Well, if you look at recent election results and Bush's poll numbers, the GOP is at risk of becoming a regional Confederate party. Democrats are moving out of New England into Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, and they're making gains in the plains in places like Montana, Missouri, and Colorado.
Some people think we're losing because we're not conservative enough, as if what sells in Alabama or Idaho sells elsewhere. Branding ourselves as a bunch of mean, angry know-nothings like Ann Coulter is not the way to win national elections.
We need to get back to basics the Republican Party has always had from Lincoln to McKinley to Eisenhower to Reagan -- defense, free enterprise, Constitutional government. We've fallen off track, and the focus on nonsense from Terri Schiavo to stemcells to creationism to rabid calls for mass deportations simply isn't getting the job done. If anything, they alienate voters like Latinos and suburbanites where the GOP has a natural constituency.
Yup. That's exactly right. And the reason isn't because we've become too conservative. It's because conservatism has been redefined to mean religious issues plus national defense. That's the natural formula of the Old Confederacy, the region that is most culturally inclined to favor aggressive political action on social issues and least hesitant to use military force when necessary. (Contrasted with, say, the midwest, where I grew up, which has a strong isolationist streak and was even hesitant to commit troops to WWII --- wasn't there a Michigan senator who was the last to oppose it?)
The point is, if "conservatism" means advancing the principles of the Bible plus a strong defense, the only states that will vote Republican are those of the south and a few in the plains west, plus probably Utah due to the Mormon population. Not voting Republican will be the industrial midwest, which doesn't like to use the military and doesn't like religion in government, the northeast, which is socially progressive, and the mountain west/west coast, where in many states agnostics outnumber people of faith and which is socially libertarian. Which gives us a recipe for a new Democratic majority, if the Democrats could get their act together.
Returning to true conservatism, on the other hand, and embracing the principles of free enterprise, fiscal responsibility, separation of powers and federalism (which includes conservative judges), and only using the military when its in America's interests would allow us to compete nationally again.
What is happening here will be played out until the next election.
Sanity will prevail or civilization will take a terrible hit when the demons take over.