It is important and productive to examine what is next for the GOP, since they have been tossed out of late, and with a vengence. It seems to some (including this commentor) that conservatives have in fact lost the “culture war,” if there actually was one, and they are gonna need some new ideas that go beyond legislating morality (which we should have learned by now doesn’t work!).

Conservatives everywhere had a wonderful chance in John McCain (for whom I voted several times when he was running for senator) to remake the republican party. The new face of the GOP might have been a fiscally conservative, socially moderate, willing to compromise guy who has proven he can get things done. The selection of Gov Palin showed that, in actuality, the GOP is still a place for radical, right-wing, Christo-facists who rant against Science and gays. I’m sorry, but if you want to win the middle-road voters, you will have stop acting like Religion is Science, or like there is no separation of Church and State written in our Constitution.

In fact, average, normal, educated people are going to continue fleeing from the GOP as long as you continue to suggest that Christianity is the only good religion (that sounds a lot like the terrorists we’re fighting) or that your leaders are called upon by God to lead the nation out of the moral turpitude caused by gays (ditto).

Ideas of fiscal conservativism are rational and needed in our national dialogue. However, the past eight years have not demostrated anything remotely related to fiscal conservatism, and the electorate can see this. Small government is another area where the GOP can potentially win voters. However, the USA PATRIOT act certainly didn’t lessen the power of the government over regular people, and it didn’t increase our freedom and privacy.

You see, people can tell when their leaders are saying one thing and doing the opposite. We don’t like being lied to. That’s why Obama won. THe GOP abuse of power over the last eight years has succeeded in only one thing… turning voters away.