Count Florida Gov. Rick Scott while you can, GOP, because it won't be much longer.

Count Florida Gov. Rick Scott while you can, GOP, because it won't be much longer.

At the federal level, much of what Republicans are doing is not working beyond the core constituencies that make up the Party. On the state level, however, it is a different story. Republicans hold governorships in 30 states with 315 electoral votes, the most governors either party has had in 12 years, and four short of the all-time GOP high of 34 governors who served in the 1920s.

The GOP releases a shiny new report on why the party sucks so bad, yet they can't get out of the first page before dishing bullshit.Seriously? They're going to sit there and pretend, in their honest and soul-searching self-assessment, that 2010 wasn't an atypical fluke?

Yes, Republicans won a bunch of governorships in 2010. But despite a favorable map, Republicans picked up only a single governorship in 2012—North Carolina. They failed in highly touted pick-up attempts in New Hampshire, Montana, Missouri and West Virginia (the latter three delivering easy wins for Mitt Romney). Republicans came shockingly close to losing their seat in Indiana, despite that race never getting on anyone's radar.

And the GOP better enjoy those 30 governorships now, because they'll have far fewer after the 2014 elections. Florida's Rick Scott is DOA, as is Pennsylvania's Tom Corbett. Republicans won the Maine governorship in a split three-way race. Paul LaPage isn't looking so hot in his reelection bid. Neither is Michigan's Rick Snyder.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has seen his numbers improve a bit over the last year, but he's still mired in the mid-40s, dangerous territory for an incumbent. Wisconsin's Scott Walker will face a tough reelection, and it would be extra tough if Russ Feingold runs. A couple of more states aren't currently competitive, but could become by November 2014 like Nevada or New Mexico. Arizona will be an open seat race.

An honest report on the state of the GOP would immediately admit to the fluky nature of their gubernatorial majorities, and talk about ways it could hold them given a more traditional mid-term electorate. But they don't do that. Instead, they continued their long-running trend of bending reality to validate their own biases, prejudices and fervent wishes.



It is time for Republicans on the federal level to learn from successful Republicans on the state level.

Again, if it was as simple as a state-federal divide, then 2012 state Republicans should've romped to victory in Missouri, Montana and West Virginia, where Romney crushed Obama at the top of the ticket. Instead, this sort of trite sloganeering makes sense for the GOP as an exercise in public spin, but not as a genuinely honest self-assessment.