SD- Conservatives believe that government is the problem- how can they provide good governance if that is what they think? After 8 years of George, I'm almost ready to agree with them!

And, BTW- what c0nstitutes the “right view” on the issues, LOL?

Taking a rigid view of issues and ideology has led many past presidents to failure- while those who were willing to be flexible were almost always more successful. Compare the success rates of Jimmy Carter- who tended to be stubborn and FDR who was not.

Success is usually born of failure- the result of trying many different things. Bush 43's 1st term foreign policy of preemption and unilateralism is widely viewed by analysts as a failure, while his 2cnd term of multilateral diplomacy has received better reviews from the experts.

Tax cuts may help in some economies- hurt in others. Cutting government spending may be fine in a time of economic expansion, but is a death wish during recessions or depressions. GOP candidates are forced to support both by party bigwigs.

Republcans can win back middle class and suburban whites with good governance and the right view on the issues. HOwever, there is nothing that Repubicans can do to win a signficant amount of black or Hispanic votes when the Democrats are promising to tax whites and give the money to them.

Read Dennis Sanders excellent post on this site on Michael Steele's woes in dealing with conservative power-mongers in the party. Steele (who is too conservative for me) makes the obvious point that the GOP cannot continue to alienate its moderates and still win elections. Being pro-life and anti-gay is not a governing platform in its own right. If the GOP doesn't manage to repair the rift between the moderate and conservative wings of the party, it will cease to exist. This is already happening in the Northeast- where social-cons are not popular with voters.

IMO, conservative Republicans are losing elections because they are against more things than they are for. They are not sounding the message that worried Americans long to hear. The average person doesn't give a whit about Republican principles.

They are now a regional party- only supreme in the South and some Western states.

Maintream America is naturally conservative insofar as it is English-heritage libertarian and antagonistic to government;

America's Progressive Majority

Start with the economy. Polling by the Pew Research Center shows 84 percent support to increase the minimum wage. Gallup shows that more Americans sympathize with unions than with companies in labor disputes (52 to 34 percent). NBC News and the Wall Street Journal polls indicate that nearly twice as many people think the U.S. is more hurt than helped by the global economy (48 to 25 percent). Other polls open the door to increased labor and environmental standards as part of the solution.

For people caught on the wrong side of the economy, research by the University of Michigan National Election Studies reveals that 69 percent of Americans believe government should care for those who can’t care for themselves. Twice as many people want “government to provide many more services even if it means an increase in spending” (43 percent) as want government to provide fewer services “in order to reduce spending” (20 percent). Majorities say we need a bigger government “because the country’s problems are bigger” (59 percent) and a “strong government to handle complex problems” (67 percent).

…

The percentage of Americans who consider abortion the “most important” issue ranks in the single digits in poll after poll. When an election forces them to pay attention to it, Pew research shows a 56 percent majority oppose making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, a proportion that has hardly changed in the past 20 years. Only 29 percent want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. And 67 percent, according to polls by Kaiser and Harvard, want sex education in schools to include information about contraception, not just abstinence. Yet conservatives continually push these subjects to the fore and stand on the wrong side of them. It’s time for mainstream media to question whether movement conservatives, not coastal liberals, are out of the mainstream.

On new and emerging issues, progressive opinion is even stronger. Americans understand that energy policy, for example, has implications on topics that range from national security to new growth industries. Gallup polls in March 2007 reveal that twice as many Americans want to solve energy problems with more conservation instead of more production (64 percent compared to 26 percent). Polls by CBS and the New York Times in April 2007 show 64 percent are willing to pay higher fuel taxes if the money were used for research into renewable energy sources, and 75 percent would be willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated by renewable sources like wind or energy. Only oil companies, conservative politicians and a minority of Americans (41 percent) want to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling.

On health care, Gallup’s latest poll reveals that 69 percent of Americans think it’s the government responsibility to make sure all Americans have health coverage. Only 28 percent disagreed. Polls by CBS/New York Times in February 2007 reveal that 76 percent of Americans would give up the Bush tax cuts to make sure all Americans have access to health care.

And that was in 2007, before the Bush-conomy really hit the wall.

It is the GOP's own policies, which appeal to only a very narrow portion of the population, that are making them increasingly irrelevant.

Don't blame black voters. The GOP is also losing suburban voters, women, gays, hispanic voters, the Reagan Democrats, moderates, Independents, environmentalists, scientists, college-educated voters and people of both genders under 50. In reality they should be losing veterans- but they are still voting Republican.

The response to two thumpings in a row? A vow to stick to their conservative roots, LOL!