Republican Party Stuck on Stupid

One has to wonder just how long the Republican party plans to stay stuck on stupid? Clearly their policies of the last eight years didn't work. For that matter, the principles they have espoused since the Reagan years have proven not to work -- so why do they insist on continuing with the same mantra of tax cuts and deregulation?

They rail about "big government" and "deficit spending" yet over the past 30 years it's been the Republican party who has grown the federal government and left us with record-setting national debts!

If conservative Republicans are as fiscally responsible as they claim to be, then why did the national debt nearly triple under Ronald Reagan, and more than triple under George W. Bush? And talk about big government, Bush added a whole new department!

Republicans just wrapped up their Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC, and the Washington Post reports:

Same old hotel on the park, same ballrooms, same long lines down the corridor to hear the big-name speakers, but otherwise the landscape look radically different for this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, which wrapped up yesterday afternoon at the Omni Shoreham. The conservatives are in the dark woods now. The deep brambles.

"I'm still seeing who will lead us out of this wilderness," said Sarah Smith, 27, of Alexandria.

The country's conservative, Republican-dominated strongholds have shrunk to the Deep South, the Plains and talk radio. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Senate Republican leader, warned that the GOP cannot be satisfied with being a regional party. "We must make a comeback," he thundered in the Regency Ballroom .

This is the first time since the aftermath of Watergate that conservatives have known what it is like to be so completely out of power, out-funded, out-organized and arguably irrelevant to national governance. Even the free market has seemingly betrayed them, what with the Wall Street shenanigans, banking dysfunctions and auto industry incompetence. [...]

The grim election results have exposed the fractures in the movement, threatening to shred the coalition of social conservatives, fiscal conservatives and national security conservatives. More broadly, the Republican Party faces a quandary of whether to retrench to core conservative values or try to reach out to a broader constituency.

There are some basic questions to be answered, such as: Has the right become too conservative or not conservative enough? Is it enough to be a party of "no," or do Republicans need new to reinvent themselves and provide new ideas of their own?

"It's the end of the road for self-denial," said conservative pundit Tucker Carlson. He endorsed the "cleansing" effects of catastrophic failure.

Carlson had a bit of a dust-up with the audience when he spoke Thursday. He argued that conservatives need to put more effort into digging up facts and rely less on opinion and punditry. He noted that the New York Times, a favorite target of conservative wrath, at least cares about spelling people's names right.

"NOOOOOOO," arose a moan from some in the crowd.

"I'm merely saying that at the core of their news-gathering operation is gathering news."

"NOOOOO . . ."

It's clear from their response that Republicans have never let a little thing like "facts" get in the way of moving their agenda.