COLUMN: Republicans should take advantage of opportunity; will not get another soon

• Tweet
• 

A second chance.

That was the common theme among victorious Republicans on Tuesday night.

It first came from Senator-elect Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who said in his victory speech the Republican wave across the country that catapulted the GOP into the majority in the U.S. House, cut the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate in half, and saw numerous gubernatorial and statewide races go for the GOP was “not an embrace of the Republican Party but a second chance.”

It is a chance that must not be squandered because, as demonstrated by Tuesday night, the American voting public can be very unforgiving at the polls.

The sentiment was echoed soon by John Boehner and Eric Cantor, the next speaker of the House and House majority leader respectively.

This is second chance is not the time to go back to being the same old Republican Party.

This is not the time for the Republican Party that had former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, be forced to step down as House majority leader in 2005 and resign from Congress in 2006 because of indictments on corruption and money laundering.

This cannot be the Republican Party where “no” is the answer they will give to President Barack Obama and the Democrats.

This cannot be the Republican Party where the filibuster is threatened for any piece of Democratic legislation in the Senate.

This needs to be a Republican Party that while not letting the “tea party”-backed candidates such as Rubio, and Senators-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire overrun the caucus, they must at least give them a seat at the table.

While the tea party may seem like a bunch of crazy nut-jobs, they do one that is important to every politician: They vote.

Two incumbent Republican senators, Bob Bennett of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, were defeated by tea party-backed candidates in primaries and lost re-nomination.

Three races saw the tea party-backed candidate — Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Ken Buck in Colorado — defeat the preferred candidate of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

The Republican Party was declared dead by many after election night 2008 and the “second chance” that the party has been given is nothing short of a miracle.

I know everybody is now thinking about defeating Obama in 2012, but just do not waste this second chance.

Because there will not be a third one.