RIP once said: "...your team took it in the sack!"

Probably one of my favorite retorts seen here.

Well, that is likely enough to explain the headline, but there is more! Check out this poll:

http://www.galluppoll.com/content/?ci=28780

I would like to highlight one in particular:

Scroll down to the one titled: "GOP Favorability -vs- Bush Approval"

The trends are near lock step. There is the occasional variation, but by and large, the general trend seems to be to identify the GOP with the President.

Party unity, blind leadership, pandering to the base, all have a double edge it seems!

Where are they gonna hide this guy next cycle?

This year has been a warm up, with various things tried to differentiate the party from Bush. Some of them were just nuts, such as: "Bush is too Liberal." Gotta give credit where credit is due for that gem. It's balsy, and it also makes the assumption a lot of us are not just stupid, but downright thick!

(it failed)

I'm not gonna dodge the fact that I really want some payback for this mess. I'm sure I am not alone, or some of those poll results would be different.

However, there is an upside! If the GOP, or any significant part of it, wants a solid chance at winning, they really need to step back and reconsider just who put them there in the first place.

Sure, the dollars come from the usual vested major interests, but the votes still do come from the people. At some point, that's gotta be addressed --even if it's to manupulate them into voting against their own self interests.

And that's been the divisive strategy seen to date. There are strong signs this might not work quite so well this time around.

(hope so)

One indicator of this, I believe to be the tweaks being proposed to the process in general. One does have to wonder why those things are necessary. If the platform is solid, there is no reason to manipulate for votes right?

So, getting back to that upside, I think the threat of being reduced in overall number by another third is likely to force some party change. I would welcome real conservative approaches to problems we all have in common.

The gridlock is costly --maybe too costly.