FORWARD TO THE PAST, FOR THE GOP

What's wrong with the republican party? Markos Moulitsas at Dailykos seems to have a sense about what's going on ...

... They think they've lost elections because they haven't shouted the crazy loud enough (more teabagging please!), or because their insults just aren't as effective anymore (let's try "fascist" now!). So they stick to their old loser policies, from their pathological defense of the ultra wealthy, to their clinging to doomed opposition to gay marriage. And as for leadership? Well, who better to defend the status quo than the status quo?

Into that breach has entered Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Joe the Plumber to provide the philosophical underpinnings of the GOP. For the party that could once depend on the intellectual prowess of William F. Buckley, this has certainly been a downgrade. As their public face, if they could dig up Ronald Reagan and prop him up at RNC headquarters, they would. Instead, the Palins and Jindals jostle and compete for who can be the most ridiculously regressive. But for a party that predicates its philosophy on distrust of change, it looks like this leadership vacuum is best filled by old retreads -- Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove.

For a party that thinks that they need to get back to their roots and/or that they lost their way under Bush because they weren't conservative enough, I'd have to say Markos Moulitsas is on to something here.

- Mark