RIGHT now if the repubs regroup (don't laugh it's a thought), and only stick to two issues - security and the JOBS - they can win easily but because they are like chaff cast into the wind, they will not have the gains they think they can achieve - yep I'm hopeful but doubtful.
A lot of us wouldn't vote for that. Our job and security situations are only symptoms of broader policies. Addressing those becomes a much larger issue fundamentally changing what our country has become over the last 50+ years.
Why are jobs scarce? Because we as a country have done everything we could over the last 50 years to chase business away, law after law. What kind of masochist would open a manufacturing plant of any size in America today? He'd have to be crazy. Nobody wants to have to hire an extra team of bookkeepers and lawyers to ensure compliance with all the laws and keep them from being fined back to the stone age because they didn't fill out a form or two, or they filled in a little ditch on their own property that's home to some obscure bacteria, or make sure they comply with the ADA or that they hire the right number of this and that group.
The number of laws that would have to be repealed, well, I don't know what that number is, but it's a LOT, and there are multiple interests that will fight to prevent the repeal of every one of them. So there's no way to say "Vote for So-and-so, and the jobs will return."
For me, the main issues are 1) the rule of law, that it applies equally in all respects from the bum on the street all the way up to the bloated senators having their three martini lunches, and the executive branch; 2) the Bill of Rights, that it's restored in its entirety without exception and treated as the supreme law of the land that it is, with criminal penalties for violating it; 3) that special interests such as the greenies are denied the ability to drag us back to the times of our great-great-great grandparents, using horses and buggies and washing our clothes on washboards; 4) that the tentacles of government are peeled back from everywhere they don't belong, which is almost everywhere; 5) that the militarization of the local police is halted and reversed; 6) that every bill in congress in treated as a single issue without amendments, riders, earmarks, or any other alteration; 7) that all laws enabling one person to live at the expense of other persons are abolished; and 8) term limits.
I once read a commentary that said that if government would obey just 2 of the ten commandments, just 2, the vast majority of the country's problems would go away. Those 2 are the prohibitions on murder and theft. Likewise, if my points above were implemented, we'd still have problems, but you'd be surprised how livable the country became.
