There is a great piece over at RedState from Dan McLaughlin. While I find most of his points to be correct, I believe the most important one is the one he lists as number 7.

(7) Prioritize: More on this later, but Obama and the Congressional Democrats are going to have a long list of issues they want to press, and we can't stop all of them. The GOP needs to divide issues into four buckets:

• a. Things we are prepared to go to the mat to stop

• b. Things we want to force the Democrats to commit themselves to so we can take the dispute to the voters

• c. Things, however modest, we actually think we can accomplish even with the Democrats in power

• d. Things we want to propose as positive agenda items even knowing they'll go nowhere, to lay out our own roadmap for the future.

What goes in each of these categories? Let’s consider that for a bit. I’ll make a few suggestions, and you feel free to chime in with your own.

I’d argue that the first category should include illegal immigration amnesty and cuts in national defense that endanger our national security. I’d like to include “drill here, drill now” here as well, but we simply lack the votes to stop the reimposition of the offshore drilling ban by executive order once Obama becomes president in January.

That means we have to put the development of our domestic petroleum resources in the second category, as a part of a comprehensive T. Boone Pickens style energy program. After all, the GOP isn’t the party of “drill only” – it is the party of “drill and”. Social issues belong here as well, such as abortion and gay marriage. We cannot do anything about them – and perhaps may not be able to do so in the future – but we should present them as a contrast with the Democrats.

That leads to the third category. Here I would put preserving at least a portion of the Bush tax cuts. Obama promised no tax increases for those making below $250K. Let’s hold him and his party to that by proposing and introducing legislation that at least preserves the lower end of the Bush tax cuts that lowered the taxes of those of us in the middle class. Maybe also try to preserve the reduction in the death tax. Those ought to be popular measures on which we can pick off enough Democrats to get them passed.

As for the fourth category, I’d suggest something akin to the Contract with America. It would, of course, need to differ due to the times in which we find ourselves, but let’s get that statement of principles out there and begin to present those ideas to the people. That should help in 2010, provided we field a strong candidate in every House district and for every open Senate seat, one who supports this statement of principles. Let’s build one and begin again the task of becoming an American majority again.