The repubs are on the ropes, if it wasnt the CP, it would have been another Perot, or Buchanan..
This seems to be a standard cycle that both parties engage in... the party in power can't hold it together and splits (always blaming it on ignoring the base). Once they (Dems and Repubs) suffer the misery of being out of party for a few years, they manage to pull together to defeat the party in power.
"The repubs are on the ropes"
Not at all.