Now that congressional Republicans have lost the battle to prevent President Obama and congressional Democrats from imposing government-controlled healthcare on Americans, what strategy should they pursue to regain control of the House and Senate in the November mid-term elections? Of course, that’s their goal, but what’s the best way to achieve it?

Democrats will pay a price for passing Obamacare. The majority of Americans believe that the 2,700-page bill President Obama will sign in a day or two and the reconciliation bill he eventually may sign will do more harm than good. Obamacare, they’ve decided, won’t bring down healthcare costs and improve services. They see it as the product of ideologues and back-room deals aimed at expanding the Democrat-Party constituency and moving America down the road of social democracy on the European model. They understand that unless it’s changed, it will bankrupt the country.

To repeal Obamacare and replace it with healthcare reform that truly cuts costs and improves care, Republicans need to capture the White House and both houses of Congress. The former they can’t achieve until at least 2012. The latter they can accomplish this November. To do both they can’t afford to underestimate Democrats, the power of the presidency, or their own weaknesses.

The first, and most obvious, thing Republicans must do is counter Democrat’s propaganda and continue to expose the flaws in Obamacare and the effects it’s likely to have on the American healthcare system and the economy. They can do that with appearances on television talk shows, op-eds, and television ads intended to inform Americans, not attack Democrats--there will be plenty of time for that later.

The debate over Obamacare during the past year has barely scratched the surface when it comes to exposing its problems. Much emphasis has been placed on how it would affect the deficit and healthcare insurance costs. There hasn’t been enough focus on how it will change the relationship between patients and doctors, the many boards and panels that will determine what healthcare people receive and don’t receive, and the license it will give the bureaucracy to intrude in to American’s lives (16,000 new IRS agents).

Second, Republicans should support well-founded legal challenges to Obamacare made by the States and by respectable interest groups. It’s always possible to find legal scholars with different opinions; but a challenge to the individual mandate that everyone must buy health insurance as an unconstitutional extension of the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution is one many respected legal scholars support.

This strategy is not without risk, however. Should such a challenge find its way all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the individual mandate were upheld, it could have a profound impact. It could lay the groundwork for the federal government passing all kinds of laws that would infringe on individual freedom.

Nevertheless, these challenges will go forward with or without national Republican-Party support and they are unlikely to reach the Supreme Court before the November election. Legal challenges will remind Americans how Democrats are attempting to limit their freedom.

Third, Republicans leaders in the House and Senate need a coordinated strategy on how they intend to deal with legislation Democrats will introduce between now and the election. Many pundits believe that Democrats, encouraged by their victory with healthcare, will attempt to pursue cap-and-trade legislation and other controversial parts of the Obama agenda the same way. Obamacare has united congressional Republicans; they need to maintain that unity.

If Republicans attempt to block everything, however, Democrats will just accuse them of being “the party of no.” This argument plays well with Independents, or Democrats wouldn’t use it, and the majority of Americans expect Congress, with an approval rating in the teens, to get about the people’s business.

Republicans need to be seen as working with Democrats to address jobs, the economy, and other important bipartisan issues. However, if Democrats attempt to pass cap-and-trade legislation, partisan immigration reform, or other legislation intended primarily to benefit Democrats, Republicans should use every means at their disposal to oppose them. That includes working with conservative Democrats who voted no on Obamacare and don’t want to find themselves in the position of those that voted yes.

Fourth, as election campaigns heat up in the 60 days prior to the November election, Republicans should look to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts as their model. Brown nationalized his campaign for the Senate. He ran against Obamacare, the trial of terrorists in civilian courts, and the Obama administrations assault on individual freedom, and he exposed his opponent as a supporter of those policies.

This will be the time for those 30-second ads reminding voters of how Democrat candidates voted on Obamacare and negotiated special deals for their districts; and Republicans can pledge that they are committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with healthcare reform that truly cuts costs and improves care.

Finally, and most important, Republicans must convince the American People that if they return Republicans to power in the House and Senate they will not revert to politics as usual as their predecessors did when they had power during the George W. Bush administration.

The strategy I’ve laid out isn’t rocket science. It’s common sense. But with campaigns for 435 House seats and one third of the Senate, everyone will be doing their own thing. If Republicans are to successfully nationalize local politics, they must do it in a coordinated manner.