It's no surprise that when a political team loses an election, it asks the obvious questions: What went wrong? What could we have done differently? Who (or what) cost us the election? And, of course, what do we do next?
Gloria Borger says the GOP won't gain by opposing most everything the new president wants, CNN reported.
However, if you're a surviving Republican right now, those questions hardly seem adequate.
You had a presidential candidate in John McCain who could have appealed to independent voters, and instead lost decisively. You had a cultural conservative in running mate Sarah Palin, who flamed out -- and is now preoccupied with resurrecting her personal image (what GOP?) in the hopes of regaining the national stage.
Congressional Republicans in the Northeast are now an endangered species; Democrats have made major inroads in the once ruby-red Mountain West. The only place, it seems, that is more Republican than in 2004 is the Deep South - not exactly a base for a major national GOP comeback.
It would be easy, of course, to ask the simple questions and then blame the whole mess on George W. Bush and the economy. That's what Palin has taken to doing. And while she's not entirely wrong, she's mostly wrong. There's a lot more the GOP needs to think about.
In fact, if the Republicans sit back and just blame it on circumstances and an unpopular president, they're heading for irrelevancy -- if not disintegration.
Does the GOP really want to be monochromatic -- an all-white, non-Hispanic party? Does it want to be the party of old folks, mostly men, who live in the South? And, while we're asking questions, does it want to become the party of "No," opposing most everything the new president wants?