How do Republicans retool themselves back to a party of greatness?

Their best bet would be to ditch the religious fanatics. Drop hatred on gays and lesbians. Quit threatening to bomb other countries. Have some compassion for all Americans not just the wealthy ones........wait, they did all of that they would become Democrats.

We still have to see how the election reporting plays out. If we get enough 'landslide' stuff in the media, the Republican party is prettymuch doomed for the foreseable future. McCain was a moderate, the party 'base' reluctantly ran him for a shot at victory. If he doesn't even deliver a defeat that seems close, that's it, the base will insist on putting /thier/ kind of candidates forward. Radical religious whackos cementing thier control of the party would push the Republicans into the opposition role more firmly than the Democrats were there in the Bush years.

It would then take wild incompetence and disaster of unprecedented proportions (worse than Bush or even Carter) to push reasonably sane Americans to vote bible-thumper in desperation and break Democratic rule.

It's too bad Huckabee didn't get the nod. His resounding defeat would have pushed the religous nutjobs back to the fringes of the party.

Take the advice of Barry Goldwater and give the the religious right swift kick in the a** and out of the party.

As a registered Republican who has heard herself stereotyped here in outrageous fashion, I think one of the things they must do is stop overtly promoting themselves as a "values" party, because people don't like hearing that they DON'T have the "right" values. The GOP has enabled the most extreme members of Christianity to co-opt the Party as "theirs." And that has been their undoing.

They really need to make the Party more about the role of government and less about what people should and shouldn't believe. But the Democratic Party could stand a fair amount of housecleaning too. I leave it to "normal" registered Democrats to decide what that might mean for them.

I think Bush was clueless about what Americans were going through economically. Or if he wasn't, he gave no indication to the contrary, so what am I supposed to think?

There are a lot of people who are for equality of opportunity and limited government. They should not have to be alienated from those ideals because the public face of the party is one of fundamental Christianity. I'm a Christian (not a great one, but still) and *I* don't see myself in the people who have the ear of the GOP. I have no problem with same-sex marriage, or evolution. But I've been portrayed here as having those beliefs because I'm a Republican.

We don't need that.

But I'm glad you asked this question because it will take a lot of angry e-mails and calls to drum this into the heads of party leadership. It's not as if the GOP will do a single citizen's bidding. It's up to all of us to make sure things change. Politicians are scum for the most part, and will change only when they have something to lose.

Just like when the Left crashed from the Carter, Tip O Niel, ted Kennedy disasters that ushered in the Reagan years...politics is cyclic, It could be a great time for the right to emerge into another Reagan revolution if Obama drifts to repeat a Carter years with a social agenda

They just don't have the right people any more..they have become the party of hypocrites & jokes. They have a very narrow way of thinking, I see the names Jindal & Huckabee mentione. When I think of Jindal I think of my republcan neighbor who hates anyone who has skin darker than his or if there parent were not born in the USA. When I think of Huckabee I think of the preacher who I really liked. Then I think of the day he spoke to the NRA & there was a big banging sound of something that fell..well, his quick thinking was shown when he said "hopefully that was Obama" meaning he got shot...I could never come up with a thought that hateful & I am not a minister so he lost all value to me. Gulliani put the command center in the building most likely to get blown up so he had to walk the streets on 911 then he acted like he did it cause he was so courageous. You can look at the videos of McCain telling the truth about his war story at the site Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain...I can remember hearing about him keeping the POWs from coming back. So who in the republican party has anything to offer anyone? Tehy can't do it.

Huckabee 2012

I wish I could give the first guy 1,000 thumbs up. Jindal is the man. I see him being the next face of the party.

Bobby Jindal in 2012.

They wait through four years of hell, when people see how much worse things got, they will win by a landslide.

I think Bobby Jindal would be a perfect choice for the Republicans in 2012.