Gingrich: Republicans, learn your lessons

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich spells out nine lessons Republicans learned (or should learn) from Scott Brown's victory Tuesday as Massachusetts' new Republican senator. Here's an abbreviated version of what Gingrich writes in The Lessons of Massachusetts:

1. Candidates and campaigns: The first lesson Republicans should take from Tuesday night’s victory is the GOP should run candidates everywhere this year and not worry about whether the district used to vote Republican.
2. Being positive matters, and congressional Republicans should take note: In the three winning campaigns (Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts) the Republican candidate has been issue-oriented and had a positive message. In each case, Republicans drew a principled, issue-oriented difference between themselves and the Democrats.
   
3. President Obama has had two bad anniversaries, and now is the moment for him to rethink what he is doing: The anniversary of the President’s victory in the 2008 election saw decisive Republican gubernatorial victories in two states he had carried. The anniversary of his inauguration was yesterday, and it is the same date a new Republican Senator was sent to Washington to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat, which Scott Brown reminded us is “the people’s seat.” ... The President now has an excuse to stop, rethink, recalibrate, and learn some painful lessons.
   
4. Republicans should offer to help solve America’s jobs, security, deficit, and health challenges through an open, transparent legislative process: This offer to work together [with Democrats] to help the nation would be well received by the American people and would represent a real shift from an opposition party attitude to an alternative governing party attitude.
   
5. The Tea Parties and populism are real: Both the Republicans and the Democrats should take notice of the scale and authenticity of the Tea Party movement. They will be back on April 15 and on dates after that. They will represent a healthy reform energy that will challenge both parties to rise to new levels of integrity and serious reform.
   
6. Trucks beat lobbyists: If your opponent has chosen a symbol for their campaign they may have had a reason for doing it. Be very careful about flippantly highlighting your opponent’s chosen campaign symbol.
   
7. National security matters: Every American concerned about our safety in an age of terrorism ought to read [Andy] McCarthy and look at Brown’s campaign and take heart that safety is a winning issue, and the left is absurdly on the side of putting terrorists’ rights above protecting American lives.
   
8. Secular radicalism is a losing theme, even in Massachusetts: As the left has grown more secular and more militant in its hostility to religion it has begun to arouse strong opposition. Among Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, and Orthodox Jews, [Democratic contender Martha] Coakley’s position represented an anti-religious bigotry which they fear.
   
9. The American people are sovereign, and when their leaders infuriate them, they will rise up and fire the leaders: As it was with Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, the Progressive movement (especially Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson), Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan — again and again the American people find a way to overwhelm the establishment.

Naturally, I couldn't agree more with No. 5 :) Lesson learned!