The voice of one crying in the wilderness...

There's been quite a bit of clothes tearing, hand wringing, and soul searching going on inside the confines of the Republican party. For the most part it's well deserved. It seems though that Sarah Palin is finally finding a supporting voice in the media, and even from within her own party, while the remnants of the Republican leadership wrestles with how to go forward in the much bluer halls of congress and the senate.

I know many people who pray, pray often, and pray hard are still reeling. They see no hope, no potential for anything even remotely positive to come out of what will hopefully only be the next four years.

I don't go that far. I most definitely wish Obama wasn't my President-elect, but I can't say that I would have been politically thrilled beyond all measure if John McCain would have won (I wanted Huckabee from the start, but would have settled for Romney, and finally taken McCain after Fred Thompson).

The thing I take comfort in is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Fears of a democratic congress run amok. Many envisioned a Guevara-beret clad puppet president sprinting hard toward the left to appease a dictatorial and elitist Democratic power structure. However, it seems that already the centrists in the party are standing up to be heard.

Throw into the mix what Scott Rasmussen (President of Rasmussen reports and polling) seems to think about Obama's mandate and I find solace. What comforts me most is that there is a vocal and credible contingent that, like me, sees this election not as an indication that the general populace has shifted far to the ideological left. Rather, our belief is that this election is more of a rejection of President Bush and his policies than an open embrace of a Reid-Pelosi-Obama liberalism.

In this strange amalgam of national emotion -fear, worry and dread at one pole contrasted with nearly messianic visions of redemption and restoration at the other - the extremists are still in the minority.

That's comfort for both Republicans and Democrats.

Most comforting is that even the majority of Democrats are closer to Joe Lieberman than they are to Plastic Pelosi and Scary Reid. Those that would hijack the left and make us all into card carrying socialists are no more a true reflection of the voice of the people than those on the right that would hole up in a compound with guns and a backwoods religion bearing little resemblance to what most of us would recognize or ascribe to.

So the hope for a conservative reassertion is not only alive, but I believe it's stronger than ever. In a rejection of the leftist conservatism of George Bush, the flames are fanned for a revival of true conservatism. Hold fast, stay firm, keep praying.

Most of all, talk to people and find out where they are at. Know what you believe, why you believe it, and keep talking about it with grace and compassion. Start now talking now about the things that you agree with President-elect Obama about (the power of tax-cuts as the way to a reinvigorated economy, for example). If we only talk about how we're against Obama, we'll only seem like bitter losers. Let's relentlessly cast vision that the parts of what's working for the Obama campaign are conservative principles. Build bridges, take back the truth. There will be a time to talk publicly and openly about the change that's coming. For now, let's just talk about what works. Let's talk about what we see that's good, and right. In that way, we will once again be the party of hope and change.