I use to be proud to declare my self as a Republican - as of last night I am no longer part of that party.
I am either an independent or Tea Party member with the loss of the Republican elite’s hand-picked candidate – I think the tea party may quite be last best hope America has to restore America’s founding principles.
The Tea Party will fare even worse. Don't play into that business that if they would have nominated Ron Paul the Republicans would have won last night. It would have been a slaughter of unprecedented proportions. The bulk of the voting electorate
does not want smaller government. They want more free stuff. The more conservative the candidate, the less the government will give them. They view them as their enemy.
This is what the Republicans refuse to understand. It isn't the fact they've ran 2 moderates, (McCain & Romney, and lost). It's the fact the voting demographic in this country has shifted to the left far enough, that what the conservatives are selling isn't wanted by enough people anymore. That isn't a defeatist attitude, but a realistic one. If the Republicans run a hard core Regan conservative next time, he'll lose by an even greater margin. Regan was sold to an entirely different voting demographic in 1980. That demographic doesn't exist anymore in a large enough amount to matter.