The Coming Opportunity for the Right?

(1) I don't think this is so much a Democrat/Republican dynamic as it is a majority party/minority party dynamic.  The party in power is enthusiastically telling voters that it is the great and powerful Oz, while the party out of power is enthusiastically trying to peel back the curtain to reveal Oscar Zoroaster Diggs feverishly working the puppet controls.

(2) While it took them until mid-1993 or so, Democrats, abetted by the lapdog media and the Bush administration's pathetic unwillingness to publicly defend itself, eventually settled on a Grand Unified Theory of Republican wrongdoing.  Details were fit, forcibly if necessary, into an overall narrative of Bush the Constitution-Shredder, Bush the Torturer, Bush the Architect of Kickbacks To Plutocrats, Bush the Executive Branch Power-Grabber, Bush the Destroyer of America's Reputation Abroad, and so forth.  Republicans are going to need to find themselves a similar narrative of Democratic Party malfeasance.  The problem, as you note, isn't going to be a lack of material.  Nor is it a media that's openly cheerleading for the other side; that's simply part of the territory.  The problem is that the GOP leadership is utterly incompetent at messaging.  I mean, these tools allowed Barney Frank and Chris Dodd -- not exactly the brightest bulbs in Congress -- to get away with blaming them, and "deregulation", for the GSA failures, for God's sake.

(3) There is a danger, here, in overplaying one's hand.  Republicans got knocked around by voters in 1998 because, even though most people agreed that Bill Clinton was a philandering scumbag, the public wasn't ready to see him removed from office over it.  Likewise, Democrats got knocked around by voters in 2002 because the public was in no mood for "why do they hate us?" navel-gazing, Bush Derangement Syndrome, and a 60's nostalgia tour in the wake of the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.  Obama is going to take office with around a 70% approval rating.  People are going to be inclined to cut him some slack.  Spinning the aforementioned narrative of Democratic malfeasance needs to be, out of necessity, an unhurried and long-term project lest the public lose patience for it.  In fact, it may even be wise strategy to allow the first few Democratic screw-jobs to slide down the road without much in the way of outrage.  Doing so would permit the GOP to buy some cheap virtue ("These things happen, and while we take seriously the job of holding the opposition accountable, we're going to be statesmen and show some bipartisanship and deference to the election results, and not make a big deal about it right now.") while letting the "look what they're doing to you!" meme gather momentum gradually.  The Holder and Geitner nominations are good opportunities: "Yes, yes, Eric Holder was up to his neck in the Clinton pardon scandals and his copy of the Constitution omits the Second Amendment, while Timothy Geitner is a tax cheat who was part of the crew that ran Citi into the ground.  We think President Obama can do much better.  However, he is entitled to select his own cabinet and advisors."  Then, when the fuckups come, you're that much better positioned to say, "We gave these gentlemen the benefit of the doubt, yet, regrettably, they behaved in office exactly as we feared they would.  This is quickly becoming a disturbing pattern among Obama administration officials yadda yadda."

After the past 8 years of mismanagement (Wars?  We'll give you 2 of them!  OK - one will actually be justified, but we'll spend 90% of our efforts and lives on the other one...  Your safety?  We'll leave it completely in the hands of those folks whose financial standings will benefit by NOT providing you safe and secure products! ...  Budgets and deficits?  We'll show you no tax and BIG spending!  Keeping government out of your lives? ...  Just watch us spy on you!  We'll know when you piss!), the GOP has a very, very steep hill to climb before they can even start spewing "look what they are doing to you".

Jon, thanks for your expert and insightful analysis.  I completely agree that we have to play up more and more the negative side of government and how it is a continual and perpetual threat to everyone's liberties.  But we do need a positive message as well - Democrats tout the benefits of what government can do for us, so Republicans should tout the benefits of what we can do for ourselves.  For instance I like to listen to the Dave Ramsey show as often as I can, and a big theme of his is that he tries to get people to take control of their own financial circumstances.  So when callers desperately plead for help because they are drowning under a mountain of debt, Dave is very good at compassionately and patiently walking them through how they can get out of their situation without bankruptcy and without additional debt.  We should do the same thing when it comes to government - we can compassionately but resolutely explain how people can live their lives without relying on government for their day-to-day needs.  Students don't need government-subsidized student loans to go to college; all that is required is a bit of foresight and planning ahead of time and a willingness to work while in college.   Workers who have been laid off don't need endless unemployment benefits; what's required is a well-planned emergency fund in advance, and a willingness to take a job that, in the short term, may not quite live up to their ideal job standards.  We shouldn't do this by criticizing or casting blame, but as compassionately as we can.  If we do more to preach this message of individual fiscal conservatism I think this is a real recipe for success.

Cut taxes?  Establish marriage as between a man and a woman? Put God back in the schoolhouse? Roll back Roe v Wade? Drown the Government in a bathtub?

Until you come up with a compelling answer to that, pointing fingers at the Left is not going to get you the swing votes in the Center you need to be majority again.