Ken Gardner from Facebook:

1. We must continue to oppose bad policy while offering conservative, free market, individual liberty solutions and a better vision. Obama has no mandate. We don’t have to act as if he does. …

4. As conservatives, we need to be discussing and debating ideas, not who is or isn’t “the establishment” or a “true” conservative.

5. As conservatives and GOPers, we need to be doing MUCH better with Hispanic voters. If we don’t, Darwinian selection will take over and we will become extinct. We have lost CA and NM, CO and NV are slipping away, FLA may be slipping away, AZ will soon be slipping away, and even TX might someday start slipping away (although not anytime soon). …

7. This one is going to upset the most of you, but I have to say it: the GOP needs to cut a grand bargain on the immigration issue and do it fast. Dems are using it to HAMMER GOPers and win Hispanic votes. We aren’t going to deport 12 million people back to Mexico. That’s a pipe dream. Even talking about it is political suicide for the GOP. Meanwhile, millions of Hispanics fear and distrust the GOP because of this issue — many of who would be far less Democratic but for this issue. I don’t care what you call it, we need to get the millions of people who are here illegal on a path to legal residence or citizenship or whatever you want to call it. We need to stop being the nail to the Dems’ hammer on this issue. If we don’t, see Paragraph 5 above.

8. Likewise, this one may upset some of you: the GOP needs to stop relying on the evangelical vote. It has been a declining force in American politics since 2004. It failed to come through for McCain or Romney in key battleground states such as FLA, OH, VA, even NC. America is becoming a more secular country and the GOP must incorporate that fact into its politics, especially at the national level.

9. The GOP needs to return to the ORIGINAL principles of the 2009 tea party movement, before it was hijacked by social conservatives and other movement conservatives: limited government at all levels, personal and fiscal responsibility, returning the federal government to its original constitutionally limited powers and responsibilities, free market principles. More Atlas Shrugged than the Bible.