I’ve been remiss in not promoting this AFF panel tonight, on which I’m speaking:

On March 5th, the Obama Administration will have been in office for over a month. Since the loss of the election in November conservatives and libertarians from across the nation have started to think about the road back not only to power, but how to return the country to believing in free-market principles. Have libertarians and conservatives found their voice? With a plummeting economy, do free market ideas stand a chance? Have Republicans discovered a comeback strategy based on ideas and principles that libertarians and conservatives can support? What is the road back to capitalism?

If you’re in the city, come on out.

Thanks to everyone who came out in Hoboken last night, and thanks to the Hoboken Republicans for having me.

As always, a spirited discussion. One trend in these discussions — it seems to happen over and over and over again, in any crowd — is for two arguments to emerge: 1) We weren’t pure enough; 2) We weren’t centrist enough.

Of course, those who want the party to move in a Palin-esque direction choose argument 1. Those who favored, say, Giuliani or another “moderate” choose argument 2.

Neither is right.

Argument 1 is especially wrong-headed, I think. Whether it’s the Republicans or the Democrats, someone is always making this argument. After all, how many liberal Democrats argue that if their party had only nominated Howard Dean in 2004, they would have kicked George Dubya’s ass? Quite a number, from what I’ve seen over the years. Meanwhile, plenty of conservative Republicans this year believe that our only mistake was not putting Sarah Palin at the top of the ticket. But I’ve never seen any evidence that there’s a majority constituency for social conservatism plus fiscal conservatism. Nor is there a majority constituency for economic liberalism plus social liberalism.

Elections, for the most part, are won in the center — despite the Rove theory that everything comes down to the base.

But that doesn’t mean that whoever is most centrist automatically wins, either. Winning an election, it turns out, is a complicated thing. You need to be far enough toward the center to be broadly palatable; you have to actually stand for something to have any base; you need a candidate who can put one foot in front of the other, as opposed to in his mouth. (Or, you can get really lucky and run against a ridiculously bad opponent.)

In other words, there are no easy answers. It’s not that we need Palin. It’s not that we just have a communications problem. And it’s not just that we need to move to the center. Chances are, we’re going to need to reinvent the Republican platform and message for a new era. And we may not, for years, have a candidate capable of out-communicating Obama.

The facts may be depressing. But the facts is the facts.

Tomorrow night, I’ll be debating the future of the right at Lolita Bar, on the Lower East Side (hosted by Todd Seavey):

With the government, intended by the Framers to be small and humble, now funneling a trillion dollars through itself and into the hands of its allies and supplicants…with pop culture iconography fusing with state-worship to create an ostensible messiah-president…with self-interested elites from academia to Nobel committees now oblivious to the difference between compassion and centralized planning (whether of economies or ecosystems), can the desperate (and often stupid) forces of opposition — the exiled right, marginalized conservatism — get any lower?

I’ll host — and Michel Evanchik will moderate — a debate on that very topic, “Has the Right Hit Bottom Yet?”

This Thursday, Feb. 19 (8pm) see optimist (and writer, blogger, and Research editor) Ken Silber argue yes, that the right is already planning its comeback, while pessimist (and author of Elephant in the Room) Ryan Sager argues no, saying the movement he loves is still plummeting downward for the foreseeable future.

Ryan Sager, pessimist (and author). It’s a career. 8 o’clock. See (some of) you there.

In today’s Post, I look at the race for NY-20 — the first congressional race of the Obama era:

The national GOP is eager to paint a potential win here as the start of a Republican comeback. The new party chairman, Michael Steele, last week called the race a “battle royal” that would send a “powerful signal to the rest of the country” that the GOP has still got some fight in it. In truth, the GOP has little to gain in this race but plenty to lose.

For starters, it’s a sign of how far the Republican Party has fallen and how fast that this race is even in serious contention. Republicans held the seat for decades until 2006, when former Rep. John Sweeney lost his re-election bid. That was the year a Bush backlash and the “culture of corruption” threw control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats. And on top of ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Sweeney was hit with a domestic-violence police report surfacing days before the election, involving the congressman and his then wife.

In other words, Gillibrand’s victory was a bit of an anomaly. (It helped that she took all those conservative, NRA-friendly positions that she’s now dropping in anticipation of running statewide in 2010.)

The district isn’t just historically Republican; it’s nearly all white and heavily White collar. The GOP has a 70,000-voter registration edge, and [Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco (R-Schenectady)] enjoys high name recognition. Plus, his opponent starts out unknown, with roughly six weeks to make up the difference.

It should be a walkaway for the GOP.

But the 20th went narrowly for Obama in November. And it’s not at all clear that Tedisco is any closer than the national GOP to finding a message to counter the new president’s still-popular talk of change and hope.

In other words, the GOP has a lot to lose in this race, but not much to win. Tedisco is running on a somewhat ludicrous slogan — “Now We Will!” — which is an attempt to, I suppose, shift Obama’s slogan into the future tense.

It all seems rather fittingly symbolic for a party that has absolutely no idea how to get back on its feet after 2008. Especially since its politicians, including Tedisco, seem oblivious to the fact that there is even really a problem.

[archive copy of this column here.]