With the country facing major challenges that require both parties working together you'd have thought liberals would be willing to put aside politics for awhile.

We got our answer last weekend with the winter conference of the Democracy Alliance in D.C. (a club of the largest liberal Democratic donors), where they met gearing up for the 2014 election cycle.

According to Politico Playbook, "Some of those groups or other allies are considering expanding into state politics, policy fights or even primaries on both sides (remember Todd Akin in Missouri whom liberal super pacs assisted in the GOP primary). And they have already gone back to their 2012 donors to ask for more cash while the euphoria from winning is still fresh."

So we have no choice but to begin our efforts for 2014 and 2016 now.

One priority for us, is to identify who our voters are (non-primary voters who lean toward our side), which hasn't been done in decades. The Democrats have an advantage here as they had a big primary in 2008 when President Obama and Hillary Clinton boosted turnout considerably.

Let's say the GOP gives in to President Obama and ends the Bush tax cuts for those who earn over $250,000 per year. First, we can't forget that in many parts of the country such an income for a family of four is not rich but upper middle class, and that after state, local, Medicare, Social Security, income, property and sales taxes it leaves less than 50% of the income for a family to live on, but they will.

So what does it mean for the government? The national debt for this year is estimated to be $1 trillion plus. With the Obama tax increases the anticipated revenue debt reduction covers only around 8.5% of the debt or $85 billion (estimated revenue by raising taxes on the so called "rich"). As for the other 91.5% of the debt, President Obama and the Democrats have no answers as to where to reduce spending or control entitlements. Nor do they have a plan to encourage growth in the private sector economy, which under President's Kennedy, Reagan and Bush, government revenue increased markedly. In fact, if the Democrats get what they want we are probably headed back into recession.

As TCR looks toward the forthcoming session in Austin there are two leaders emerging that are critical for conservatives that can move the ball down the field on solving emerging state issues with conservative common sense solutions - David Dewhurst and Joe Straus.

As one looks toward the near term and intermediate future, Texas needs to address issues that are tied to our success as a growing state: water, transportation, entitlements reform, education effectiveness and reform, and indigent medical care.

Failure to deal with these issues and punting them down the road will only compound our future problems and threaten the Texas economic success story.

These two gentlemen hold historically powerful positions and they are in a position to demonstrate that our party has conservative answers to Texas' challenges.

Five years ago while driving my son Sam to The University of Kansas, we stopped to get gas off the I-70 in the western part of the state. There was a rather large market adjacent to the gas pumps which we entered to buy some drinks. There was a massive display of Hostess products. The entire family of delicious treats was on there - Twinkies, Cupcakes, Ding-Dongs, Fruits Pies and Snowballs. I knew I was no longer in California as I never see them in health-obsessed Los Angeles.

Now they will all be gone unless someone buys them out of bankruptcy. A slice of America is disappearing which I will miss even if I have not had one for over forty years.

More importantly, Wonder Bread will not be made any longer. Arthur Bryant's BBQ in Kansas City, which was founded in the 1920's, may be the best darn ‘Q in America and has a real dilemma. They are probably the largest user of Wonder Bread in the world. It was always a slice of life to go in there and see an untold number of loaves stacked up ready to be provided to the endless line of customers streaming through for ribs or pulled pork or burnt ends. I am sure they never counted on this …

Spending two weeks in Ohio working on the campaign produced many memorable experiences, but at the top was the sticker shock. Everything was so much cheaper. After driving from our home base in Columbus to Cleveland to see our friends Dennis Prager and Michael Medved, who were appearing with Hugh Hewitt and Jon Voight, we went to get gas for the ride home. I called my wife who was filling up in Los Angeles at the time. I was paying exactly one dollar less per gallon than she was for gas. But she had the honor of being in the Golden State!

Benghazi has certainly turned out to be one of the juicier political stories in a long, long time.

It will be interesting to see when the first Democrat turns on the Administration and their series of falsehoods and surrealistic assertions.

The best moment so far has been when President Obama channeled Elvis Presley to protect his "Little Sister" Susan Rice. The Daily Caller nailed it when they stated Obama set women's rights back one hundred years by telling the press that the Republicans should come after him and leave her alone. On top of it, he's thinking of nominating her for Secretary of State. If she cannot handle this criticism, how is she going to handle Mahmoud Abbas or Vladimir Putin?

The other best part of the news conference was when the Chicago Tribune's White House reporter, Christi Parsons, thought she was at a Tom Jones concert and seemed ready to throw her panties at the President. Her gushing was nauseating. It was an embarrassment for modern journalism, the press corps and the Chicago Tribune. The fact that she was not either suspended or fired is indicative of the reason why the press is held in such low regard today.

The Susan Rice issue could have been headed off if just one of the five Sunday talk show hosts would have just said "Why are you here." It was illogical that she was there in the first place. There are probably two reasons they did not ask her that. First, they want to get guests from the White House and did not want to get cut off. Second, because she is a woman and they still play patty cake with female guests.

Now that the Miami Marlins have dumped many of their most valuable players a year after being handed an expensive new stadium by the local government - funded with the public's money -- maybe this stupidity will stop. If a professional team wants an expensive new stadium that will bring them oodles of new revenue, they should fund it themselves. Elected officials should stop acting like country bumpkins in dealing with the billionaire owners. Of course, the problem lies in the fact that the local officials are spending OPM (other people's money).

In most Administrations that have a second term, a lot of people exit because they want to go make money. This Administration could be different. Where would Hilda Solis at Labor go to other than to work at a union? Kathleen Sebelius probably wants to hang around to make sure all her friends get exemptions from ObamaCare while the rest of us get stuck abiding by all the nonsensical rules she makes up. Hillary seems to be one of the few who actually has a life. And I am sure someone will pay Geithner big dollars for his access to the Administration. Other than that, you have a group of people who never worked in private industry so another four years with a job is a delight for them.

Unfortunately, you may be the one without a job.

Since we don't have immigration reform except in the minds of a few people, let me bring back a golden oldie from a prior Selective Thoughts that no one has answered yet:

Obama's new policy ignores "qualified" illegal immigrants who are under the age of 30. We'll be giving these young people special treatment because they were supposedly brought here through no fault of their own.

So here's the big question: Does this mean that we're going to leave the kids here and send back their parents?

I have previously excoriated David Letterman for letting his left-wing politics infect his show. At least he continues a time-honored tradition of having young comics on the show like Johnny Carson did for 30 years.

On the other hand, Jay Leno virtually never has a stand-up comedian perform on the show, which is particularly odd since he still works every week at a comedy club in Hermosa Beach and must interact with a lot of young comedians. Someone needs to remind Jay that The Tonight Show is supposed to be a comedy show and it would be nice if someone other than he was responsible for the yucks.

Nice to see Hillary is going to the Middle East. Since Benghazi she has been MIA and I was about to send out a search party.

Red, White & Blue featuring TCR Editor Gary Polland, liberal commentator David Jones and moderator Linda Lorelle on Fridays at 7:30 pm on PBS Houston Channel 8.1, replaying Sundays at 12:30 p.m. on Channel 8.1, Mondays at 11:30 pm on Channel 8.2 and on the web at www.houstonpbs.org.

For a fun feature go to www.houstonpbs.org and under Red White and Blue, you can see commentary about the show and its guests by Gary and David each week. The current show as well as past shows are also available on YouTube.

Gary Polland is a long-time conservative and Republican spokesman, fund-raiser, and leader who completed three terms as the Harris County Republican Chairman. During his three terms, Gary was described as the most successful county Chairman in America by Human Events - The National Conservative Weekly. He is in his fourteenth year of editing a newsletter dealing with key conservative and Republican issues. The last eleven years he has edited Texas Conservative Review. As a public service for the last 8 years, Gary has published election guides for the GOP primary, general elections and city elections, all with the purpose of assisting conservative candidates. Gary is also in his tenth year of co-hosting Red, White and Blue on PBS Houston. Gary is a practicing attorney and strategic consultant. He can be reached at (713) 621-6335.