Republicans are so hilarious!

They go into the 2008 presidential election with a 300-year-old dinosaur as their standard bearer. That doesn't work out so well, and they exit the year fractured, demoralized, and rudderless. A normal party uses opportunities like these to change direction, reform, and rebrand. It's not easy -- we had a ton of resistance from the ineffective DLC-ish status quo when we got Howard Dean elected chair of the party and dragged the party kicking and screaming into a more anti-war posture. But our grassroots was eager for change, and we embraced those candidates who promised it, from Dean, to Ned Lamont, to Darcy Burner, to Jim Webb, to Eric Massa, to Barack Obama, and so on.

But Republicans? their own grassroots are so wedded to the status quo that anyone in the establishment attempting to move the party to a more electorally viable posture is branded a heretic and cast out of their club. They think they've lost elections because they haven't shouted the crazy loud enough (more teabagging please!), or because their insults just aren't as effective anymore (let's try "fascist" now!). So they stick to their old loser policies, from their pathological defense of the ultra wealthy, to their clinging to doomed opposition to gay marriage. And as for leadership? Well, who better to defend the status quo than the status quo?

Into that breach has entered Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Joe the Plumber to provide the philosophical underpinnings of the GOP. For the party that could once depend on the intellectual prowess of William F. Buckley, this has certainly been a downgrade. As their public face, if they could dig up Ronald Reagan and prop him up at RNC headquarters, they would. Instead, the Palins and Jindals jostle and compete for who can be the most ridiculously regressive. But for a party that predicates its philosophy on distrust of change, it looks like this leadership vacuum is best filled by old retreads -- Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove.

All three Republicans have image problems. A January Pew Research Center poll showed just 31 percent viewed Cheney favorably. Rove's appearances serve to remind the American public of the similarly-unpopular Bush administration. And Gingrich, who is said to be considering a presidential bid in 2012, never enjoyed widespread popularity during his tenure as Speaker. Cheney, Gingrich and Rove have all sucked up time on cable news networks and sparked new controversies. Media outlets fixating on remarks the three Republicans make, Democrats say, are robbing the Congressional GOP of oxygen they need to get out their own message and fight back against Democratic initiatives. “I think most voters, especially those under 50, see Cheney, Gingrich and Rove as the symbols of a Republican Party built on intolerance, deceit and division,” said Democratic strategist Peter Giangreco. “Where voters are tired of the old politics of conflict, these men still want to divide America into red states and blue states, into good Americans and bad Americans.”

What a great team! But not for them. For us.