From the Department of Self-Promotion

I have a new essay up on FrumForum about reforming the Republican party. It begins:

If Republicans are able to regain some measure of power in 2010—an increasingly likely possibility—their victory will, as of this moment, be due less to Republican policy successes and more to a fantastic display of self-immolation on the part of their Democratic rivals.

The tactics of opposition, however, are not a substitute for a forward-looking policy portfolio. Running as the not-Democrat may be, at the moment, an effective electoral tool, but it need not be an effective political one in the long term. Democrats ran very effectively against George W. Bush in 2006 and 2008, yet they now seem to have hit the rough waters of actual governance. It was in part the policies of the 2000s that set the stage for the GOP’s electoral drubbings in 2006 and 2008.

Whether or not Republicans are able to take control of Congress and the presidency again in the next few electoral cycles, they will need a new policy regime...

Read the rest here.