Alright liberals, Democrats, Republicans-in-name-only, and others that aren't GOP members, this info isn't for you but I know you'll read it anyway and try looking for lessons to use to your advantage anyway. If you do, great, feel free to speak up on this article even. I'm not going to truly shut you out, but don't count on me being that nice all the time 
Something that the Republicans should have learned last night (election day 2006) is that failure to set goals and really accomplish them, even in little pieces, is a recipe for disaster. One of the most important lessons that should be taken away from election 2006 is that doing nothing gets you nothing. You have to set goals, and you have to be constantly working on achieving those goals and you also have to constantly update the list of goals as you go. That really seemed to have been forgotten by the GOP since the original contract with America. They had a great plan, set goals and went about pushing towards accomplishing as many of them as they could. What they failed to do at the time, and have failed to do ever since is to update the list of goals and really tell the public what they are. Never mind too that they didn't ever really trumpet the accomplishments to tell the public what they have done.
Granted the vast left wing conspiracy does a great job of keeping good news for or from conservatives and the GOP in general from getting out, but this is a new media era with the internet, Drudge Report, FOX news, talk radio and more. Use those outlets and any others you can to talk up your accomplishments and goals for the future and pick goals that you know that the public really wants.
President Bush was perhaps overly ambitious in his proposals for fixing social security and that may have bitten him in the butt, but he did at least set goals there. Sadly once he got even the least bit of resistance he stopped trying and his minions and party partners in the Congress were even quicker to jump off what they perceived as a sinking ship. That should teach those in Congress that they made a huge mistake. If they had done something on social security, even if it was in little tiny pieces, they could have gotten credit from the party faithful (like myself and others) for doing something. Instead they sat like scared little school girls afraid that someone would be offended by the actions they took and lost all sense of momentum.
Momentum is a hard thing to gain, and once lost the appearance of sluggishness that others see can be almost impossible to get rid of. There were scandals in this election cycle (Mark Foley anyone?), and there was the continuing drum beat of a long drawn out war in Iraq that seems to be headed in the direction of failure, but I don't think either of those is really what cost the GOP this election. What cost them the most is that they lost the party faithful in many cases and left themselves a bunch of voters that weren't really motivated to get out and vote for their party. While the numbers weren't awful, they were not great and they do reflect something Draginol pointed out weeks ago -- a dissatisfaction with the GOP that was likely to show up in the polling place.
I hope that the GOP learns lessons from this election and uses those lessons to build a better party. I hope that they don't look at the rantings and writings of a raving lunatic like a certain (likely gleeful today) Clueless Old Liberal and think that they'll learn anything there. I hope that they don't look at the old guard main stream media and try to learn lessons there. No, they need to look back at their grass roots and learn the lessons from the party faithful.
Learn that unrestrained spending is not acceptable. Learn that failing to secure the borders is not acceptable. Learn those things and many more and perhaps you'll regain the confidence of the party members and then the public in general.
