Forgot the GM comparison. It's about arrogance. GM fell because of hubris and arrogance, a "We can succeed, we're GM" attitude. The current "We just need to rebrand our bullshit and the brown and black people will buy it" approach of the GOP "leadership" (pardon me while I cough up a lung) is born of the same hubris, arrogance and cluelessness.

Of course, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it immensely. This is like a 4-year-long traffic accident.

It might be too much to hope that this gang of grifters, morons, emotionally and sexually immature crackpots, religious psychos and ridiculous and sanctimonious, hypocritical and totally pompous, priggish assholes will just go away and not come back. It might be bad luck just entertaining the notion.

One of the true sorrows of my life will be to have lived in a time where everything was possible, accept that we had the Party of Nixon to contend with for the last 40 years.

Remember Jerry Falwell? Barely. Those kinds of people are never remembered, unless they do something truly reprehensible, like burn people at the stake.

I just wish they'd leave already. Even the echo of their receding voices makes me want to vomit.

The section of North America we call the United States never should have been a land of powerful white Christian males. The land was taken; Plymouth Rock landed on the non-Elect. May the City on a Hill turn something other than lily white.

The modern-day GOP represents the entrenched powers who have used political clout and, from time to time, physical violence, to rob dignity and extract profit from the masses.

Good luck with the re-branding.

Your analysis is stale. I've read this viewpoint for years now. As you pointed out, the GOP has effectively used demographic data to gerrymander congressional seats to pack minority voters into just a few districts. They couldn't figure out their declining numbers? The GOP leadership, not coincidentally, thinks like corporate heads, in the short-term.

Lets package our old rich white guy ideas to naive minorities, who won't understand that we want to keep them down. Pathetic.

Not fair, 'cause you didn't say this in your article? True. But look at recent GOP campaigns for equally outrageous dissembling. Willie Horton, WMDs, Pretty Boy Dan Quayle, Pretty Girl Sarah Palin, Swift Boat Veterans, Karl Rove(!). Stop me, I'm getting ill.

The Democrats live in the pockets of their corporate donors too. But at least they try to stay on the right sides of the issues. Republicans pander to the lowest common denominator. Just not as common as it once was.

Let a few of them out of prison and maybe you'll have a better chance?

Doesn't it bother you guys even a little bit that America has become the most incarcerated country in the world?

Was that the Grand Prize for beating Communism and winning the Cold War?

John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira had all these numbers 8 years ago, writing "The Emerging Democratic Majority" in the year where it looked like Rove's wet dream was all but accomplished.

I would not want to be a Republican official trying to turn things around right now. Any political leader that does not fully appease the racists and the religious whackjobs has no chance in his own party, and almost no chance of attracting any cross-over vote. The temporary ascendancy they had yielded the unfortunate presidency of Bush II, and that was only possible with the unholy alliance between the religious right and the corporatist/countryclub Republicans. Which has become untenable. Even the idiot extreme libertarians are dissolusioned, and that takes doing.

To save the Republican party you will have to destroy it first.

Want to attract minorities? Stop being bigots.

Want to attract young people? Stop being neanderthals.

Want to attract urban dwellers? Stop pandering to fundamentalists.

Simple, really.

As one observes the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to become the next Supreme Court Justice, it is clear Republicans on the committee are determined to be respectful, even admiring of what it means for her to be nominated.

That may be what you think happened. But most of us seen a couple good ole boy Southern Senators (Sessions and Graham) with known track records as racists lecturing Sotomayor like they were talking to their maid.

That is a great point. The Republicans opposition to campaign finance reform is actually working against them. Who knows what kind of candidates they would have if they were allowed to think for themselves.

... what's his/her name, Glenallen Wilken?, the patently ridiculous Republican partisan that has been writing columns for Salon lately...

Yes, Mr. Greener does express some somewhat wacky Republican rhetoric (he does admit he is a partisan, after all), but at least he approached the column from an intellectual base, using things like facts to back up his arguments and contentions, not mindless talking points.

He also doesn't insist that American is a "center-right country."

Salon, please make Bill Greener your new "Write to a Republican" columnist!

First, of course blame the major metro media. I lost count of the number of white people who told me they wouldn't vote for a black man for President-- their decision was based on skin color, not what the media were telling them.

Second, about the 43% of the non-hispanic whites who voted for Obama--fooled by the media? How about disgusted by Bush and a rotten list of candidates the republicans trotted out in the primaries.

Look at how the independents voted. They were sick of Bush and what the republicans did to this country.

The math might be in the Democrats future, but if they don't start acting like democrats instead of wimps and DINOs, those margins are going to vanish. They will not go to the other side, they will just feel used and let down (AGAIN) and will just not participate.

I agree. I often write in "none of the above" on ballots. And when I do check a box, usually I'm not voting for that person as much as I'm voting against the other candidate.