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Ah, but the answer has been there all along. Look for the candidate who holds the single-day fundraising record of $6 million. Look for the candidate who saw the financial crisis coming, and advocated for sound money and a balanced budget. One of the last true honest statesmen left in our government. The only candidate who had liberty as the driving force behind his campaign. The candidate who brought scores of new, young voters into the GOP. Figure it out yet?

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Mr. Buchanan, did I read your column correctly? "Philosophically, too, the country is turning away from the GOP creed of small government and low taxes." I can assure you sir, that I am a young college educated male of Hispanic ethnicity. Yo tambien puedo ablar espanol. But for 8 LONG years I was horrified by the Republican party's leadership and its willingness to destroy my civil liberties, saddle me and my generation with unreasonable debt, and trash the Constitution all because we were fighting this war on terror like idiots with to much money to blow instead of quiet covert actions that happen at night. Sir, we would not have seen Republican losses if they truly were republican and followed your foreign policy advice. This November's results shouldn't have even surprised the Republican party. They should be glad they just lost and weren't publicly hanged for treason against the United States of America. They were elected to minimize the federal government and failed us by inflating it worse than our dollar. Protect our civil liberties and failed by enacting legislation that will now be used by democrats to steamroll whatever is left. Were elected to make America stronger and only divided us culturally. They were elected because they were supposedly conservative and were the most un-conservative politicians ever to be appointed. They were elected to catch Osama bin Laden and failed because they went after the wrong country. They were elected because they were supposed to be fiscal conservatives and spent more than any democrat has ever done before them. We are now MORE socialist than Russia was. I am conservative. I am just not a damned neocon. You, as a prestigious party leader, must band to overthrow the neocon leadership. I was an independent voter before who had voted against republican office at the federal level, but now, I am a Ron Paul Revolutionary willing to join the Republican party, aid it, and end its ridiculous sophomore version of imperialism and neoconservativism. If Republicans want to have credibility anymore, there needs to be a mass execution of neocon party leadership. Figuratively, of course; but I will not shed a tear be saddened if it happens literally.

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When I think of Sen. Evan Bayh and health care and his relationship to Eli Lily pharma it's so apparent this is NOT the party that represents small business or any of the other values once associated with the GOP. It's one thing to be socially conservative but quite another to deny healthcare benefits to the poor. When I think Republician, now I think of Audra Shay and the Young Republicans and her defense of her racist remarks. Or white only swimming pools. It seems there is just no moral conscience left in this party. How in the world can a black person stand up and represent the very people who despise him? How humiliating for Steele. These are not problems that can be fixed. They require/demand enormous growth in learning to take responsibility and leaving hypocrisy. Tough road ahead for these GOP folks.

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Byuke, you are like a junkie pointing to every cause of his misery except the denial he's shooting into his veins. You Reeps just plain blew it. You lied, you cheated, you let the infrastructure crumble, you plundered the environment, you engaged in mass war crimes in Iraq and around the world, you trashed the intellectual tradition that has made this country great, and you begged for and won the regulatory freedom to plunder our financial system on a scale that sets a historical precedent. Money talks, Byuke. Once you all blew it on the financial front it was curtains. You had better wish all of those brown-skinned immigrants and abortion-loving white folks your best and hope they can pull us through (including your sorry ass), because you have proved and continue to over and over again, as you search for one last uncollapsed vein you can get a needle into, that the Reeps don't have the answer and never did.

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Did you really say, 'GOP are tax-payers, and Dems are tax-consumers?' Do you have malaria? NO? Then you are a tax-consumer, because our public health system eliminated malaria from the US. Do you drive on roads, or have an education, or get conquered by foreign armies? Again, you are consuming all those valuable tax dollars I pay. If you are the ones paying all the taxes, why haven't you yet paid off Reagan's nuclear buildup, or W's corporate giveaways, or the war in Iraq, or Medicaid Part D? You're obviously to blame for our debts since you're the only one paying taxes anymore. There's no way the GOP has itself to blame. No, never that. I hope you can see how perverted your logic is. Faced with obvious evidence, you chose the most bizarre solution.

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Sir;... It has been proved many times that the United States is a country where almost anyone can get away with murder, and the only reason I have not personally tried is that anyone does not include me... Anyone can be rich too; but I can't qualify myself  behond the moral question...But it should be remembered, that while we will accept almost every outrageous idea,  success must be at the end of it...This is still the place where nothing succeeds like success, and nothing so fails like failure...If Ideology were reality the republicans would all be in clover... Since it is not, they are about out of power except in the old confederacy... They had a plan, money up and trickly down, immorality at the top, and morality at the bottom... Exported economy, and imported profits... You know: it did not work; and the party that made it happen should be left on the margins...But so should the party that let it happen because without out ideology on their side, they only were left with crass self benefit as a goal... Parties do not work, and those who feel we cannot live without parties can be done without..They have never been the solution, and have always been the problem..Party for them is pain for us...Thanks...Sweeney

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Pat, The way I see your argument is such, "the reason the GOP isn't doing so well is because our target demographic (or market) is shrinking." It is the same thing that lost the separatist battle in Quebec, in fact, eerily so. It also is borderline racist. I am not from your country, but even I understand that you are a country of immigrants. Pat you are an immigrant, and your ancestors came here for opportunity, the same reason others want to go to your country. America is as much a symbol as it is a nation, the people who are immigrating today, just as those who came before them, are doing so for opportunity, not welfare. If they wanted welfare, they would go to Scandinavia. I would venture my guess that the newly immigrated population in the US is harder working than the 2nd+ generation immigrants that are well established, and it is those people who are MORE LIKELY TO ACCEPT the fundamental policies that the GOP purports. Maybe if you would stop ostracizing the newcomers they would vote red, or is the GOP too afraid to reach for immigrant supporters?

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Pat, you were doing okay until you got to "Philosophically...." Then you put on your rose-colored glasses, lost sight of things and defaulted to your favorite scapegoat, immigration. The country has never left the desire for small government and low taxes. Circumstances created by both parties over the years have dictated that effective government is larger government in many ways and you have to have taxes to pay for it. Those of us who do not live in Oz/the Ivory Tower/the Emerald City/D.C. would love small government and low taxes but we live in reality. You cheerfully overlooked the diabolical incompetence of the most recent administration that was in the pilot's seat for the last 8 years which happened to represent the Republican point of view. Endless war on the Chinese credit card and world-wide depression are their 2 peccadillos that most easily come to mind. Deregulation on a vast scale in just about every area one can think of which continued right up to the end. Smaller government. Less regulation. Works every time, huh Pat? Darn those immigrants. Darn those colleges. Darn those Republican white women having abortions all the time. Darn those tax consumers except for needless wars of course, then just spend, spend, spend.

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Abortion is a primary cause of less white voting people? They only account for about 1/3 of the abortions out there, and are not the demographic that has the highest number. Also, part of the problem with the GOP is what you mention...they are NOT the party of "small government" any more. You can win over young people with small government ideals, just look at what Ron Paul was able to do. But when you put a candidate out there as unpalatable as John McCain, who is both social conservative (young people tend to dislike this) AND big government (supported the bailout), there's really no difference in any consequential way except for that Republicans hate them and their friends and Democrats don't. I'm 27. I was brought up in a Republican family in Illinois. I was libertarian by the time I was 18, and voted for Harry Browne, but preferred Bush to the Gores and Lieberman. I still don't like Gore or Lieberman, but I preferred Kerry to Bush and didn't like the LP candidate in '04, so I voted for Kerry. This time around my parents were both solidly Obama supporters; I don't think my dad has EVER voted Democrat for president before. I did not vote for Obama but I didn't need to, being from IL; I wrote in the Boston Tea Party candidates since Ron Paul was not running. The GOP's problems are that it's losing its base due to not adhering to small government principles, and it's not gaining new voters because of intolerance toward minority groups and constant war mongering. Those are the problems they need to fix over the next few years.