There are some encouraging signs that Republicans have learned the lessons from the elections of 2006 and 2008 during which the American people overwhelmingly rejected them and threw them out of the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives. In addition, the voters gave the Democrats huge majorities in both the House and Senate.
However, the Republicans in both chambers have done yeoman's work in fighting against the socialist excesses of the Obama Administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress. Every single Republican in the House voted NO to Obama's failed "stimulus" bill, worth some $1 trillion of Americans' tax money (with interest.)
The president promised that the unemployment rate would go above 8% if the Democrats did not pass his "stimulus" bill. So under great pressure, the Congress passed his bill and Americans have suffered under 10% unemployment or higher for months.
Likewise, every single one of the Republicans in Congress -- except for a liberal Republican from Louisiana -- voted against ObamaCare, the socialized medicine scheme, costing some $2.5 trillion over a decade, which the Democrats are trying to force upon the American people, even though Americans overwhelmingly oppose such a bill.
However, just when you think the Republicans are on the right track, they revert back to their old ways. For example, the Republican National Committee -- led by the normally sensible Chairman, Michael Steele -- is actually having their winter meeting in beautiful and warm Hawaii. If they needed to go to Hawaii in the middle of winter for their meeting, they could have waited until America was in the middle of an economic boom.
Likewise, in the Florida Senate primary, national Republican leaders have strongly backed a big-spending Republican, the moderate governor, Charlie Crist, who was seen with his arms around Barack Obama supporting the president's trillion dollar "stimulus" bill before he got the Congress to pass it. Conservatives, including the Tea Party activists, have been endorsing Crist's opponent, the former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Marco Rubio, who in the latest Qunnipiniac Poll, has gone ahead of Crist 47% to 44%. Last summer, Governor Crist lead Speaker Rubio by a whopping 31 points. Obviously, the Republican establishment is on the wrong side in this race.
The Republican leadership have been telegraphing that they will be introducing a Contract with America, 2.0, late this coming summer which will embrace many of the small government, low-taxes, strong national security principles included in their 1994 Contract with America. That contract gave the Republicans control of the Senate, and for the first time in 40 years, control of the U.S. House of Representatives.