The Economist's Analysis on Where the GOP Sits

Please go to the link to read the article.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10498758

I don’t want to be accused of pulling quotes out of context. Having said that, here are some of my favorites:

“Americans regard the Democrats as more competent than Republicans by a margin of five to three and more ethical by a margin of two to one. They prefer Democratic policies on everything from health care to taxes.”

“Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have as much in common as their respective alma maters—Harvard Business School and Ouachita Baptist University. The party is also in danger of going off the deep end. Mr Huckabee denies that man is descended from the apes. Everyone except Mr McCain seems to think that it's a good plan to send 12m illegal immigrants back home.”

“Mr Bush's Republicans also made serious policy errors. They stuck their head in the sand over global warming. They ignored rising anxiety about stagnating middle-class incomes. They turned the war on terrorism into a defining issue and then messed it up.”

“The doomsters draw the wrong lesson from the Bush years. The lesson of the Bush presidency is not that the Republican coalition is exhausted but that it has been badly managed. Mr Bush has failed to keep the coalition in balance—he tilted too far towards his party's moralistic southern wing and too far away from its libertarian western wing. He has allowed public spending to balloon and pork-barrel politicians to run wild. And he has ignored big changes in public opinion about climate change. The Republican Party certainly needs to update its agenda to deal with problems Reagan never grappled with. But this is no time to go breaking the mould and starting again.”