Its a twofer, nobody likes their conservative ideas, and there's no policy to the stuff they enacted because their only policy was to reward their buddies.

They also grew complacent about developing a strong marketing effort to help sell their bad ideas. "Freedom to Farm" is a long, long time ago.

Cantor added that the nation is "desperate" for Republicans to use conservative principles to "fashion solutions to everyday challenges."

Given that Republicans had an opportunity, if one ever existed, to use conservative principles to "fashion solutions to everyday challenges" during the Bush residency, and took a pass, what basis is there for believing that conservative principles can fashion solutions to everyday challenges?

They went on offense at the start of Bush's second term by trying to gut social security. They fumbled and they've been punting ever since.

Is it me or does Eric Cantor seem a bit vacant intellectually? I've seen him on news programs and press conferences and he just doesn't seem to have much going on.

Anyone else?

The rich got richer, for a while, so to them, their policies had been quite successful. Well, how short sighted was that? Did they just discover that they really do have to pay attention to the rest of us? They'll get just enough religion to get them back in power and then unleash all their myopic market "solutions" again.

Republicans simply aren't interested in governing. Their "conservative principles" have nothing to do with governing, but merely espouse a juvenile and irresponsible worldview, endorsed by the rich, to keep the rubes in line.

I saw current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan on C-SPAN a week or so ago giving a post-election speech to his puzzled flock. He laid out the following four principles as the bedrock of conservative "thought:"

Bigger military
Smaller government
Less taxes
Responsibility

He's proposing activist government, with whatever (?) kind of policies. It really is the only solution for them. Yet the GOP abhors activist government.

Catch 22.

This is why they are very screwed. They have no idea how, why or when to do anything but weaken government.

Cantor said the Republican Party ...must stop simply espousing principles. Instead, it must craft real solutions

How ironic it is that Republicans spend so much time calling for civility while using procedural tricks to block legislation. It's like, "It's not that I'm against change. It's just the principle of the thing."

I thought they were rallying behind "real reform" and "less government" and also they were rallying behind what it takes to gain back power. Which is of course the only thing it's about for them and why Obama and his idea of post partisanship scares the living shit out of them.

"the nation is "desperate" for Republicans to use conservative principles" and Republicans should "address policy challenges through conservative policy ideas"? Coupled with the "center-right" yammering and loyalty this delusional crowd is showing towards their "screw-the-world-me-first" agenda one begins to feel very tired. Trying to get a bunch of psychotic twerps to realize that they were wromg, wrong, wrong sometimes seems to be a fruitless hope.

I thought the GOP's solution healthcare was "laissez," and for the economy was "faire." I think their solutions haven't had time to work.

Hell, the only drawback to the GOP's plans are those disgusting French words. The solution is for the Republicans to translate the plans into the English that "real" Americans can understand. 1) Laissez: You are on your own. 2) Faire: Drop dead!

The truth is that Republicans have never had decent policies to implement. At least not in the past twenty years. They gained power by fighting culture wars they couldn't win, and didn't want to win. It was all empty feelgood rhetoric used to hide unpopular policies and hateful ranting. Had Bush ran as a "true" conservative in 2000, rather than the "Compassionate Conservative" who pretended to be the frat guy equivalent of Gore, they would have lost bigtime. And had it not been for 9/11, they would have gotten routed in 2002 and 2004.

The reality is that conservative policies were NEVER popular. It was just their empty rhetoric, and that Dems were caught flatfooted in the 90's. And while I expect conservatives to believe in their own phony hype, it always bugs me when liberals say the same thing. America has been a liberal nation since the Great Depression, and the only people who say differently are selling something.

People might not self-identify as "liberal," but that's only because everyone's so liberal that the word lost its meaning. But they still don't like conservative policies when they actually hear what they are.

Tec619 - You forgot. They also have the Latin Solution: Caveat Emptor.

They've been on the offense for most of the last thirty years, and pretty much wrecked the country.

But how can we expect real change when half the American people have been brainwashed into believing all the crap these people drill into them? For that matter, the party leaders seem to believe in their own ideology. It's like religion to them - nothing in the real world can change their view of the imaginary world in which they live.

I think the only way to reach the brainwashed millions is to succeed during this administration.
And that's going to be really hard. The problems are nearly insurmountable. And there isn't any money. Hell, we're spending nearly $700 billion a year on the military alone, and going for more. We can't get this military super power thing off our backs. That brought down the Soviet Union, didn't it?

They have one giant credibility issue to deal with. The Republican's are going to have to wait for the next few generations to die off before everyone forgets why they hadn't been in power for the next 70 or more years.

How can a party whose primary plank in it's platform is to eliminate government (as we know it), actually govern?

Here is what I say to all the right wingers I know and debate with constantly:

The republicans had absolute power from 2000 to 2006. They had the executive, legislative, AND judicial branches.

It was like a republican wet dream, or, more truthfully under Bu$h, a republican multiple orgasm.

After 35 years of railing against liberalism and the democrats perceived 'failures', they had their chance. What did they do? Ban abortion? NO. Ban gay marriage? NO. Balance the budget? BIG FAT NO. Etc. etc.

My point is that for all their promises and their supposed 'better' ways of governance, when they did have their coveted permanent majority, they failed, and they failed miserably.

Conservatives are not in trouble. Republicans are.If you think the two have any thing in common,then you need to reconcider what is consevative and what is liberal.

I am so tired of reading this non-sense because if they had won the presidency, they would be saying mandate this and the voters have spoken that.

I know we won by a landslide, but let's face it, w/o Palin this one would have went to the wire. Had McCain kept his civility and run his campaign the way he probably wanted to these same clowns would be touting off that the Congress better get behind McCain if they want to remain relative and that people love republican policy.

I know we won by a landslide, but let's face it, w/o Palin this one would have went to the wire.

Maybe, maybe not. Palin became a drag at the end, but also seems to have given McCain more of a convention bounce than he otherwise might have gotten. I'm inclined to think that the net effect of Palin was fairly minor, in the end. Without her, McCain doesn't crash as hard toward the end, but that's only because he never bounces up to parity in the first place.

I think to bring it "down to the wire", you have to change the top half of the ticket.

I know we won by a landslide, but let's face it, w/o Palin this one would have went to the wire.

Obama won the accursed Electoral College by a "landslide," and in many states is did go down to the wire. And at 52-48, Obama did not a landslide with the popular vote. Talk of a mandate is a foolish and Obama acknowledged as much in his victory speech in Chicago.

I see EC Sedgwick has started repeating Republican talking points early. Conservatism can never fail, you can only fail Conservatism.

Right.

Sorry, but nobody's buying the lie that G.W. was a crypto-liberal. G.W. was conservative as hell and so was his counterparts in Congress. The fact that all they did was loot and pillage out to be a wake up call for you EC Sedgwick. Because you were robbed along with the rest of us.

Come over to the Dark side, we have cookies!

And the lame duck congress will give everyone one last look at what Republicans think is good for the country.

The Republican Party of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush has aggressively, openly and -- until recently -- successfully pursued "policies" of blatant criminality and corruption, using the power of the State to enrich themselves, and their ultra-rich cronies and financial backers, at the expense of and to the detriment of everyone else.

The Republican Party has come to represent government of, by and for white collar crooks.

This is extremely relevant to their electoral losses.

For a Congressman that voted against Schip, now tells us that he is for programs that help the average family, get real! Who is he trying to scam, it is most assurred he remains in the pocket of the crooks.

If you look inside the world of Quality, you'll find a philosophy of Pull vs Push that translates to listening to your customer over not listening to your customer. Rather than push your products and services down to your customer without listening to what your customer REALLY wants, you Pull your customers desires up through and into your products and services. The exact thing happened to the conservatives. They drove their ideology down to the American people. Democrates have pulled the voice of the People into theirs.

"Let's set aside the last eight years..."

I don't think so. You guys screwed the pooch. Let's remind everyone of the last eight years as much as possible.

PaminBB@5.07p and citizen.pain@2.28p are exactly right. Why SHOULD the Republicans be given another chance to govern when they've fucked up so badly in the last eight years? And, they don't want to govern - really - they just want to win elections and then drown the government.

Oh, and brian, Cantor is a smarmy little shit. Like Norm Coleman and Linda Lingle.

Steve, I think you forgot to mention their attempt to put Social Security into the stock market.

Thank God the current crisis has put that bad idea to rest for a couple of decades or so.

P.S. the Millenial generation is bigger than the Baby Boom. Voila, no problem for Social Security.

Ta! to phoebes -I so miss sante fe...

citizen_pain -I loved you comment and will be 'coultering'it(plagiarizing without attribution) forthwith...

Is it too late to use Cantor's contribution as a signatory to a letter on behalf of Abramoff and the Coushatta tribe on limiting other casino interests against him?

So, how did they get elected so often?

As tomeck and Sarah Barracuda said: They did go on the offense, on Social Security... and they got creamed.