You will not read here a post election campaign analysis replete with recriminations. Instead, this commentary is a pull no punches, bare knuckles conservative call to arms and definitely not for the weak or faint heart.

Truth be told, given the current landscape - especially the economic meltdown - it would have been a stretch for any Republican nominee to retain the White House, least of all charisma- challenged John McCain. And the political environment was just too hostile for a Republican to have a reasonable shot in 2008.

Let's face it:  Barack Obama is their Ronald Reagan.

So, what now?

Sarah Palin and other new breed of populist oriented Republicans like Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana are poised to emerge as the party's future. The resurgence of the Republican Party must include an affinity for everyday, ordinary Americans and shedding forever the party's corporate image and aurora of elitism.

And, as I wrote here in "The Times They Are A Changin'", this new breed "also includes a few principled, young turks (free market, no bailout) Republicans in the House like Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana Tom Feeney of Illinois and Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan."  It includes "as well a small number of similar stalwarts in the Senate - Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and that anti earmark, pork hater, the heroic Tom Coburn of Oklahoma."
 
The party must reinvigorate the conservative mantra of individual freedom, free market capitalism - of which the financial bailout made a mockery - small government and low taxes. Fundamental tenants of this conservative mantra are also the absolute belief in the inviolate constitutional doctrine of states' rights and the idea that government's main responsibility is to protect me and then to leave me the hell alone.

Among other critical tasks, the Republican Pay has to recover its historic identity and reclaim the role of fiscal grown-up.  The party of Lincoln, particularly under the current president, supported high-spending, deficits, mounting debt and extension of entitlements.  One of the more egregious failures of the Bush administration has been its abandonment of any sense of fiscal discipline and responsibility.

The philosophy of the party should unequivocally and firmly be replanted in the British Tory tradition of Edmund Burke and the tradition of modern day American conservatism as ignited and espoused by Barry Goldwater.  These traditions speak of civility and tolerance but never, ever sacrificing our principles.

Depart, I say...

Barry Goldwater said "The great Republican Party is our historic home. This is our house..." 

It's time, once again, for conservatives to regain dominance in our home as Goldwater did.  From the grassroots to the Republican National Committee, conservatives with a populist gospel must work to return the party to its roots.

Conservatives have been down this road before with great success.  After Richard Nixon's close defeat by John F. Kennedy in 1960, conservatives seized control of the Republican Party culminating in Barry Goldwater's nomination four years later.

After Goldwater's subsequent defeat, a commentator said "The GOP will either go forward as the conservative party or it will disappear and conservatism will be forced to create another vehicle." The GOP went forward and the movement Goldwater started formed the base of the Republican Party for decades to come. From 1968 to 2004, in ten presidential elections, Republicans won seven of them.

As we conservatives go down this road again in the next few years, the fight to recapture the Republican Party is going to be bloody. So be it.

On May 7, 1940, in a historic debate in the House of Commons on the fate of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his government, Leo Amery turned to Chamberlain and uttered these immortal words:

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have now done with you.  In the name of God, go!"

 So, Depart, I say, and let us have now done with you pedigree, entitled Republicans; you old guard GOP elites; you K Street hustlers; you Republican bailout supporters; you vain, arrogant, earmark Republican members of Congress; you country club Republicans; you welfare based farm bill Republicans; you fat cat Republicans; you either believe in my God or be damned Republicans; you Wall Street and beltway infected Republicans; you out of touch, clueless clowns at the Republican National Committee; and all you "compassionate conservatives" and so called moderate and progressive conservatives.

You know who you are so I won't call you out. You've had your destructive moment as you fed at the trough of power. You've derailed and discredited almost every aspect of the Republican ascendancy and left the Republican pary in tatters, betrayed conservative principles and failed the American people.

Barry Goldwater also said, during the 1964 campaign:

"You know in your hearts that something is wrong in our land..."

We also know in our hearts that something is wrong in our party. We begin the righting- pun intended - of the wrong by acting mercilessly on Amery's words of 68 years ago.

2012 can't come soon enough.  But first we conservatives must do some serious house cleaning and get rid of our dirty laundry.

In the meantime, as we go about cleaning our own house, we must remember that we are now the loyal opposition on the larger stage of American politics. President-elect Barack Obama deserves our support when and if we can give it and that loyal opposition when we cannot.

God Bless America!