Frank Luntz - one of the smartest political observers out there, in my opinion - writes a warning to the GOP, and explains what he thinks we need to do to recapture majority support from the American people:

Step one should be the abolition of earmarks for hometown and home-state projects. Nothing will undermine the lobbyist culture more than a clear and definitive statement that there will never again be a highway project like the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere."

Step two is to once again stand for accountability, a principle abandoned in the last Congress. If Republicans are serious about demonstrating that they understand what America wants, they will support a balanced-budget amendment -- but with an important twist: The declining Social Security surplus couldn't be used as a numbers game to "reduce" shortfalls, and there would be a clause making it difficult to raise taxes.

Republicans lost their congressional majority because they lost touch with what Americans really want. As a pollster, I rarely hear voters call for smaller government. They tell me that they want more efficient and more effective government. (Note to Republicans: There is no starker symbol of Washington's inefficiency and ineffectiveness than the federal government's inability to control our borders and prevent illegal immigration.) Last year, Republicans campaigned locally and lost nationally. Relying on local issues to define elections at a time when national matters dominate public concerns is a losing strategy. With 20 months until the next election, Republicans have a responsibility as the minority party, as the opposition party, to prove themselves as once again worthy of public trust. They must adopt a bold agenda to mirror the public's desire for bold change. Anything less and they will fail not only themselves but also the country.

I think Luntz is especially correct on the matter of border security. Budget and tax matters are important as motivators for the GOP base (which was dispirited last year), but for indepdendent (yet conservative-leaning) voters, the glaring failure to secure our borders probably played a large role in our defeat. It isn't that if the GOP ran its entire 2008 campaign on border security that we'd win - not at all: but it is that our failure to tackle such a basic "law and order" issue which convinced independent conservatives that we weren't worth supporting.

The people demand action, especially on the basics - and basic to our society is that the laws be enforced. The GOP, probably afraid of what the MSM would say, shied away from serious work on the border issue and that, when added to all the rest of the problems, doomed the GOP at the polls. We got precisely what we deserved last November - now it is up to us to make ourselves deserve victory, or defeat, in 2008.

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