In response to:
The Civil War was in essence about State rights. We need to start there.
The idea is sound, but I would also stress that we need to come up with free market alternatives to defeat government run programs and entitlements. For example the Chicago School of Economics has suggested privatizing Social Security. It was implemented in Chile giving people an option between private SS funds and government run SS funds. It works with most people choosing private SS funds. Another point is we need to privatize parts of the government such as Amtrak and return certain departments back to the states, such as education.
Conservatives have plenty of other great ideas too. We need to talk about them, constantly.
To understand why Republicans have a "branding problem," you first need to understand how the system is rigged against conservatives.
Such is the schizophrenic dysfunction of our politics: We constantly demand "conviction" politicians who will "do what's right" and then condemn them, often in the same breath, for being unwilling to put aside their conviction and their sense of what's right.
But such condemnation does not fall equally on conservatives and progressives alike. For the progressive's principle is, at its core, more. Do more. Spend more. Spend more doing more. Any compromise of progressive principle in this regard is seen as...
These are excellent suggestions.