As for the Republican Party, we need new blood. We have strayed from our core beliefs of small government, personal responsibility and liberty. This election was not a failure of the conservative ideology, but a referendum on the messengers who have bastardized it. New entitlement programs and massive spending are not conservative policy positions. President-elect Obama didn’t run as a liberal. Instead, he co-opted the conservative ideology, championing tax cuts and vowing to cut ineffective programs. Leadership teams at the Republican National Committee should resign as well as chairmen of the state parties who lost seats in the House and Senate. The bloodletting should continue with leadership changes in the House and Senate Republican caucuses.

As retiring Republican Rep. Tom Davis noted earlier this year, “the Republican brand is in the trash can…if we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” Rep. Davis was right. We need to rebuild our party. Remember the oath? We could learn a lot by remembering what it is we’re supposed to be advocating.

I BELIEVE the strength of our nation lies with the individual and that each person’s dignity, freedom, ability and responsibility must be honored.

I BELIEVE in equal rights, equal justice and equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, creed, sex, age or disability.

I BELIEVE free enterprise and encouraging individual initiative have brought this nation opportunity, economic growth and prosperity.

I BELIEVE government must practice fiscal responsibility and allow individuals to keep more of the money they earn.

I BELIEVE the proper role of government is to provide for the people only those critical functions that cannot be performed by individuals or private organizations and that the best government is that which governs least.

I BELIEVE the most effective, responsible and responsive government is government closest to the people.

I BELIEVE Americans must retain the principles that have made us strong while developing new and innovative ideas to meet the challenges of changing times.

I BELIEVE Americans value and should preserve our national strength and pride while working to extend peace, freedom and human rights throughout the world.

FINALLY, I believe the Republican Party is the best vehicle for translating these ideals into positive and successful principles of government.

With the selection of Palin, McCain has elevated not just one, young, charismatic conservative to prominence, but I believe a whole new generation (take Governor Jindal in Louisiana for example). And while I really hate making references to gender, the fact that she is a woman broadens the philosophy’s appeal, particularly to the youth who, throughout their college careers, are told that leftist politics are the only viable means by which to advance minority interests.

While the conventional wisdom had it that McCain was, during his Senate career, “ashamed” of conservatives and only paid lip-service to them in order to stay in office, ironically he has done for conservatism what not even reliable “conservative” leaders in Washington seemed to have had the guts to do— make conservatism prominent again for another generation. If for no other reason, then, the Senator deserves our unapologetic, and enthusiastic support.

In 2012, whether the Republicans gather to re-nominate McCain for another term, or gather to nominate a new ticket to challenge Obama, we can rest assured of one thing. And that is, conservatism will dominate and the Rockefeller Republicans will remain where they belong- on the party’s outer-edge grumbling their usual elitist utterances that could only originate in what many of them believe to be the center of the universe: Washington. Odd that it took a dynamic woman from a geographical periphery to demonstrate how mainstream conservatism is, and just how ideologically peripheral Washington remains.