The Republicans these days are a rag-tag gaggle of no-counts & hot-heads.

[saltpoint]

If they are interested in being a political party which exerts influence on our national life, they would need, among other things, an applicable vision for addressing people's individual and collective needs.

It doesn't seem to me that they are meeting those criteria.

McCain played the fear card as we expected he would. The conservative media backed him, generally, as we expected they would. Neither of these worked. The Palin choice was startlingly ill-considered, although it served to reinforce what is wrong with the Republican Party, so in that way was somewhat useful.

In very significant majorities, U.S. voters chose Barack Obama. I like my country under Obama a lot better than I liked it under George W. Bush. It's the same country at one level, but it ain't the same place. A 9th grader may play in the band with an old dented coronet and say he can't get much good sound out of it owing to all the dents, but when Louis Armstrong plays the same coronet, Jesus God it sounds just great.

Same trumpet.

Absent another community-based paradigm, a modern-day political party needs a leader. I don't think a strong case can be made that they have one in Michael Steele. Or in Mitch McConnell. Or in John Boehner. Or in Eric Cantor.

When Rush Limbaugh is your queen bee, your hive's in harm's way.

They could try to bring Newt Gingrich down from the attic. They could re-package Sarah Palin. They could risk running Romney. They could hunker down with Huck.

But none of these folks strikes me as a potent national candidate. Of the batch I don't see any of them defeating Obama in demographics, let alone in a series of debates. Huckabee is the closest to a personable candidate in the lot and he only barely beat Sam Brownback in the Iowa caucuses in the 08 cycle.

It may be time for these people to have themselves a little meeting with Dr. Phil. "Gutting the federal treasury, undermining people's faith in their institutions, subversion of public programs, strangling government in the bathtub, lying the nation into pointless wars, being rabidly anti-science... How's that workin' out for ya?"

[pretzel4gore]

1. the pigmedia still pines for...reagan, ronald mcdonald regan...

they're warpigs and arse peddlars and liars and traitors and thieves, rapists and mass murderers....and the repukkes are just the go-yo boys for rupert murdock and the righteous press (ie pigmedia) esp. foxnoose, cnn, abc, cbs, nbc, kkk, gwb, doa, wtf etc

[saltpoint]

2. There is a hunger for Reagan in Republicanland, yes. Especially now

when they have no one at all and we have Barack Obama.

Someone on this site described the Republicans' fate as being at large in the wilderness for some time to come.

That sounds about right to me.