While big business and the largess of privileged donors has been the lifeblood of the party--the big lesson from the 2008 election is that it is still the common citizen who makes holding office possible. It takes appealing to people just like me, my neighbors, and friends to hold the White House, statehouse, Congress, and state legislatures. I hope the GOP leaders will listen to the lessons from the 2008 election. If the Republican Party is going to regain any power in Congress or the White House, reforms that appeal to the electorate are necessary.

Just as crucial is the party's ability to control the media message. The GOP must adopt tactics that dilute the mainstream media's influence in the election process. The internet is a powerful tool for delivering a salient message at a low cost. New media is key to controlling the delivery of news and information in future elections.

I believe there are five major reform categories that the party should embrace immediately. I have broken the categories into twelve implementation steps that will result in refocusing the GOP efforts for success in the near term and long term.

Continued hand wringing will only weaken the party, decisive action is required. The necessary reforms fall into five categories which are: election reform, media control and command, political reform, grassroots organizing, and reclaiming the education high ground. There are twelve interlocking steps to achieve electoral success.

Be prepared to think out-of the box. The tactics of the past are not effective tools for governing in the future.

1. Election Reform

Step One--The 21 month presidential campaign was mind numbing, and voters frequently expressed election fatigue. In 1960 the presidential campaign was approximately nine months from announcement to national election. The Federal Election Commission should limit the number of months from unspecified to 12 months from campaign committee formation to national election day. The candidates can form their exploratory committee six months before their campaign committee. In other words--all campaign activity would take place in an 18 month period.

Step Two--Adopt a national primary system. Four or five "Super Tuesday" events from February to July. Each event should represent 20-25 percent of the voting population. The 2008s primaries were a continual game of hop scotch as state changed their primary dates in an effort to insure that their voters felt they were relevant in the primary season. The Democrat convention was preceded by questions as to whether Florida and Michigan would be allowed to cast their floor votes because they defied the DNC and moved their primary dates. It is time to abandon the traditional process and move to something that works in the electronic age.

Step Three--Develop a representative Electoral College. Apportion electoral college votes based on the returns from each congressional district. Candidates would have to develop a 50 state strategy instead of the ten state strategy employed in 2008.

Step Four--Voter roll reform and voter identification requirements. The Real ID Act will be in place by the 2012 elections. Simply requiring that voters present a form of valid identification under the Real ID qualifications at the polls. This would help to insure that groups like ACORN can't submit hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations cards. Currently twenty states have some form of identification required at the polls. California is not one of those states.

Step Five--Support non-partisan redistricting. Proposition 11 passed in California. Gerrymandering has kept ineffective and unresponsive politicians in safe districts for far too long. Non-partisan redistricting will create a more responsive elected body across the aisle. Redistricting will help voters remove partisan democrats and RINO legislators and replace them with representation that reflects the community's needs. No incumbent elected official should ever feel like he is safe at the polls.

2. Media Control and Command

Step Six--Readership and viewership are key to mainstream media success. Advertising rates are based on media's verifiable audience numbers. Conservatives can and should take punitive action against the media outlets that provided unbalanced news coverage during this election cycle. Pew Research Center for People and the Press released a story on October 22 titled "Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win." The story can be viewed at http://people-press.org/report/463/media-wants-obama

The story is testament to the lack of objectivity in the 2008 coverage. Conservatives can fight back by deciding not to watch television on the major networks during the months of November and May, which are the two months when the networks measure viewership to set advertising rates. And, conservatives can write letters to the advertisers who support the mainstream broadcast media and inform program sponsors that their products and services are no longer required. These tactics have met with results in the past, and they can again.

Metropolitan daily newspapers are struggling to survive in the internet age. Simply canceling your daily newspaper subscription with a terse note to your local publisher--a thanks, but no thanks--for the slanted news coverage in the 2008 election will suffice. Mention that the daily poll measurements and plundering of Joe the Plumber was political theater and not objective news reporting.

Holding the media accountable for their bad behavior is the only way to get their attention. Otherwise, we will see the same bad behavior repeated in 2012.

Newsrooms around the country are starting to suffer from reader backlash. The Orange County Register lost 15% of its readership in 2008. The Los Angeles Times parent company is bankrupt, and the New York Times has mortgaged its headquarters building to raise operating capital.

Step Seven--Establish new media outlets and/or support existing efforts that match conservative thought. Fox News, Conservative Chronicle, Red County, Investors Business Daily, several websites, and other media outlets that tried to balance the biased coverage of the mainstream media will require the commercial support of the audience.

Also, conservatives will have to spend time and money protecting conservative broadcast media from a re-institution of the fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine is a tool used to quiet debate on all political topics by requiring broadcaster present equal time to both sides of an issue. Conservative talk radio is a financially sound business model, while liberal talk radio programs (Air America) have been failures.

3. Part Reform and Renaissance

Step Eight--Value youthful ideas and young conservative politicians who energize the base. For whatever faults the media found with Governor Palin, she certainly energized the base.

The electorate has time and again reached out to the candidate that they perceived to be younger and/or hipper, and/or more accessible: Kennedy over Nixon, Carter over Ford, Obama over McCain.

There are young conservatives in the trenches and benches. A few short years ago Governor Palin was a mayor of a small town. There are other youthful potential party leaders that the GOP needs to reach out to. Any member who has held a seat for over twenty plus years should be encouraged to find a successor to groom as a replacement. Those who refuse to look for talent in their district should lose party support and party campaign resources should be directed to promote candidates who are in line with improving the party's image.

The talent identified by congressmen and developed by the party can run for local and state offices as training ground for higher offices. Republicans need to develop a farm team of young talent.

I remember a few years ago when an Orange County young gun wanted to run against a former state legislator for a supervisor's seat. The message was clear--the old legislator should be respected and the young gun should wait his turn. The young gun ran and won, and the county was better represented with fresh ideas and little political baggage. The "wait your turn" attitude needs to be exploded in the party.

Patronage is not good politics.

Step Nine--Simplify the party message. Think family first. By actively legislating to strengthen the American family the party will strengthen the country. John McCain never articulated a message to families in his campaign. He may have felt he did, but if the message doesn't resonate with the voters, there is no message. Here is the message the party should be delivering:

Smaller government and lower taxes help every family.

Vigorously pursuing anti-crime legislation helps families.

Promoting job training and job growth helps families.

Talking about a culture of life instead of the choice to terminate a pregnancy helps families.

Sound fiscal policy that protects home values, saving, and retirement accounts helps families.

Creating affordable healthcare that may ration high cost procedures but preserve access to healthcare for most Americans is good for families.

Exploring American energy sources and reducing dependence on foreign oil is family friendly.

Protecting our borders is family friendly.

Protecting our food sources is family friendly.

Promoting strong schools and sound education policy is family friendly.

Reducing education's social engineering burden is good for families.

Promoting good stewardship of the environment is family friendly.

Discussing personal accountability and responsibility instead of entitlements is good for the country.

Promoting issues that benefit big business at the expense of our communities and families is not good policy.

Free market economic policy is good for families.

End illegal immigration and amnesty discussions. The United States is a country of laws. Our immigration laws are sound and fair. The laws simply need to be enforced and the border fence completed.

Republicans need to regain the voters' trust and become the party of ethical government. Start with a full investigation of the financial markets collapse by calling for a bi-partisan commission similar to the September 11 commission. The commission needs to investigate, report, and recommend legislation and oversight that will protect the U.S. from another financial meltdown. It is time to name names and let the chips fall where they may on greedy politicians and profiteers.

The party needs to act quickly to censure leaders and members whose ethical lapses paint all Republicans with a broad brush. No more Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Randy Cunningham or Ted Stevens prowling the halls of Washington looking to line their pockets or warm their beds.

Step Ten--Begin dealing effectively with the labor unions. Forty percent of all union members are conservatives whose dues are used to promote political agendas they do not agree with. Identify and support conservative labor members who can be instructed on how to promote a conservative agenda within their union. Teach them how to have a conversation with their co-workers on the benefits of conservativism. These men and women work hard for their money and don't want to be heavily burdened by taxes and job losses due to run away jobs.

Quiet the public employee unions by reminding them they work for the constituents, not the other way around. The teacher unions should be reminded that there are 30 parent votes for every teacher vote. Organize parents to protest the retention of poorly performing teacher or activist teachers who violate professional standards when conducting their classes. I have succeeded in doing this in the past, and I am happy to instruct other parents how to encourage activist teachers and administrators to leave the profession.

Step Eleven--Reclaim the education high ground. The failure of education to teach American youth goes to the cause and effect of why our government and elected officials are allowed to govern in a way that is unresponsive to the needs of the voters. Financial illiteracy, functional illiteracy, high drop out rates, declining educational standing against global economic competition are all symptoms of a failed education system.

Activist education professors like President Elect Obama's ally Bill Ayers have spawned generations of activist teachers who spew revisionist history, undermine parents ability to administer effective discipline in the home, promote social change over academic achievement, bolster self esteem over actual accomplishment, and a whole host of other educational malpractice. Republicans must work to establish local teaching standards and ensure the standards are adhered to.

Many school boards are dominated by teacher and education professionals. Business and community leaders need to step-up and run for local school boards.

Businesses need to partner with classroom teachers and provide field trip opportunities and job fairs that attract students, parents, and other community members.

Teachers need to be made aware of the fact that 73 percent of their charges will not graduate from college. The U.S. college graduation rate is 26.5% according to the U.S. Department of Education. It is time to change the dialogue from preparing every child for college, to preparing every child for an active life in the economy and community.

Step eleven is the hardest step in the process--but it is essential to the long term success of our nation and the GOP.

Step Twelve--Grassroots organizing is essential to success. If no other lesson is taken from this election, it is the example of more eager hands is crucial to victory at the polls. The Obama campaign raise more money from smaller donation, turned our more volunteers, engendered more enthusiasm, and generally beat the GOP.

There has been a move over the last decade or more of election cycles to discourage the grassroots activist party base in favor of the political operative "professional" campaign model. The California GOP and Victory 04, 06, and 08 professionals were often offensive to the local activists who had organized their communities and precincts for decades. The attitude was, "We are professionals, and we know better."

Much of the history of local organizing material was lost or destroyed at the county and state levels. The organizational memory of the "boots on ground" campaign workers was discounted and replaced by extensive databases that weren't made available from one campaign to the next. Campaigns invested in robo-calling services, but provided no campaign material to precinct walkers. One-on-one campaigning is effective, and the Obama campaign did it better than the McCain team did.

The old adage that all politics is local was lost on the campaigns that wanted to take the human factor out of the process. The electronic calls and e-mail campaigns could not replace the knock on the door, and invitation to coffee at a neighbor's house, or the local barbeque in the park for the favorite candidate.

2008 In Conclussion

There were some bright spots in this election. Voters turned out to approve a family values initiative that appealed to voters of all races and ethnicities. Many Democrats voted for Proposition 8. Family values still sell in socially liberal California.

Voters appear to have approved Governor Schwarzenegger's redistricting proposal and gerrymandering should be a thing of the past.

Obama's win didn't generate the landslide or mandate that the Dems hoped for.

So, the GOP can change and adapt to the new political reality, or we can prepare ourselves for a long dry spell at the voting booth. In two years we will have a hard fought governor's race. Will we be ready to hold the statehouse?

I'm sure there are other bright ideas on re-tooling the Republican Party. I think a rambunctious debate of ideas is called for. There are a lot of bright minds in our ranks and it is time to hear what others believe are the necessary steps to electoral success.

Thank you for letting me share my ideas.