Dreaming of the 2010 mid-term elections

Republicans who are dreaming of recapturing the House - and possibly the Senate - in next year's elections should consider this very carefully:

"Just say no" is not a political program. Nor is relying on disillusionment with the current Congress a guarantee of anything.

When Republicans captured the House of Representatives in 1994, after 42 years in the minority, it was because then Representative - later Speaker of the House - Newt Gringrich created a positive political program which he named 'The Contract with America'.

The genius of President Reagan and Speaker Gringrich was that they both had well thought out programs based on sound conservative intellectual foundations. President Reagan also understood that it was possible to compromise on legislation without sacrificing his principles.

Those who claim to be President Reagan's political heirs need to do much better than to pervert Mrs. Reagan's most famous comment. She was speaking to teenagers and college students who were under great peer pressure to indulge in illegal drugs. We, on the other hand, need an alternative to the current government.

The President and his allies in Congress have programs - even if they have many flaws. To win back the Congress, Republicans must develop their own programs or, better yet, tells us which ones they will abolish and how they will balance the budget in the not so distant future.

The alternative is to continue to "just say no" while watching erstwhile supporters walking away from a party that doesn't seem to stand for anything beyond just being in office.