Rick Moran poses some valid questions for the Rebuild enterprise. Namely aren't we focusing too much on tactics when what we really need is an ideological revival or a new Reagan?

That's a good question, but ultimately a straw man. I would break down the three things the GOP needs to do as follows:

• Rebuild our infrastructure. There is no question that the left has us beat online and in the new forms of alternative media. We need a strategy for addressing that. This is a main focus of Rebuild the Party but not the only one.
• Find our message. In the absence of a new Reagan or better infrastructure, we need to find a compelling message that resonates. We need to be more centrist / more conservative. We need to focus more on social issues / fiscal issues. Etc. etc.  We hear a lot of this lately. Henke has a framing for this that I like: the unifying narrative.
• Find new leaders. Only when people have a leader they can rally behind will the movement be activated. This was certainly true of Obama.

The right answer is that we need all of the above. None of these can happen without the other. Perhaps the largest failings of the Bush years can be attributed to the fact that we had a new leader without an ideological revival at the same time.

Rick is right that new technology will be for naught if we keep spending like drunken sailors. Tactics cannot overcome structural deficits or crappy, uninspiring messaging. Good marketing cannot dress up a bad product.

I am arguing for good marketing and good product. Because the bad marketing of a good product can be almost as criminally negligent as the reverse. Elections are never won on the force of ideas alone; ideas are a prerequisite for a meaningful victory, but they are not enough. Anyone who tells you that voters "will see the light" if only we adopt the right ideas is a huckster and a fool. There are powerful headwinds flying in the face of anyone who vies for power in the most advanced democracy in the world. We could find our next Reagan and see that person dismantled by a systematic character assassination campaign from the left. Just look at what happened to Sarah Palin. Leaving aside the question of whether she's the one, I was a bit startled by the efficiency with which the combination of new media and old media successfully attacked her public image out of the gate, while little such skepticism was expressed of an equally inexperienced Illinois Senator. These are powerful infrastructural questions we can't just ignore just because we recognize that the fundamental nature of our candidates and our ideas matter more than the tactics we use to sell those candidates and ideas.

This is also a question of timing. Rebuilding our infrastructure can happen first because it doesn't take as long to come to professional conclusions about what needs to be done. Ideological debates are much harder to sort out, and will depend to some extent on how Obama governs. Indeed, the ideological debate may not be settled until we find the right leader. And by definition, this is the last step. The conservative movement wandered decades in the wilderness until it found its leader. And the identity of the leader usually isn't clear until he or she actually wins, so it's the last step in the rebuilding process.

The bottom line is that rebuilding the party should be tackled straightaway so that when ideological or leadership debates are (hopefully) resolved, that person has a turnkey operation in place to be able to win.

Progressive infrastructure predated Obama. Most of it was organized in 2003, 2004, and 2005 when progressives had nothing, and little consensus over an ideological direction. Likewise, conservatives build tons of infrastructure in the '60s and '70s out of the Goldwater loss and before Reagan.

It's a pretty big distortion of my argument to suggest that all the GOP needs is technology. No, that isn't all we need, but it's naive to suggest we can win without using today's weapons, just like technology wasn't the only thing for Obama, but he probably couldn't have won without it, and definitely not in the primary. 

There is also the question of whether a rightroots movement needs to be more oppositional, and more self-consciously conservative rather than Republican. I agree that to motivate large numbers of people, you need something to rally against not just from the other party but in your own. But here again there is a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of many conservative bloggers who have sneered at the idea of building a movement using blogs.

The progressive netroots was oppositional to the Democratic establishment, but ultimately found appealing the idea of taking over the Democratic Party from within, of electing a DNC Chairman who shared their precepts about political organizing and exercising real influence over the party leadership.

Conservative bloggers are often attacked as too close to the party establishment to be effective. I don't think that's quite right. The chasm between bloggers and the GOP establishment is actually greater because they're not even speaking the same language. They have no interest in eventually becoming the GOP establishment, or even a major force within the party. The netroots acts as a pseudo-opposition, but they're at least on the same wavelength as the establishment and could credibly bid to take it over. (Daily Kos's DemfromCT DHinMI was Jim Himes's campaign manager in CT-4.) The online left's political acumen and ability to provide volunteer and donor muscle makes it a credible check against the excesses of the Democratic establishment. Right-bloggers have no such leverage if they all they offer are "just words." 

The prospect of the rightroots becoming an effective counterweight to the venal and corrupt elements of the GOP depends on them engaging in a meaningful political sense -- either taking over the funding stream of the party, running the campaigns, or running for office. But there is a sense in which some bloggers are waiting for someone else to solve the problem rather than doing it themselves like the left did. How many times have we heard that "I will only use my blog to advocate for the GOP if the GOP does X." The netroots approached this probem from exactly the opposite direction: "I will use my blog to make the Democrats do X."

That's quite a difference, and one that's not fully appreciared by the pundit bloggers. While the left approached political adversity as an opportunity, the right seems to use it as an excuse for sclerosis.