Okay, okay, okay …. I understand what you’re saying. The Republican Party needs to say what it’s for; what it would do to return the government to the people.

With all of the reading and research I do, a close friend of mine continues to advise me – ME – as to what the GOP needs to do.   His latest push was to bring to my attention Peggy Noonan’s column, Republicans Need a Direction.

In effect, Noonan seems to foresee another 2012 election, when few people thought President Obama, with his lousy record, had a chance of winning. Mitt Romney won the initial debate hands down, but he listened to establishment advisors, who told him not to  attack and present a “nice guy” image.  That bad advice, a poor turnout of Republican voters, and another masterful get-out-the-vote by “team Obama” sunk the GOP.

Columnist Peggy Noonan’s pieces appear in the Wall Street Journal. (lonelyconservative.com)

“In a year when Republicans are operating in such an enviable political environment, why aren’t their U. S. Senate candidates holding big and impressive leads? Why does it look close? Why are party professionals getting worried?

The Democrat president is unpopular (again). What progress can be claimed in the economy is tentative, uneven, feels temporary. True, unemployment is bad and people who have jobs feel stressed and hammered by costs. Americans are less optimistic than they’ve ever been in the modern era, with right-track/wrong-track numbers upside down.  Scandals, war, uncertain (no) leadership – all this has yielded a sense the whole enterprise of the past six years just did not work.” 

So wrote Noonan, adding, “If Republicans can’t make, catch and ride a wave in an environment like this, they’ve gone from being the stupid party to the stupid loser party.”

Noonan isn’t the only columnist or pundit advising the Republican Party. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial staff asked, Republicans for What? and the WSJ’s Kimberley Strassel recently wrote about, The GOP’s Message Problem, and A 2014 GOP Election Model.

Writing in the Investor’s Business Daily, Lawrence Kudlow wrote, “If the Republican Party adopts a clear, optimistic growth-and-reform message to turn America around, it can win big in November,” but adds, “Yet it hasn’t told voters what it would do with such a mandate.”

While writing in the Washington Examiner that the Republicans are poised to win the most House seats since 1946, a cautious Michael Barone, writing in the Investor’s Business Daily says, “Republicans seem to be pulling away in the race to win a majority in the U.S. Senate. At least this week.”

Former House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill said, “All politics is local.” I would certainly agree with that as far as the mid-term elections are concerned. Sure, there are Republican House and Senate candidates out there tying their opponents to President Obama, but they’re also telling voters what they will bring to the office they are seeking.  I’ve read transcripts of their speeches.

The big question is – should the Republican Party state what it is for, and what it intends to do if elected?   At this point, with the presidential election two years away, my answer to that question is an explicit, “NO.”  As we near 2016 with a candidate capable of winning the presidency, the party will present clear policy differences in its path to the White House.

Why should the GOP open itself up to a preemptive strike by Alinskyite Democrats to shoot down every proposal before we even have a candidate, when we can run on the president’s failed policies?

“I think you gotta give people a reason to vote for you,” said Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), “assuming an unpopular president we therefore by default will win, I don’t buy that.”

The GOP understands it is still considered to be the party of old white men, who don’t like women, children and the poor. I know they’re working hard to change that image, but it won’t happen over night.  The fact that we have several excellent female candidates in 2014 can’t hurt.

I believe Republicans can have success in next month’s mid-terms, without a grand 1994 Gingrich-style Contract with America, but they will need a clearly stated agenda come 2016.

“It’s good to win, but winning without a declared governing purpose is a ticket to nowhere, “wrote Noonan.

In 2008, Obama won with “Hope,” and “American isn’t a red America and a blue America. Then, in 2012, Obama won with the slogan, “Forward,” designed to look back at the bold strides made and what we can look forward to.  And what about the promises not kept – closing Guantanamo, comprehensive immigration reform, and “affordable” health care that enables you to keep your doctor and keep your plan?

In the 2016 campaign, the GOP will put forth a plan for a renewed America, hopefully designed around legislation passed by a majority House and Senate.

The real challenge will be the selection of a candidate who can win.