Not so stunning

Google the phrase "GOP stunned by loss in Mississippi," then prepare to be stunned. It's probably the most repeated headline in recent political history. It's all over the news and all over the blogs.
GOP leaders are reportedly "stunned" about losing a long-held House seat to a Democrat who won by eight points. It's a congressional district President Bush won by a 25-point margin. The loss has been widely reported as a "major blow" to Republicans, and a "wakeup call." Unfortunately, it's a wakeup call that's far too late for anyone to catch the train on time. OK, so maybe this part of Ohio forever is likely to be a GOP safe haven, particularly in congressional elections, given the vast spreads the 4th and 5th Congressional District encompass. However, those Republicans coming from this part of the state might find themselves in a smaller and smaller minority, given what happened in Mississippi.
Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan and an expert on conservative politics, put it like this: "The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are." She said Republicans are "stupid to be stunned," and explained that Democrats will have no trouble uniting their party in Denver.
The GOP, by contrast, is in trouble - really, really big trouble - heading into the fall. Noonan interviewed Republican National Committee Chairman Robert M. Duncan about the dilemma, and he said the party is "an airplane flying right into a mountain."
The party will nominate Sen. John McCain, one of its most liberal members, to head the presidential ticket. And what is McCain talking about?
At a time when gas prices have hit an all-time high, McCain's fretting about the environmental downsides of new American drilling and exploration. For this we need a Republican? He's asking voters to give Republicans four more years, but he doesn't give them the slightest inkling why they should. Perhaps he thinks voters won't blame President Bush for gas prices, inflation, economic stagnation and a foreclosure crisis. Perhaps he thinks Republicans will continue milking the phenomenal leadership and accomplishments of the late, great Reagan. Well, they can't. They've tapped that well dry.
The trouncing in Mississippi should tell the GOP what it's in for. Republicans will soon realize they've managed to lose the support of conservative Democrats in the South, which was essential to the Reagan Revolution and has remained a cornerstone of all national Republican victories since.
Republicans will lose the South because they have no message, coming across as Democrat-light, offering environmentalism, spending and federalization. Republicans have drifted so far from a platform of liberty, independence and small government that one can't tell a Republican from a Democrat without looking it up. When conservatives want to complain about federalized public education, they find themselves blaming Bush. When they find themselves concerned about record-breaking federal spending, they have to blame Bush.
Given a fuzzy delineation between the parties, Republicans have no chance. Southerners want to vote Democratic again, and they need nothing more than the opportunity presented by weak GOP options. Nobody wants another four years of George W. Bush, so Democrats need only promise "change." What change? It doesn't matter. Just change. Any change. For the moderate American voter a message of "change" will be enough.
And it's not just moderate Southern Democrats who the Republicans are managing to lose. They're also losing moderate and conservative Republicans. A shrewd politician such as Barack Obama easily might woo moderate Republicans, and serious conservatives can't stand the thought of voting for McCain.
The GOP needs to stop being stunned and begin bracing for the change it likely will face next fall. Their only hope will be to figure out what the party used to be about: limited government and taxes, decreased spending, states' rights, gun rights, religious liberty, fetal rights and a notion that human needs outweigh loony concerns about drilling holes in Nowhere, Alaska. If Republicans can embrace all that, they might find constituents in 2012.