Many Republicans are still in shock over the November 7th election defeat. Now that campaigning is over and the results are in, we can take a good look at what happened and why, without concern for how it may effect the feelings of voters on either side. I was optimistic and assured everyone that Republicans would win in spite of the media bias and polling, I was wrong. I didn't want anyone to stay home and not vote because of being discouraged by the media reports. In fact, I didn't believe them myself.

This year's election results are being seen as a total disaster for our country by many conservatives, and in some ways they are, but the news is not all bad, there is an up side too all this. The fact is that voters did not vote so much for Democrats because of their vision for America, they didn't have one. The votes were more against the Republicans in Congress than for anything the Democrats had to offer, the Dems won by default because there were no other choices.

One thing this election did show was that the vast of majority of Americans believe in conservative values.  All across the country, ballot measures were decided in favor of conservative views.  Even here in liberal California, with only one exception, all of the ballot measures went to conservatives.  But on the elected officials, only one Republican won besides our movie star governor who is actually a liberal Republican.  The ballot measures prove that Americans are by far, conservatives with conservative values.

Several countries and organizations around the globe have come out publicly to cheer the Democrat victory. Most notably are Communist Venezuela, Iran, Al Qaeda, and socialist Germany. Islamic Terrorists view it as a victory over the American enemy. We have yet to hear from Communist China and North Korea, but isn't it comforting to know that our new congress now has the "support of foreign leaders", if I may quote a line from John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

This was the first time in well over a decade that Democrat turn out was higher than Republican turn out and overall turnout was unusually high for a midterm election. Results show that there was just over a 40% voter turnout with Democrats slightly higher than Republicans. The margin of victory for most Democrat candidates was just about equal to the difference in turnout. Had the turnout been reversed, Republicans would still be in power. This is what I have been trying to stress but not enough people got the word or not enough people cared.

The media was a primary factor in this election by promoting left propaganda and their criticism of Republicans. They swarmed on Republican scandals like hungry vultures while ignoring Democrat scandals. They avoided telling the truth about major issues such as the leak of one, out of context, paragraph from the classified National Intelligence Estimate. They jumped on every classified leak they could get their hands on from Democrats with an agenda to steal the election through illegal means. Now, with a Democrat controlled Congress, will the media be equally as critical of them? Don't hold your breath.

Oh sure, there will be some criticism just to maintain the appearance of balance, but for every article critical of Democrats there will be 5 more articles in praise of Democrats or critical of Republicans. You can count on the media to be working hard over the next two years to keep Democrats in power and get a Democrat elected to the Whitehouse. If they succeed it will not be because of Democrat popularity but because of media propaganda and bias. It will also be because of Republican failures to stand up in congress and in public for the truth, conservative values, and show some spine and commitment to conservatives.

There was a time in our not too distant past when the media reported the "news" with an occasional opinion editorial which was identified as such. That is no longer the case. Now the media has taken to blending their opinions with the news and not identifying it as such. It is unfair to those who disagree with them and so unfair to the country, even dangerous. The media needs to be held to the ethical standards they once were and not allowed to simply claim "freedom of the press" every time they lie and mislead the citizens of our country with illegally gotten excerpts from classified documents and tainting the news with their opinions.

Politicians should be also held to the same standards of ethics. But now the boss of at least one of the leakers, Jay Rockefeller, will become chairman of the Intelligence Committee where he and his staff will have unfettered access to all Senate intelligence information and no one to stop them from leaking it to the press for political gain at our country's expense. What effect will this have on the 2008 election campaigns? And why has this Republican Congress allowed these leaker to remain free of indictments?

If Republicans think they can pick up votes to get reelected by appealing to the left and moderate Democrats, they are dead wrong and this election has proved it. We elected Republicans to represent conservative values, not compromise with liberals. They failed to fight for us and our values. This defeat will serve as a wake-up call to Republican leaders who will learn a lesson from this and come back to their conservative base over the next two years. For that we can be thankful.

Because of their defeat, the Republican Party will be making some changes and becoming more responsive to their conservative base. Their loss of conservative support has not gone unnoticed by the party leaders who held a meeting immediately after the elections to discuss this problem. They know they blew it with conservatives and intend to take steps to regain their trust. This would never happen if the status quo had been maintained. This is one good that will come out of this defeat.

Another benefit of this is that Dems will now have to reveal who they really are to the public if they intend to use their power to impose their agenda on the country. The legislation that comes out of Congress over the next two years will be a sample of what the Democratic Party intends for the country. They will no longer be able to say one thing and do another, then blame everything that's wrong with Congress on the Republicans.

It will be sad to watch them wreck our economy by raising taxes, cut funding for the war on terror, stop the funding for the missile defense systems we need, stop us from using effective methods to interrogate prisoners, interfere with intelligence gathering on al Qaeda operations, cut funding for bunker busting bombs that will be needed in Iran, and insist that terrorists in captivity be given lawyers and treated as civilian criminals in a court of law with full constitutional rights.

We were on the verge of getting energy legislation passed to address our dependence on foreign oil. Now, there will be no more nuclear power plants or exploration and development of domestic oil resources. Democrats say we need to instead, develop alternative energy sources such as solar and hydrogen. Well, we have been doing that ever since Bush called for it and Congress appropriated funds for it nearly 5 years ago, even though this research should be funded by private enterprise and much of it is. It's going to take much longer for it to become viable than we can afford to wait while maintaining our dependence on OPEC.

That may be fine sometime down the road when a viable alternative is discovered, but it does nothing to address our current energy dependence on foreign countries who may not be our "friends" much longer. And even when that does happen, we will still need large resources of oil for applications that cannot use the alternatives.

Petroleum oil is used for a wide range of applications from home heating, to lubrications, to solvents and paint products, to plastics. The Dems will now continue their 30 year old embargo of domestic oil production that caused us to be dependent on foreign oil for the past 3 decades. Our energy policy will now take a big step backwards and global warming crank cases will demand that we reduce the use of private automobiles and will try to raise gas taxes to enforce it. Social engineering will be the order of the day while Democrats control congress.

Democrat legislation will attempt to appease our enemies, and allow for unchecked illegal immigration and amnesty to illegal aliens with the blessings of President Bush. The border fence will never get funded and the flood of illegals into our country will never be controlled and will only get worse. If you're tired of pressing 1 for English now, just wait until you have to press 2 for English. Republicans could have addressed and solved this problem years ago but failed to do anything about it. Now it may be too late and we will all pay the price.

The Democrat Congress will devote much time and resources to investigations and hearings against Republicans on past issues instead of looking toward the future, and they will try to impeach President Bush on ideological grounds, not facts and law. By 2008 the American public will be sick of it, and Dems will not win the Whitehouse and maybe not even hold the Congress when the public sees what they've been up to. This should leave the door open to a reformed Republican party in 2008 and if those reforms don't take place, then perhaps a third party that shares our values.

Having said all that, I have to point out that although the things I have mentioned are taken from the Democrats own comments, statements, and voting records, some of the Democrat leaders also realize that they very much need to appeal to the voters in 2008 and that means presenting a plan and agenda that will have the support of the American people. They cannot push their liberal agenda through as long as a Republican in the Whitehouse has the veto pen so they have to win in 08 before they can take full control of the government.

This conflict presents a huge problem for the Dems and has split their party right down the middle. They have to put on a conservative face to win the support of the voters, while they are still beholding to the left wing socialist liberals who have bought and paid for their election. They can't possibly satisfy both interests at the same time, so we can expect a lot more of the kind of legislation that we've been seeing. The kind of legislation that looks pretty in the media but does little in reality to deal with any real issue.

When all is said and done, the Dems will no longer be able to blame their own failures and obstruction on "the Republican Congress" as they have been doing. When they fail to live up to the expectations of the people who voted for them, the failures will be blamed on the Democrat controlled Congress and no longer on the Republicans. Republicans will capitalized on this if they're smart and win back the Congress.

Bush says he wants to work with the Dems. When did he not? He has always been trying to go down the middle of the road and that has been one of his problems. We hear him in press conferences now saying "We're going to put our differences aside and work together". Makes me feel like throwing up.

The President can veto legislation he doesn't like, but he cannot force the Dems to bring legislation to the floor for funding of important defense and other programs. The real question now is, will President Bush learn to use that veto pen, or will he end up like California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and just give in to the Dems?

Nancy Pelosi and all the Dem leaders are now saying "we need to work together and in a nonpartisan way." Where were they when Republicans were saying that? They opposed everything Republicans tried to do, then blamed the Republicans for not getting it done. Now that Dems are in power, they expect Republicans to just fall in line and support everything they want? I say "what goes around, comes around", but will that happen in Congress? Probably not.

Now, more than ever, the Republicans still left in congress need to stand up and fight as though their lives depended on it because their political lives do. Appeasing the Democrats, as they have been doing, is only going to get more of them tossed out in 08. I'm sick of hearing Democrats saying Republicans need to reach across the isle and work with the Democrats when they have always been doing just that, but the Demos have refused to do the same.

Compromise with the Dems took Republicans away from their conservative values. In their attempt to reach out to the left they have abandoned their conservative base and left them without representation in Congress. When you try to go down the middle of the road, you end up going to two directions at the same time and get run over, you get nowhere.

And that is what we have been getting from Congress over the past few years, it simply doesn't work. President Bush has failed miserably to invoke his veto on anything the Congress has put forth and allowed blatant violations of conservative principles such as smaller government and reduced federal spending.

Instead, bureaucracy has increased and efficiency has been smothered by legislation such as the creation of the Homeland Security Department which grew way beyond what was actually needed. Now they intend to impose ALL of the 911 Commission recommendations, some of which are technically impossible, while others are fiscally absurd and impractical.

Republicans got Defense right with the exception of border control, but had to stroke and squeeze the Democrats to get what they did. They got the economy right but I suspect excessive federal spending had a lot to do with that, in addition to the tax cuts which the Democrats now intend to repeal or allow to expire. There would be no expiration on them had Republicans not given in to the Dems on that issue. They probably though they would still be in power when the expiration date came around, surprise! They gave the Democrats a tool to raise taxes and now they're going to use it.

We need no better example of Congressional failures than the immigration reform fiasco. On that issue, the House stood up for conservative American values but the President and the Senate rejected the overwhelming will of the people. We told Congress we wanted our country cleaned up of illegal aliens, and American values and culture restored to the country. But Democrats and a number of Senate Republicans were more concerned with loosing a few Latino votes, and that was more important to them than preserving America.

Just look at what happened with Social Security reform, immigration reform, election reform, and out of control government spending and pork barrel waste. That is not the way conservatives legislate. Congressional Republicans betrayed and deserted their conservative base and as a result, the conservative base did not support them. How long have I been saying this? That Congressional Republicans are not representing conservatives. A long time, and now they have paid the price and so will we.

Unfortunately, there are too many uninformed voters who can't tell the good guys from the bad guys and they tossed out the wrong people. People like Rick Santorum, George Allen, and J. D. Hayworth, the very Senators and Representatives who were fighting for conservative interests and the American people. The only thing the voters did right was to dump Lincoln Chaffee, but they left the other liberal members of the "gang of 14" in place so far. Now Chaffee says he plans to change parties and join the Democrats. He's obviously nothing but a political opportunist without principles and we don't want him in the Republican party.

They tell us this election was a referendum on the war in Iraq. I suppose that makes a lot of liberal antiwar Democrats happy, but that's not the way I see it. No matter how the media interprets the opinion polls, they still show that a majority of the country supports our troops and their mission. A distinct minority think we should pull out of Iraq. If this was about Iraq, then how did Joe Lieberman get reelected in a liberal state on an independent ticket when he is one of the war's strongest supporters?

But no one is happy with the way the war has been conducted since the "Iraqi Freedom" mission was accomplished and Saddam Hussein was captured. The left constantly complains about deaths while the right believes we should be much more aggressive in killing the enemy and less concerned with political correctness and sparing the lives of questionable "civilians". We are not happy with the way the war is going, but we're not willing to pull the rug out from under our troops and "cut and run" either, so the war in Iraq is really not the major issue, at least not for Republicans and Independents.

The major issue, as I see it, is the failure of the Republican Congress to represent Republicans and stand up to the Democrats for our values. We just got sick and tired of them always watering down legislation to satisfy the left and ending up with nothing but a puddle of water and presenting it as useful legislation, while every point had an equal and opposite counterpoint included in the legislation by the left.

If Democrats didn't like what the Republicans proposed, then our Republican Senators and Congressmen should have fought for it and voted the Dems down instead of always compromising with them just to make them happy. That is where they failed us, so with that kind of representation, what good were they, and what good was having a Republican majority? Most of the legislation that passed turned out favoring Democrats or it didn't get passed. And still the Dems complained that Republicans would not share the power with them. That's just a bunch of crap.

Republican and Independent voters didn't want to vote for Democrats, but they didn't want to vote for linguini spined, compromising Republicans either so they didn't vote at all, or voted for Democrats who were running as conservatives and some of them ran even to the right of the Republican "do nothing" incumbent.

Now, if you listen to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and other Democrat leaders talk about their plans, it turns out that much of it is exactly what Republicans tried to get passed in Congress but was opposed by the Democrats. They plan to capitalize on every issue such as corruption, spending, border security, and big government, that turned conservatives away from their elected Republican officials. Suddenly, Nancy Pelosi is a conservative?

The rest of it is about investigations, indictments, and impeachment proving once again that Democrats have no new plans and no original ideas beyond what they have been doing, and what they can steal from the Republicans.

There should be a "competency test" for voters. Voting today is little more than the luck of the draw with so many people voting who have no idea who or what they are voting for. This is another result of failed legislation by the Republican Congress when they passed the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act, and the President signed it.

The purpose was to "make voter registration and voting easy", yeah, too easy. Campaign workers now go out and dig up anyone they can to register to vote, some were dug up from even 6 feet under the ground. Then they tell them who to vote for and drag them to the polls through bribery or intimidation and on occasions, using someone else’s name which poling place workers are not required to verify through proper identification.

And as a side benefit of this piece of junk legislation, we now have rampant voter fraud and negative campaign ads smearing candidates and our intelligence every election cycle. The very credibility of our election process is now in question.

The Campaign Reform Act places limits on how much money a candidate can spend on campaigning. But there is much more money available and being donated than the law allows the candidate to us. So instead of that money going to campaign funds to promote the candidate (which would now be illegal) it goes to smear his opponent through 527 political action groups which the law fails to address. And what has the Republican Congress done to address this problem and fix it? Nothing!

Republicans had the backing and support of President Bush for Social Security Reform, but what happened to that? The Democrats said "no" and the Republicans just said "okay" and dropped the whole issue. They didn't have the backbone to stand up and fight for it, or for anything a little bit controversial that might effect their reelection. Better just to sit down and hope the Republican voters don't notice. Well, we did notice and we didn't like it.

This is no job for regular army politicians. This is a job for the political special forces, and anyone who intends to run in 2008 better be sure they have what it takes to fight and win in Congress. Is it really any wonder that the country is fed up with this Republican controlled Congress? They wouldn't listen to their conservative base, but now they're going to have to if they ever want to see another Republican majority again. And next time, they damn well better act like patriotic conservative Republicans with a spine, or don't bother even getting into the race.