Seven tests for GOP action -- and competence

Voters did not suddenly embrace Republicans as much as they rejected Democrats, with the GOP benefiting from the binary political system. Democrats made a similar assumption after winning sweeping victories in the 2006 and 2008 elections, and have paid for it ever since. Democrats failed to understand that and spent the last six years reducing their party to its worst political position since the 1920s, and possibly since Reconstruction.

Voters did not elect Republicans as much as they elected for a change – and want it to result in positive action, economic revival, a secure and strong America, and most of all greater accountability from Washington DC. Had they articulated among themselves a set of tests for proposed actions that reflected those principles, they might have avoided this debacle entirely. These seven tests, in descending priority order, will provide Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue insight into whether their actions reflect their understanding of that mandate[.]