…is a communications system for the GOP that is designed to primarily support precinct-level volunteers. Even if all it does is allow Bangor and San Diego Republicans an easy way to talk to each other.

Especially if all it does is that, actually.

I read that discussion at NextRight, and I have some of the same issues with the discussion that you do. We have some serious structural hurdles to deal with, as a movement, after this election. But I’m not convinced that better web sites is going to be the mechanism for addressing them. We need to address our disadvantages in education, media and other areas, that are difficult to address online. You need offline activism to succeed.

However, I do think that there is one area where we can make a difference. The mistake we have made during the last 8 years is allowing our elected officials establish the agenda for the country. I think it is time for us to establish core goals, based on our principles, and push for them. Things that can be passed legislatively. While being reactive was successful during the last 2 years, we need to move to more of a proactive approach.

One of the surprising opportunities that we have gained from our coming win on Tuesday is a real possibility of working with the centrist Democrats in the coming years. I think it would behoove us to find conservative mechanisms to address the core social concerns that they want to see addressed. If we could arrive at a small set of common legislative priorities, we would see a realistic chance of getting them passed.

I would like us to have a few open threads starting on Wednesday to begin talking about these concepts.

…is dead on target. I am floored by the backwater, dark-ages culture on the right. When I look at the Election 08 Twitter posts, they are sooooo skewed towards the left that it is just sickening. What, are the Republicans expressing themselves on stone tablets and scrolls? Jeez, folks, let’s get into at least the 20th century, much less the 21st.

That said, I’m also concerned about quantity versus quality. In recent months, we’ve certainly seen a dramatic increase in quantity, but I fear the quality has dropped off dramatically. Now I hardly think DKos or DU are bastions of blogging quality, but I think we need to pay close attention to the kind of information we are publishing. The front-pagers here are outstanding, as are many others who post. I implore our “members” to focus on quality, originality, and unique analysis of what’s going on in the political and cultural realm. Remember – we are here to persuade, not necessarily to just have a big group-think session.

I do think it’s clear the Left stole a march on us this election cycle. It hasn’t been just Axelrod’s Astroturf, or the MSM’s cone of silence around their chosen one. It’s been the lack of a compelling narrative of our own on the right this cycle for far too long. It’s clear that although there was some hard-core support for BHO, it’s not as enthusiastic as the MSM wants to make it sound, since Joe the Plumber and the socialist line of attack did stick, as late as it emerged.

I do think there’s a role for the Online Right in terms of driving the Movement’s narrative and identifying figures whom we can rally around in the future. This is a big part of where Dean was successful as DNC, and it’s a lesson that we can learn.

I don’t think that we need to be siphoning money that should be going to the warchests of candidates that we choose to support. That’s a distinct question from supporting the websites we’re involved in, of course. I mean the warchest should go to the where it can be used actively by the candidates we support, not to anonymous individuals we do not have knowledge of.

And of course, at some time we need to get off our sofa-warmers and get to work, or all our fine rhetoric here won’t matter. I think we on the online right can do much to identify and drive home our own counter-narrative to the Left agenda. And that we can do advanced scouting for candidates that we think best represent our goals.

Most importantly, we need to be active in retaking the GOP from the “big government conservatives” (the people who used to be known as “phonies) who have somehow gained control of the party. Somehow these people manage to mask themselves as social conservatives, though when push comes to shove, they usually do little on ‘any’ conservative score.

Fiscal and social conservatives do not have to war with each other. And I think we can identify a unified narrative that even those who are more concerned with one side of the coin can embrace if we put our collective heads to it.

in 1992 and 1994 having been a from a blue collar unionist upbringing and a steady conversion from liberal to conservative under Reagan’s steadfast tutelage, I miss the Grass Roots activism that was the Gingrich Revolution. The reason you hear so many on the right complaining about elitism in the Republican Party is that our leadership has stopped communicating with us…we don’t hear from them unless they want us to send them money and they don’t listen to us on the grass roots level.

The biggest mistake this election cycle was the failure of Republicans to nationalize this election as a referendum on the Democrat Congress with the lowest approval ratings in history. We don’t know what Republicans in leadership stand for any more since they have basically betrayed every constituency that comprised the Reagan/Gingrich movement.

I’ll be signing up for the RS E-Blast…I’ve neglected to do so…I would also ask that those of you with connections in Washington that the Grass Roots is the way back to power for them and until they reestablish that connection…they will continue to wander for the foreseeable future.

I would also add that we have no time to waste because 20010 is a census year which will establish the representation of Republicans in Congress for the next ten years…and if we end up with Dems in the Senate, Congress and the White House, there will be no way to stop them from using statistical analysis to inflate their numbers for at least 10 years.

REPS also need to get a new message and market differently.

The message has been “take your castor oil medicine because it is good for you!”

Who the heck likes that?

We need a positive message of the benefits.

“No offense to anyone reading this, but sometimes the real world and the online world collide.”

More often they don’t collide, but have no contact with each other at all.

The deeper problem is that an inbred, self-serving, self-perpetuating political class has escaped the control of the people and taken over the government. The “Republican Revolution” shows the limits of “normal politics” in strikin at the root of that problem. In that vein, more partisan opinionating online is certainly not the answer to anything.

Instead, ordinary people’s consciousness must be raised regarding just how unrepresentative our representative government has become. “Citizen journalists” – bloggers who produce original news content, not just opinions – can be an important part of that. Well-funded online alternative media can also help, and “guerilla” media too, including some already being done by individuals associated with some of the people named in this piece. The state-based think tanks are starting to get into that game too.

Ruffini, Henke, etc. seem to be saying “This is how it must be: “orgnanic,” “home-grown,” not a product of organized, well-funded operations, etc. I say, no one knows at this point what will work best, so let 100 flowers bloom.