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Return Home Rebuilding the Republican Brand                                                                                                                   www.FirstThings.us Following the disastrous results of the mid-term elections in 2006, the Mountain Observer tried to make the point that what the GOP was missing was concern for the fundamental base of the Reagan Democrat, aka Joe Six-pack.  Go look it up in Archives.  Of course, nobody was listening. Now, with the disaster of 2008, and a hopefully chastised GOP, I want to expand further on this point.  I believe this is the key to developing a true conservative hegemony in American politics, with or without the GOP. What Conservatives need to do is to build on the very successful point of tax cuts and supply side economics by linking these issues with the true costs (taxes by another name) of political environmentalism.   Conservatives have been in the forefront of calling attention to the problems of political environmentalism; however what I believe has been missing is a structured attempt to dollarize the costs at a level understandable specifically to the retail consumer and production worker level. Time to turn loose the Cato Institute on this matter.  The so-called middle class needs to see in more specific and concrete forms the actual dollar impact on prices and jobs of political environmentalism. Conservative politicians need to re-frame their messages to better link these issues, and more specifically identify the costs of political environmental regulation as the taxes (and backdoor political control) that they really are.  The points I am making here are really not new, however the specificity of the links and the message has been weak.  What I am trying to argue is, that properly presented at a level understandable more clearly to Joe Six-pack, conservatives can expose a core issue that can trump current racial, gender, economic and political divides.  Pull the rug out from underneath the Left on these matters as an offensive strategy and get off the defensive reactionary mode of trying to out-left the Left on racial, gender, economic and political issues as they define them.  However, to implement what I am proposing, some serious technical research is necessary to dollarize the political environmental costs at the consumer and production worker levels to make the point.  Every conservative recognizes the critical role of the medium and small business person and entrepreneur. The message has to be worked down further to the employee, union or otherwise. JES                                                                                                                  www.FirstThings.us To further elaborate on the point.  Given past GOP tax compromises with the Dems that have had the effect of basically eliminating taxes for the bottom 50%, the point needs to be made that the bottom 50% is paying heavy "taxes" in the form of higher prices that accrue from political environmentalism. The stability of employment is also at greater risk due to these political environmental crusades.  The equivalency of these costs with taxes is the point that needs to be made, not only on a philosophical level, but on an individualized and dollarized level, like for a percentage of a loaf of bread or a bottle of beer.  And on the overall impact on an annual personal budget of 30 or 40k.  JES Conservatives.  Don't fall into the trap of trying to out-perform the Left with more regulations directed at financial institutions and the markets.  On a more positive note, stress the need for more disclosure and information in support of better and more timely free market decision making.  JES                                                          Copyright 2009 South Park Services LLC. All rights Reserved.