Well, al this is fine and good, but McKinnon makes no mention of the issues: Bush II was not only utterly incompetent, it was a catastrophe in terms of betraying the most basic foundation of what America stands for, not least in its own eyes.

George W Bush is the first president that I personally despised. He made me feel ashamed to be an American, both in the policies he arrogantly pursued and in his willful ignorance about the complexity of the world as it is evolving. There are many reasons for this, but one of the most important is that he was chosen solely for his name and virtually without regard for how he would perform in the job. I recall watching his acceptance speech in 2000, and was astounded by his emptiness and sense of entitlement. He proved unable to learn on the job, became isolated and surrounded by yes-men, and advanced no new ideas.

This is a failure, I believe, of the GOP: such an incompetent man should never have been advanced as a worthy candidate to lead the world - after all, he condoned torture in the name of preserving liberty and democracy. The American people recognized this, and we need to introspect about the entire GOP establishment that endorsed him and why.

As a middle-aged liberal, born and raised a democrat- I know a little something about "being in the desert."

Both parties, at their roots, represent aspects of "Whats good and right for America;" there's overlap. We all want to live in safe cities, eat and drink safe food and water. We want our children to have access to a good education. We want our nation and our allies to be safe from attack. We want our nation to be first in technology, innovation and exploration of new frontiers. We want to do valuable work at good wages. We want our day in court- a fair day; and we want those whom would break our laws and hurt our society to be dissuaded, discovered, disgraced and punished. We wish for the best among us to be recognized, identified with and emulated.

What the recent election has proven is that parties are less relevant today than mentalities and approaches- the middle won the last election. The far left of the democrat party has had to swallow a lot of its knee-jerk reactions to some of Obama's cabinet selections, knowing instinctively this was his mandate to lead all Americans- from the middle.

Parties serve some of the same functions that religion often has- to consolidate groups under banners of ideology and identity in differentiation from "Them". The stronger the primacy of the party, the stronger the emphasis on what divides us versus what unites us.

You are right that the problem with the GOP is guys like you, not because you are old but because you are focused on superficial things rather than getting to the heart of the problem - failed ideology based on spin, not facts. Beginning with Reagan the party signed on to crackpot policies like supply-side economics and decided to sell them to a gullible public with lies like "Tax cuts pay for themselves."*

Republicans touted the virtues of free market competition while undermining those things that markets need for healthy competition. For example, a sine qua non for competition is that consumers have the information they need to make an informed choice, yet Republicans have repeatedly fought efforts such a labelling which give consumers the information they need. No one expects that athletic competitions will be won fair and square without rules and referees to enforce them, but Republicans have fought to do away with rules for the market or failing that, doing away with regulators to enforce those rules.

As for social policy, the party pandered to the religious right instead of sticking with its more libertarian impulses. This further turned Republicans away from being the party of rational adults to the party of spin and wishful thinking.

If the party is to regain strength it must stop favoring stop ignoring facts and return to the reality-based world. More importantly it needs to stop valuing capitalism over the principles and needs of our democracy.

*Most Republicans actually say that tax cuts "raise revenues" but this talking point, while technically true, is clearly intended to make the public think that tax cuts do not increase the deficits. The truth is that even Bush's economic advisors say that at best tax cuts only make up for 50% of the revenue lost by the cuts. Our compliant coporate media has allowed the party to get away with these kinds of deceptions but those chickens have now come home to roost with a vengeance and the public is no longer buying what you are selling.

I was a Republican from the time I can remember. I left them about 20 years ago. Can't ever be a Democrat, as they are a party that purchases their constituancy. That's a dead-end situation. I'm in a politcal wilderness now.

I agree with rjcrawford on how the repubs can run people like Bush and Cheney. It seems it comes down to winning elections that is the core of the party. It doesn't matter how or who the Republican is. What are the Republican issues? I'm not sure what they represent anymore. I say let them go the way of Lehman Bros. and start anew.

Went to RebuildtheParty.com and it was interesting. Again, it talks about tactics and strategy, but it doesn't talk about beliefs nor action. Will Republicans give up part of their laissez-faire (sic?) philosophy and actually police government and community affairs? Will they put more SEC & IRS investigators on the line? Will they give up this no-taxes ever philosophy and build us some roads, bridges and schools? Will they stop hating those who earn BELOW $250,000/yr and deliver some services? Will they actually think of the community good?

Bush and present Republicans have been thrown out of office because they were incompetent and dangerous. They have been in control for the last eight years (and I could argue have been the driving political force for the last 24) and they have damn near destroyed the country.

They have thrown all moral, ethical and effective philosophies out the window in their bid for power. And it is power alone they seek. Their writings say nothing about what they will do with it, only how they will get it. But the people and nation will be the ones to pay for it.

"Rebuild the party" is all about tactics, and ignores strategy. The problems the GOP faces do not stem from a failure to embrace the internet. They stem from a fatal flaw at the heart of the fiscal/social conservative coalition. One cannot be in favor of small government on the one hand and in favor of using government to suppress the rights of minorities on the other. The GOP needs to decide if it's going to be the party that wants to meddle in the private lives of others or the party that wants minimalist government; it can't be both. Theocrats or Libertarians? Pick. Until the choice is made, every GOP electoral victory is doomed to the same sort of catastrophic collapse as the most recent one.

I don't think you really get it as per "revitalization of the Right". No doubt we were smoked by technology but do your really think the young we dazzled strictly by how the message was delivered. I don't think so.
The young dem's that I work with are digging into their urban communities and working on the obvious broken. Hmm, are they community organizers???
I don't know where your 50-60 white male GOP's live but it must be Disney or some other southern xburb. For example, claims that the current administration have successfully made strides on the drug problems is ridiculous. Even the 50,60,70 whites in my community would bust a gut over this claim.
Both your machine and message are broken.

Further it's so aggravating that you 50-60 somethings address only the right - it simply gives me visions of Rush hooking up with the baby daddy's momma!

As one of the coveted "under 35 internets users" *smile* it had nothing to do with how the messages are delivered but what the content is of those messages. I am politically centrist but the last 8 years have made me loathe the Republican party: the lies, overspending, war, destruction of the constitution, sense of overwheening entitlement (also an old-school Dem problem...), the radical social agendas that are anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-non-believer. Disgusting! The Republican party cannot be redeemed unless they drop these outmoded values -- I don't think it's possible, they've been pandering to the religious nutjobs and entrenched themselves as the party of Greed for far too long. For Shame!

Let's see, an essay made up almost entirely of quotes. Good thing I'm not grading your paper, Mr. McKinnon.

Ha. That's like saying the problem with covens is that they are full of witches.

McKinnon rightly bemoans the losses of the GOP to a younger, technologically smarter Democratic Party, but I agree with readers of this column that he doesn't address core reasons why the GOP has sunk like a stone.

Being more Internet-savvy as the Rebuild site proposes is not the magic bullet for getting the GOP back into office. The GOP/RNC (1) lacks insight into core ISSUES that most people care about; (2) has fielded inappropriate, inept, unethical leaders from Bush through Palin; and (3) pandered to the Religious Right on social issues. By elevating abortion and gay rights as inflammatory issues to divide the country, the GOP alienated the majority of Americans who are concerned with putting food on their family table, getting health care they can afford, putting kids through college and getting along better amongst ourselves and with the rest of the world.

The last eight years have been a despicable display of greed and self-interest, now "baked" into our laws and policies. I hope the GOP is out of power for an appreciable time to come...until such time as they can rid themselves of everyone associated with Bush, Cheney, Rove and all the Neocons who ran an ideologically-driven, self-interested regime. Not for nothing the GOP is now a regional, demographically-challenged party of little consequence.

They need to view the recent Democratic victory as a response from people eager to shrug off the excesses of the past 8 years.

To close with a New Year's wish, I hope that the most egregious behavior of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove is rewarded with jail time.

Gotta give the Repubs credit for imagination, they still think they are a legitimate party even after the disgrace of the last 8 years.

The only way that the Repubs survived after the last Great Depression was to be that nattering voice that kept the Demos from fixing as much as should have been fixed in this country. The voice that said, no, let's not include EVERYONE in this program, let's only include the needy....which ended up fostering class envy as was their intent. Thus, instead of programs like national healthcare and getting cost-effective healthcare we have an innefective network of healthcare programs that do not even meet their specific mandates in any kind of reasonable way. Just one example of this kind of influence.

I won't give the Demos a pass however. I don't think that they are much better than the Repubs, both are in the pockets of certain interests. But the Demos are a bit more benign to working people. Though the party's Convention being supported by ATT and others and the prior squashing of lawsuits by Congress for the wiretapping scanadal is proof enough that they are for sale.

The Repubs are so rabidly anti-union that they would rather sink the domestic auto companies, than allow the UAW to survive with decent pay and benefits. The Repubs are a disgrace to the nation, as they work agains the very underpinnings of our dwindling manufacturing base, in order to continue their campaign to keep, to beat down workers in this country.

When the Repubs can justify the above, can justify torture, then indeed they are not woolly mammoths, but truly ancient and unsuited for survival creatures like Tyranosaurus Rex.

The GOP is in trouble primarily for three reasons:
1. getting stuck in Iraq rather than getting out fast after a quick and glorious victory
2. weak regulation of Wall St. and the Democratic-sponsored subprime mortgage abuses
3. failure to come up with good solutions for affordable and easily attainable medical coverage

I cannot at all agree that Bush violated people's rights and weakened the Constitution. He did what was necessary to protect us, and Obama will do the same, though talking as if he is doing something else.

Well said, sippewisset. I would add and/or summarize your analysis by saying I hope republicans will stay in exile until they start thinking about the country first instead of the party first.

To the Republican Party, ideology has become the end all be all. Propoganda, 'divide and conquer' and 'might makes right' have become the basis for how the party operates. It didn't help that the Bush administration has demonstrated just how mistaken the ideology and the game that promotes it are. The Republican Party will begin to recover only when it starts putting the interests of the nation first and becomes the loyal opposition again. As it stands now, trusts have been broken. Without trust, parties, economies, nations fall apart.

To tomfarr - I am a Democrat and I support your message. As long as you and the republican leaders think along those lines you will be in the political wilderness, which is where I like to see you. *:o)

I agree that the Republican Party needs a reset. Perhaps the most disheartening circumstance of the just closed political season was the quality -- or the lack of thereof -- in the candidates fielded in the Presidential primary. Frankly, they were not people worthy of the respect of the American people. In past years none of them would have been remotely considered by the GOP as worthy of being in the race. And the VP nominee. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

The GOP has some great people. Time to bring them to the fore.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. McKinnon that the problem is "him" and his fellow Republicans; however the rest of his article shows exactly the nature of his wrongheadedness. He just does not "get" it. It is not the lack of technological skills or use of the "internets" that hobbles his political party it is the wrongheadedness of its ideology.

The Republican Party is on the wrong side of history; pro torture, pro inequality, pro greed, pro war, pro deficit spending, pro indebtedness, pro totalitarian, pro religious, pro money, pro corruption, pro fear, pro propaganda, pro injustice and anti civil rights, anti worker, anti freedom, anti science, anti logical thinking, anti responsible government, anti middle class, anti children's welfare, anti balanced budgets, anti regulation, anti American. Don't "get it" McKinnon? Are you beginning to see the light?

The Republican Party is out of touch and out of ideas (the ones they espoused have been proven incorrect in both domestic and foreign policy). They didn't get beat because the other guys were whizzes on the internet; they got beat because the other guys have better values and better ideas. It's gonna take more than a newfangled website to fix that and more than younger spinmeisters to sell it.

This is all form and no function. The need is apparent? To whom? When you have no message the most expensive note paper in the world will not do the job.

Decades ago, the Republican party was something to respect. Though I'm a Dem, I admired Barry Goldwater because he was a thinker with integrity. The Republicans haven't had a sound idea since then. They do not know how to govern as they've been too concerned with lining the pockets of their donors and with focusing on only how to win the next election.

I hope that the party remains in the desert for a decade or two. I think it will take that long for a worthy rebirth to occur. Old men won't give up their power easily.

McKinnon's advice to the GOP now is worth about as much as his advice to McCain during the campaign. Now, that doesn't mean that the GOP should do the opposite of *everything* McKinnon says, but they should consider the source.

For instance, McKinnon starts the piece off on a Gramscian note; instead of internalizing far-left principles and thinking that having minorities on board automatically confers legitimacy, the smarter GOP should consider being a big tent, color-blind party. That would completely differentiate them from the Democrats, and a smarter GOP could then attack the Dems on that point.

P.S. For an example of the sheer incompetence, corruption, and collaborationist instincts of the McCain campaign, see this:

http://24ahead.com/s/juan-hernandez

Age isn't the problem with the party. The problem is the Reps are no longer Reagan conservatives. Whatever the 'leaders' may think, they are preceived as corrupt, crony capitalist, Democrat lites. Who the bleep wants to vote for that? No computers or gimmicks can change this. Unless you guys are for small government, low taxes, get out of peoples personal lives, as in leave things in the hands of the states to decide, and actually follow the constitution you are not going to get votes. It's not the technology, it is that the Rep Party is worse than useless, it is part of the problem (See- bailouts, overspending, corrupt like Dems, incompetent, etc). I don't believe for a minute that the Rep FatCats will change. They will convince themselves some gimmick will work. Just like they thought John McCain had good ideas and could win. Good luck you bums. I will never, repeat, never vote for you again unless you return to Reagan conservative principles. There are millions more who feel the same as I. I hope all you old impotent geezer gas bags enjoy you minority party status, because that is where you are destined to remain..... unless of course, see above. AMF

Look, this is a very bad read of History. For starters, McCain was actually ahead. He had pulled ahead of Obama, fractionally, but for the first and last time shortly before the 700 Billion Bailout Bill was introduced. Then all hell broke loose as the Politicians jumped right into the Pork Pool and came out with stained hands. That is, by definition, what people feared most about McCain, i.e. more of the same, Politics as usual. McCain made a bad mistake in taking the bait. But this is why we have Primaries and Elections, it is to sort out the mettle of the man and to see how he reacts under pressure. He cracked, and so did Congress, so The People simply acted to correct it all. Had McCain stayed away, we might be having a different discussion right now. No one will ever, it seems, understand how TR resolved similar situations in his own time. A 100 year cycle has revisted us, and no one seems even aware.

To also point out, it wasn't Ronald Reagan who invented Tax Cuts on Income, it was JFK. The reason JFK advocated Tax Cuts for The People is simply because the Government was 'overcollecting' taxes to begin with, a result of increased Taxation during the War Years which was beginning to wind down. Kennedy was smart and saw the possibilities in returning money to The People. Unfortunately, he fumbled the ball and got us into Vietman and the need for increasing taxes then reappeared, regrettably. Johnson also fumbled the ball by increasing Social Justice spending while also paying for a War. It was a mess then too. People forget.

Right now, we are being Blackmailed by Banks. We give them money and then they hoard it expecting future losses. The Banks, no different than the Children, who ran from the Tsunami that hit in Indonesia, are expecting another, even greater Tsunami to appear right after the first one hit. It is Human Nature to believe this, but it is also incorrect. No Tsunami revisited Indonesia. They are being 'economic girly men' and need to be pried loose. Leadership by example will accomplish that end, and Obama is poised and ready to provide that Leadership.

As far as getting younger people into the ranks of the Republican Party, by all means. Go for it. Recruiting is easily the best way to go. Internet activities can be increased, no doubt. This blog spot has proved the same true, itself being new. There are several Reforms the Party might consider. But Reform is the mantra of the day, whether anyone is listening closely enough to hear the call is another question. These are TR's Days. Where is TR now that we need him most?

A close study would reveal the similarities between Firefighters battling blazes in Yosemite, carving 'firewalls' into the earth, so as to prevent the spread of the fire. The same should be contemplated in regards to our Financial Institutions. By breaking the Banks away from The Floor of the NYSE and the Trading Function, would be the first prerequisite. The compartmentalizing of the Trading Functions of each market, making sure there is enough Capital at each Post to sustain, is exactly the same as building 'firewalls' in Yosemite and levees in New Orleans. It is a strategy that divides that Conquers economic ills and sets the playing field level. This will require Reforms across the board which are necessary to sustain National Economies in times of Stress.

We need a Trust Buster to accomplish all of this, to set a 'square deal' with The People and then to shout ... "Back to Work". Interestingly, if done correctly, it won't cost us a dime...just our time. Once all of the Reforms are set, then the floodgates of money can be safely released, ensuring that no one is drowned in the flow and that all corners of the field are properly irrigated. The President would be wise to act quickly as the minds of The People are set to see action. The same Reforms contemplated here can also be applied simultaneously into energy markets, the additions of solar panel, hydropower, wind power and Nuclear will 'diversify' sources of power and harm our enemies in the Mideast by making Oil less relevant.

I want to again commend the Bush Administration for releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an action not contemplated by Traders, which took them by surprise, and has resulted in a more balanced economy, especially in the Northeast, an area the Democrats simply devastated Republicans in....and all over the price of Oil. Bully. TR would be proud of that single act, and I know The People are delighted.