Who's to blame for the current state of the GOP?

[Leatherneck]

Any single person or entity most to blame? Vote first; then you can see the tally.

TC

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

the folks who put the leadership in power  ie the membership  just as this is our contry its the memberships party  if they are too complacent to keep em in line shame on em

[MechAg94]

I would say the guys over in Congress take most of the blame.  They were the ones who made the deals and allowed all those bloated spending bills to pass through. 

That is assuming that you want someone to blame in D.C.

[makattak]

Although George W. Bush hasn't been helpful, I also would say the Republicans in congress are most to blame.

[Zardozimo Oprah Bannedalas]

The Republicans in congress - who have a habit of standing up to oppose bills, not put 'em forward. That's why we lose. I believe Goldwater in the early 60s said that we had to keep all of FDR's social security and other programs for the sake of votes. We've been going downhill ever since. Our people buy into the liberal agenda, just a few years later than the democrats do.

Republicans are also to blame for trying to reinvent their party as the war party, as opposed to the party of fiscal responsibility and limited government.

[Ron]

I voted GWB

He inherited what was left of Newts Republican revolution. He could have fostered, promoted, cajoled and LED congress to produce smaller government and fiscally responsible legislation.

It is GW's fault and then it is Denny Hastert's fault. Togethor they destroyed the foundation of '94 revolution that was predicated on reducing government power and influence.  

Utter lack of leadership.

[Don't care]

Who's to blame for the current state of the GOP?

We are.

[longeyes]

How far back do you want to go?  There's long been a faction of the Grand Old Party that was above the fray and hard at work building the foundation for plantationism.  They were always collaborators with the Left.

But of course the somnolent American voter has let it all happen.

[Tallpine]

Abe Lincoln ...?   

[Werewolf]

The great unwashed masses for being so intellectually lazy that they let the MSM get away with the hatchet job they've done on Republicans for the last year.

The term easily led/herded sheep comes to mind.

[El Tejon]

Fistful?

[MicroBalrog]

Do I not understand correctly that, while the nominees are at least in part elected via the primary process, local party big shots have a huge rule in who becomes the nominee via their part in organizing the vote, and that that is even more true in states that have caucuses rather than primaries?

In this case, wouldn't these people be to blame?

[charby]

I'm going to blame the MSM and the leftist blogger. In all the half truths and straight up fiction propaganda they pretty much did a good job of alienated a sizable core of independents that probably would have voted Rep over Dem in the last election. Every time something "bad" happened they were quick to blame Bush, Cheney or the GOP.

[AZRedhawk44]

Every single member of the Gang of 14.  Triply so for McCain, for McCain/Feingold and McCain/Kennedy.

[lone_gunman]

George W Bush, completely, in my opinion.

People are sick of him, plain and simple.  And this is completely justified.

Bush is a liberal, who also happens to be a war monger.  Thats a bad combination.

[Monkeyleg]

Lone_gunman, that's too simple. There's been frustration with the Republican congress for years.

Look at what Obama ran on: a campaign of hope, promises of tax cuts, talk of individual responsibility, and reforming government. Take out the socialist specifics that he tried to hide and it was like Reagan's campaign all over again. Obama actually sounded conservative.

Conservatism isn't dead, it's just that there's precious few of them in congress. 

[longeyes]

The GOP began to die when Bush the Elder tried to make it a "kinder, gentler" party--in another words, a "pale" replica of the Democratic Party.  The core of the Republican vision--individual rights, personal liberty, free markets, limited government, self-reliance, honest dealing--was befogged by the patriarchal "noblesse" class.  We are still chasing the rabbit 20 years later, and we always will be, only getting further and further behind, until we get our act straight. In my view GHWB was sent to make sure that Reagan didn't "go too far."

By the bye, I think the "conservative" arm needs a new name, something more dynamic than  "conservative," which to me at least implies a defensive posture. 

[Monkeyleg]

Longeyes, would that be the reason that Clinton co-opted conservative Republican ideas such as welfare reform and made them his own?

Look at the candidates for congress and president this year. Every mother's liberal son ran as a conservative, favoring low taxes and smaller government. They have to lie about their records because modern liberalism (socialism) doesn't sell. Joe the Plumber sent the Obama campaign into full damage-control mode.

[longeyes]

Welfare reform does not change the fact that we have a welfare state and that it will greatly expand under Obama and the Dems.  My point was that liberal Republicans have just been a lamer version of Democrat socialism.  To say that is to say the obvious.  Patrician Republicans like Bush I helped create plantationomics, which are now seeing flower in a thousand points of darkness throughout America.  He and his friends in the Rockefeller camp are playing both sides, and We the People are really not on either side, since we are neither the nobility nor the peons.

[stevelyn]

HW.

The downhill decline started after Reagan left office and his mistake took over.

[digitalandanalog]

They all are.

You cannot build a house on promises and failure to deliver.

I don't trust Dems or rePubs.

They have an agenda that doesn't include us...we are the the serfs and we should obey our masters who are ordained by....

[Perd Hapley]

Bush is...a war monger. 

Which explains why we are currently at war with China, North Korea, Iran, and so many other nations that have been provoking us lately.   It also explains why he never even proposed that we attack Saudi Arabia, despite the 9/11 hijackers being a perfect excuse to do so. 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Patrician Republicans like Bush I helped create plantationomics, which are now seeing flower in a thousand points of darkness throughout America. 

What does that even mean?

[MicroBalrog]

Which explains why we are currently at war with China, North Korea, Iran, and so many other nations that have been provoking us lately.   It also explains why he never even proposed that we attack Saudi Arabia, despite the 9/11 hijackers being a perfect excuse to do so. 

So the fact that America is not yet at war with every single nation in the world proves Bush isn't a war monger?

And the fact that taxes are not yet at 100% of the GDP proves he's a small-government republican, I suppose.

[Perd Hapley]

I named four nations.