Scott Brown’s victory speech was a bit long. Other than that, it was as close as one can get to a political home run. For those who hadn’t seen or heard him, they probably thought to themselves, “Who is this guy?” Well, aside from the hero of the Right, he’s a very talented politician. He showed some style, humor, and the ability to connect with the crowd. But he (and/or his political staff) also has a key talent: the ability to take big ideas and boil them down to their essential elements. Let’s face it, campaigns may be grounded in well-developed policy proposals, but they are conducted in punchy and memorable phrases.

In addition to distilling the national-security message for conservatives, Brown provided a handy slogan for challengers in 2010:

Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the agenda of a new establishment in Washington.

It has the benefit of being true, getting to the nub of voters’ complaints, and focusing on the biggest issues that unite the Center-Right coalition. The chattering class is obsessed with forcing Republicans to develop a message other than “no.” But “no” is working very well, and “no” won back the House for the Democrats in 2006. And “no” is easily translated into positive policy statements: lower taxes (don’t raise them), create market solutions for health care (don’t allow the government to run it), and prosecute the war against Islamic fundamentalists robustly (don’t give the lefty lawyers at the Justice Department the final say). Certainly, there are other issues Republicans will run on — spending and the debt, for example — but they could do a lot worse than to follow Brown’s lead. He did, after all, figure out how to win a state the GOP lost by 25 points just a year ago.