I don’t think there’s much I can add to Matt Lewis’s post on the Townhall blog.   Republicans need to stop surrendering issues like health care, jobs, and the environment to the Democrats.   This limits our ability to compete when national security and cultural issues are not the most important things on the minds of voters.  We need to recognize that our inability to challenge the common belief  that the Democrats have the best answers on health care, the economy, and the environment not only damages our chances of winning elections, it also enables bad policy to be implemented without a fight.  There are so many areas where viable conservative solutions can be discovered if we choose to compete in all arenas, not just the ones that are traditionally strong for Republican candidates.

As Matt says, this is not a call to water down our core beliefs and to become Democrat-lite.   We win converts to the conservative cause not by pandering or making easy compromises  — we do it by standing for the ideas we believe in and standing LOUD for those ideas.  In the absence of conservative alternatives, the Democrats are more than happy to fill that void with sweet-sounding promises of more government care and benefits that the working people of this country will never be able to pay for.