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On the air last week, I said it election day was actually a great day for conservatives. Not Republicans. Conservatives. To which many of my listeners responded that I must be in denial and hung over from crying in my beer election night. But I was, and am, dead serious. Let me explain…

Without taking anything away from the impressive campaign that Barack Obama ran, the fact is voters didn’t reject conservatism on Tuesday. They rejected the rejection of conservatism. They rejected Republicans who claimed to be fiscal conservatives but governed as fiscal liberals.

President George W. Bush’s eight years of “compassionate conservatism” wasn’t conservative. It was big government Republicanism.

John McCain was no conservative. Conservatives knew it. The ones who voted for him, like myself, did so only by holding their noses. As for Republicans in Congress, the leadership hasn’t pushed a conservative agenda since the 1994 Contract with America.

All this became bitterly clear, even to the most self-deluded GOP partisans, when Bush, McCain and the Republican Party leadership in Congress embraced that $700 billion (and counting) Wall Street bailout just a few weeks ago.

Voters, particularly conservatives, fired a shot across the bow of the SS GOP in 2006 by knocking them out of the majority in both the House and the Senate. Republicans, naturally, didn’t learn a damned thing and kept doing the same ol’ things the same ol’ ways. So voters this week decided to give them a beating they’d never forget. And then some.

While Democrats scored phenomenal ballot box victories Tuesday, that was a rejection of GOP governing and campaign incompetence, not an embrace of full-scale socialism – even though Barack Obama is, unquestionably, a socialist.

Remember, one of the most important aspects of the Obama campaign was the promise to CUT TAXES for 95 percent of the people. Folks, that’s a conservative agenda.

His campaign also spent a ton of time and money telling people that Barack Obama would not take away our guns. Folks, that’s a conservative agenda.

On the campaign trail and in debates, Obama said he’d pay for his new programs by cutting spending on old programs. Folks, that’s a conservative agenda.

I even heard that at one point Obama’s website had a section claiming he was pro-life. And he also came out, so to speak, as opposed to gay marriage. Folks, that’s a conservative agenda.

Now, I don’t for a minute believe Barack Obama really believes this stuff…but that’s what he campaigned on. And combined with GOP incompetence, he fooled plenty enough people to get elected. It was the political version of Three-card Monte. But once the rubes discover they’ve been conned, they’ll be open to electing Republicans again to the House and/or Senate in 2010, if…

IF.

If Republicans finally wake up and smell the coffee. As Newt likes to say, real change requires real change. Not tinkering around the edges. REAL CHANGE.

That means that if Mitch McConnell is going to remain as Minority Leader in the Senate, he needs to at least bring Tom Coburn and/or Jim DeMint into leadership positions.

I’m sure a case is being made to promote John Ensign instead; however, you can’t overlook the fact that Ensign ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee this year and may end up losing even more seats than Elizabeth Dole lost two years ago when she ran the NRSC. How does the party of merit justify rewarding such a colossal failure?

Under the circumstances, Senate Republicans ought to task the Nevada senator with a single mission for the next two years…

Taking out Harry Reid in 2010.

Kinda like tasking Dorothy with taking out the Wicked Witch of the West. You do that, and you get your heart’s desire, Sen. Ensign.

Over in the House, Republicans took a severe beating in 2006. But their leadership hadn’t been in place for a full term, so House members re-elected them last year.

No excuses this time around. Boom, boom…out go the lights.

Nothing short of a wholesale change of the entire House leadership team is acceptable, starting with Minority Leader John Boehner. Republicans simply can’t keep rewarding failure.

At least former Democrat Minority Leader Dick Gephardt realized that after two losing two successive elections in the 1990s it was time to step aside and give someone else a shot.

If House Republicans won’t change leaders - including, if not especially, McConnell - donors should snap their wallets shut and grassroots activists should sit on their hands until they come to their senses.

They should support only Republicans who vote for wholesale leadership change.

Meanwhile, over at the Republican National Committee there’s only one sensible course of action. When the RNC convenes for its Winter Meeting next January, they HAVE to elect Michael Steel as the party’s National Chairman.

Not because he’s black.

Because he’s the best, most qualified person for the job.

Being black, with a black hombre in the White House, is merely a bonus.

Steel is a former Maryland Republican Party chairman, so he knows how a party organization operates and will be able to relate to and work well with the other state chairmen.

He’s also a former lieutenant governor, so he knows how government works (or doesn’t work, as the case may be).

He’s also been a statewide candidate twice: won one and lost the other. So he knows both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Oh, and he won as a Republican in the People’s Republic of Maryland…big time Democrat territory (61 percent for Obama).

Presently, he runs GOPAC - the GOP’s premier candidate recruitment and training organization.

Plus, he’s an unapologetic fiscal and social conservative who can articulate the conservative message effectively and isn’t afraid of the press.

Oh, and Vice President-elect Joe Biden said he was clean.

Yes, real change requires real change. And desperate times call for desperate measures.

These are desperate times for Republicans…and the nation. Republicans, heal thyselves. Or be prepared for yet another thrashing in 2010.

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AN ELECTION THAT THE REPUBLICANS NEEDED TO LOSE — GOOD LUCK OBAMA

By DICK MORRIS 

November 5, 2008

If ever there was an election that was not worth winning, it was the contest of 2008. While it was hard-fought on both sides, had McCain won, it might have spelled the end of the Republican Party. As it is, the party is well-situated to come back in 2010 and in 2012, if it learns the lessons of this year.

Simply put, all hell is about to break loose in the markets and the economy. The mortgage crisis will likely be followed by defaults in credit card debt, student loans and car loans. We will probably be set for two years of zero growth, according to economists with whom I talk. And the federal efforts to protect the nation from the worst of the recession will probably lead to huge budget deficits and resulting inflation. We are in for stagflation that could last for years.

Had McCain won, he would be the latter-day Hoover, blamed for the disaster that unfolded on his watch. Now it is Obama’s problem. With the Republicans suffering a wipeout in congressional elections (although not as bad as they feared), the ball is now squarely in the Democratic court. Good luck!

If Obama raises taxes, the situation could get even worse. With a liberal Congress on his hands, he will be constrained to move to the left, if he needs any pushing. When Clinton was elected in 1992, the Democrats in control of Congress gave him a clear message: Either you govern within the four walls of the Democratic caucus or you won’t get our support. Crossing the aisle to get Republican votes, even including the GOP in negotiations, was a no-no for which the president would pay dearly if he transgressed.

The result was predictable. Moderate initiatives like welfare reform were scrapped, the Congress passed tax hikes and legislation became festooned with liberal amendments. Faced with the need to round up every last vote in the Senate and House Democratic caucuses, Clinton had no choice but to load up conservative bills like an anti-crime measure with liberal pork (like a provision for midnight basketball courts in urban areas) to get unanimous caucus backing.

Obama will have to move left to appease his caucus. He will become their hostage, and they his jailers.

This dynamic will produce extreme-left-wing governance, which the Republicans can blame for the continuation of the recession and for any worsening.

The party will recover, fed by anger at Obama’s policies, and will emerge from this defeat stronger than ever.

But the Republicans must learn the lesson of MoveOn.org. Founded in the bleak days of the Clinton impeachment, MoveOn developed a grassroots Internet base. Building up its e-list of activists and contributors, MoveOn laid the basis for the incredible Internet appeal of the Obama campaign. At last count, Obama has 4.5 million donors, most online.

Conservatives cannot count on the Republican Party to fight their battles for them, and certainly cannot count on them to win. The right needs to develop cyber-roots conservative organizations to rival the power of groups like MoveOn.org.

The stellar efforts of NewsMax.com and its ally, GOPtrust.com, illustrate the power of such efforts. Together, these groups raised $10 million for an independent expenditure on media in swing states featuring the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s anti-American bombast.

And their efforts worked.

Virtually all the polls agreed that Obama would win 52-53 percent of the vote, but the surveys varied in the amount of undecideds they found. On Election Day, virtually every undecided voter went to McCain, and Obama’s final vote share was no more and no less than the 52-53 percent the surveys had predicted. This unanimity among undecided voters is attributable to the endgame of groups like GOPtrust.com and NewsMax.com.

These groups have to lead the way in running media to battle against the leftist legislation that will undoubtedly emanate from the Obama administration and the liberal Congress America has just elected. Then they can become the basis for a Republican resurgence, just as MoveOn.org was this year for the Democrats.