Is the Right Dead?

Should the GOP Forget Reagan? Wall Street Journal — The Republican Party's unending tale of woe sounds like a friend's account of sitting through the New York Yankees' 22-4 loss to the Cleveland Indians at the new Yankee Stadium April 18. In the 14-run second inning, three Indians hit home runs into the right-field seats, including a grand-slam. One ball hit a woman in the head because the fans had stopped watching the game. A nasty fight broke out in the stands. After the fourth inning (16-2), the subway trains taking Yankee faithful back to Manhattan were packed. Republicans know the feeling. click to read complete article

GOP disaster: First Specter and now Joe the Plumber? Christian Science Monitor — Specter. Who cares? Small potato (e) s. This is much larger than that. Think if Bob Dole left the Republican party after losing his presidential bid in 1996. Or if John Kerry jumped ship and abandoned the Democrats in 2004. That’s the magnitude of today’s announcement. A member of the actual Republican 2008 presidential ticket is giving up. Quitting. Leaving. Skipping town. click to read complete article

Republicans in the Wilderness: Is the Party Over? Time — These days, Republicans have the desperate aura of an endangered species. They lost Congress, then the White House; more recently, they lost a slam-dunk House election in a conservative New York district, then Senator Arlen Specter. Polls suggest that only one-fourth of the electorate considers itself Republican, that independents are trending Democratic and that as few as five states have solid Republican pluralities. And the electorate is getting less white, less rural, less Christian — in short, less demographically Republican. GOP officials who completely controlled Washington three years ago are vowing to "regain our status as a national party" and creating woe-is-us groups to resuscitate their brand, while Democrats are publishing books like The Strange Death of Republican America and 40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation. John McCain's campaign manager recently described his party as basically extinct on the West Coast, nearly extinct in the Northeast and endangered in the Mountain West and Southwest. click to read complete article