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During times of peace and prosperity, her strength-turned-stubbornness cost her the premiership. Her failures should warn future leaders that one must never ingratiate with opponents, yet he (or she) must cooperate with (not necessarily capitulate to) one’s colleagues.

Partisan gridlock, hyper-partisan bickering, Congressmen doing nothing. Complaints are louder, more shrill than ever. “The party system is a bust. We, the people, must reform the process. Let's end the hegemony of a two-party system, some suggest. Let one party have all the control.

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I have been learning a lot about the Left and its tactics in shaming conservatives, Republicans, anyone who resists certain cultural changes at the expense of others. Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" is a potent vehicle of outline and detail about the tactics modern liberals, the media, and other leftist elites have used against the political opposition.

As conservatives expand a vibrant country for free people, they should revisit the arguments of Milton Friedman, who outlined unique insights on immigration. By integrating the values of the free-market economist, they can turn five years of stunning gridlock on this issue into winning compromise.

For a long time, U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), a conservative, opposed gay marriage, along with the majority of his party. Two years ago, he discovered his son was gay, or his son revealed he was gay. Later, Portman had a change of heart about the issue. He has come out in favor of gay marriage.

In true upstart form, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last week took on Democratic counterpart Dianne Feinstein in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on her proposed assault weapons ban. He refused to roll over for the liberal-Democrat juggernaut and embrace their objective.

State senate minority leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) just introduced an "open enrollment" bill that would permit California students to enroll in any school that they want to. Sen. Huff has done much to improve public education in California. He authored the school choice parent-trigger law, which allows parents to take over the operations of their children's local school should the test scores and the achievement of the students suffer.

There will be primary fights in both parties. That is the nature of politics and human ambition. It is vital that primary voters rally around the candidate who is electable, not just conservative. National Review founder/editor William F. Buckley counseled his peers to balance pragmatism and purpose: “Support the conservative candidate who is the most electable.”

Before I understood the ways of faith, I had to see something before I could believe it. The Austrian economists, including their forerunner Adam Smith and their chief spokesman Friedrich Hayek, taught me to value what is invisible. Market forces are unseen, unavailable to the senses and to the mind of man. What we live by is not a product of our reason, but of forces and traditions we did not create, plan nor modify, except at great peril.

ABC News has just reported that an obscure federal law has been driving the demise of the United States Postal Service: "The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act." This bill, signed into law by President Bush, held that the Postal Service had to set aside health benefits funds 75 years in advance.