As anyone who wasn't living in a cave knows, Obama campaigned on an ethereal platform of hope and change.  A sad majority of Americans bought into the media's hype of symbolism and elected him over someone who in many people's opinion, in the person of John McCain, had much more substance. 

The media spin was that average Americans hoped that Obama would bring an end to "bitter partisanship" and bring back a civil tone to Washington political discourse and international diplomacy.  The extreme left hoped that Obama would bring about radical change and move America from a quasi-capitalistic-democracy into quasi-democratic-socialism.  Unfortunately, only one of those dreams is close to actually transpiring.  Under the Obama administration, bipartisanship doesn’t mean compromise, it means kow-towing to Rahm Emmanuel’s strong-arm Chicago tactics.  When Republicans don't go along with whatever crackpot socialist scheme Obama and his puppets, Pelosi and Reid, have cooked up in the House and Senate, they are accused of being partisan, even when the Left makes no attempt at compromise with the Right.  So far, the only compromise has been attempts to bring along the few socially conservative Democrats in order to get to the filibuster proof 60 votes in the Senate.

So, the Obama version of Hope and Change, let's call it 1.0, has been a dismal failure.  If you're a geek, think of Hope and Change 1.0 as Windows Vista - lot's of flair, lots of potential, lots of marketing, but low on results and rarely meeting expectations.

It's time for an upgrade.  To quote Jim Carrey in The Mask, "Hold on to your lug nuts, it's time for an overhaul".  We need Hope and Change 2.0, or the Windows 7 version that actually meets expectations.  And 2010 is just the year for such an upgrade.  With the upcoming mid-term elections, Republicans need to stick it to the Democrats like never before.  Democrats love to co-opt conservative themes and twist them into ways to win elections.  They've done this successfully in the past with education and conservation.  Republicans have always been supporters of education, but Democrats used the public's concern with education to build a federal monstrosity that is solely concerned with electing lefties, not educating your kids.  And they took the very essense of Conservatism, "to conserve", and twisted it into a means for creating more government control and regulation in the climate change movement. 

In a similar spirit, Republicans need to take Hope and Change and give it some real meaning.  Rather than just blather on about some vague concept of "HOPE", we put hope into action.  First we define what we are hoping for - a government that is responsive to the people and is fiscally responsible.  In short, a government run by mature adults, not teenagers on a drunken spending spree on dad's credit card.  Then, we define the change - cutting spending that isn't defined Constitutionally as an area of federal oversight.  In other words, no pork-barrel-special-interest spending.  That could mean elimination of whole bureacracies and massive reduction in federal spending.  Imagine the growth this country would face if the federal budget was decreased by half!  This will take electing representatives who aren't afraid of being called Conservative, or worse, and who will not be corrupted by getting into a position of power.  In the upcoming campaigns, look for people running who have experience, who are not career politicians, who know when to compromise and perhaps most importantly, know when not to.

Happy New Year, here's to Hope and Change 2.0.  May your work be fruitful, your family blessed, and the Senate and House flipped in November.