There’s a saying that the Chinese have the same word for “crisis” as they do for “opportunity.” That being said, the Republican Party is now facing a defining crisitunity. Yes, they got “thumped” in Congress as well as downright slaughtered in the Buckeye State, but the opportunity comes in recognizing why it was they lost. The “six year itch” played a role, and so did the Iraq war. The series of events and scandals in Washington and Columbus so unfortunate Lemony Snicket wouldn’t touch them certainly didn’t help matters. The most important reason the Republicans were ousted earlier this month was not because of their conservatism but because they strayed from it.

For my second cliché, politicians are known to dance with the ones who brought them to the party or face the consequences. It wasn’t all that long ago (twelve to sixteen years, in fact) that the Ohio Republican Party and the Republican National Committee stood for something. Fed up with Democratic domination in the state and in Congress for a generation, Republicans put together a simple set of principles so voters knew where they stood, how they differed from the Democrats, and what they’d accomplish if entrusted with power. The most obvious example of this was the Contract With America which allowed Republicans to sweep to power in 1994. Newt Gingrich and the Republicans campaigned on change- real, actual change, not simple rejection of the other party- in Washington and across the country. They campaigned on fiscal responsibility, limited government, curbed bureaucracy, tort reform, economic growth, Social Security restructuring, streamlining the welfare state, strengthening national security, and upholding American values. Sound familiar?

Contrast the Gingrich Revolution with the party you saw on November 7. Deficits and government spending have grown at record levels. Bureaucracy has remained at best as cluttered as it was twelve years ago. Tort reform and Social Security reform remain unaccomplished goals even through six years of united Republican government. And yes, that government has expanded beyond Lyndon Baines Johnson’s wildest dreams. Earmarks and pet pork barrel projects usually reserved for the Senior Senator from West Virginia have climbed in to the thousands. Perhaps most distressing of all, Republicans have wavered and faltered even on values issues. Can anyone tell me what Republicans were able to accomplish on immigration, stem cell research, marriage, or abortion? Apparently it wasn’t enough for Republicans to be divisive on social issues. Now they’ve become incoherent as well.

There is, of course, a better way. A way back to victory. Of course, like everything else in politics, it won’t be easy. Unless they’re are willing to become the minority party for yet another decade, and unless they’re ready to salute Madame President in two years, Republicans as a whole must return to ideas-based conservatism. Americans voted for ideas in 1994 that would transform their country and rid Washington of the waste and corruption that had plagued it for forty years. Republicans represented a positive agenda for change and innovation and made a strong case to the American people that conservatism could help them too. It is imperative but not impossible for Republicans in Ohio and across the nation to return to the roots of their revolution twelve years ago. The alternative is yet another generation on the sidelines of political power. Truly that would be a crisis.