Davos Newbies

The other day I wrote about my expectation that the Republican party will — thankfully — take the completely wrong message from their defeat on November 4. The party won’t modernize; it will look wistfully back at a social conservative past that can never be recovered. Other observers seem to agree with my analysis. But I hadn’t expected such astonishing confirmation of a party intent on political obscurity as this “poll” of right-wing blogs (via Lawyers, Guns and Money). Here’s question four:

The Republican Party did poorly in the 2006 election and even if McCain wins is on track to do poorly again in this year’s Congressional races. If you had to choose between these two options, do you think that’s because they were…

A) Too conservative: 9% (7)
B) Not conservative enough: 91% (67)

Bonus encouragement

Michael Tomasky reports on his conversation with Frank Rich about the Republican party’s lack of diversity:

America is just getting more and more racially diverse. It’s about 68% white now (we’ll have an exact figure at the next census in 2010). But look at it this way. In eight years’ time, given the way we elect presidents via the electoral college, it won’t be possible - I mean won’t be possible - to get 270 electoral votes if you’re still this white a party. The big electoral-vote prizes are states that are increasingly racially diverse (and mark my words — under the right circumstances, even Texas may be a Democratic state in eight years). The older white states are small.