as that of whomever the GOP sends out.

Finally, the GOP has to get on the same page, or pages. Literally. The Web and new media efforts of the GOP are pathetic and light years behind those of the Dems. The new media thrives on very few rules: Be fast and be accurate, be useful and occasionally funny. Blast e-mails weren’t very effective when they debuted a few years ago. Now they are just an annoyance. When the party truly embraces and learns to use new media, it will be a sign of seriousness about the party's comeback because it will be a sign of a commitment to “overcommunicate” and to take nothing for granted, and of the willingness to wade in and defend conservative ideals.

The new media world allows for massive information flows to occur in the blink of an eye, and with them, massive political change. President-elect Obama won on a media strategy dedicated to unspecific promises of change, and his colleagues in Congress are committed to proposals far to the left of the American mainstream. The GOP can return to majority status in the Congress, and to the White House, if it returns first to confidence in its ideas and competence in its communication. 

ex animo

davidfarrar

But that's unusual. Most post nothing. Actually, I kinda take that back, I saw a lot of Hart signs on businesses, and the farmer's market I visited had a very big McCain sign up, but I don't think that was the market's as it would have made VERY bad economic sense.

Did you see many Gore and Kerry signs where you live, when they were up for election?

Yet Obama managed to win -- or did you meant that McCain had no organization? I'm pretty sure Obama was organized in New Hampshire -- and that Boston was weighing in to help out there.

but I know that my Republican friend would suggest that you register Democratic, so that you can represent yourself in the elections that matter. Then you can support the most conservative of the Democrats. Naturally, you're still free to vote Republican in the general.