Sullivan links to a piece, maybe in part because it mentions him in glowing terms - but also because it makes some points we’re all losing sight of as Hillary chases her white whale:

Considering how much attention mass media has spent on electoral politics it has missed the elephant in the room (pardon the pun): The extreme peril of the Republican Party.

The piece goes on to talk about how, even as the travails of the Democrats dominate the news cycles, Republicans have 29 House members retiring this year; in the Senate, they’re defending 23 seats, compared to the Democrats’ 12; “even if the GOP was wildly popular it would simply have to cover more territory,” notes the author.

But the GOP is not wildly popular:

Republicans held all the levers of power in Washington for six years. They turned budget surpluses into huge deficits, which put pressure on the dollar. The financial industry’s house of cards got blown down and the Federal Reserve cut rates to head off a recession. That put even more pressure on the dollar. Its value sank against other currencies, and investors have taken refuge in commodities, driving those prices up. Republicans’ aggressive, swaggering foreign policy has shot uncertainty through the market, driving (dollar denominated) oil to record highs. Simply put, their policies have put us in a position where we can’t deficit spend, can’t lower prices, can’t cut rates and can’t do much to restore value to our currency. …

<snip> 

We have structural problems that won’t go away easily or quickly, and voters have reasonably concluded which party bears the most blame. Even after they lost Congress last year they marched in lockstep behind the President as he continued a massively unpopular war. …. None of these issues will be eclipsed by manufactured talking points or trivial narratives.

Or “Operation Chaos,” for that matter. 

The effects of their governance are plainly and painfully before the country’s eyes on (literally) a daily basis, and that is not going away before November.

And this is the elephant in the room, or the elephant about to be tossed out of the room.

The era of Republican political dominance is over. And that’s true even if McCain were to somehow win in November; for based on the numbers alone, Republicans will not control Congress. Their message, as noted earlier in the week by Newt Gingrich, has grown tired and weak. Hating liberals and waging endless war in the Middle East simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Evangelicals are disaffected, feeling abandoned by the party (John McCain, of all people) and turning inward. And the Limbaugh-ites, the movement conservatives - all they have is Operation Chaos. All they can do is carp from the margins.

The Reagan coalition now crashes to earth, as the New Deal coalition did before that. As the new coalition, whatever is consists of, will also rise and then fall.

For true conservatives - rather than those who have treated their politics as a football game, us vs. them, bandwagon jumpers who became “conseravative” when it looked like the GOP was going to cement that permanent Republican majority - this might be a blessing in disguise. It becomes an opportunity to redefine conservatism; what does it mean to be conservative, rather than merely hating liberals?

What are the policies conservatives stand for - in the context of all that’s happened these past seven-plus years. Gingrich at least articulated some - at least he’s thinking in those terms; I’m obviously not a Gingrich guy but he understands the importance of ideas. The bandwagon jumpers, the foot soldiers in Operation Chaos - do they?

Obviously, the decline of the Republican Party doesn’t necessarily imply the success of the Democratic Party. But the thing I’ve liked about Obama is how he does indeed represent a new approach - a new coalition, even. More on that later. Obama permits the Democratic Party to redefine itself to an extent Hillary doesn’t (though Hillary as VP would at least retain the ties to the Democratic Party of old). Youth and rationality, the repudiation of knee-jerk, unthinking belligerence; those are the things (and more) Obama represents. That he’d talk with our “enemies” rather than delivering them ultimatums; that under an Obama presidency the United States would act as a citizen of the world rather than with a barely concealed imperialism; that is an idea, and one that has resonance after Bush. Republicans might articulate an opposing idea. Or they might read another Ann Coulter book and think all they need to do is keep on sneering. Good luck with that.