To underscore how tough things are for the GOP, Bill Pascoe, a Chicago-based Republican consultant with Urquhart Media, said “there are Republican consultants scouting state legislators for 2014. That’s how far the long-range planning is going.”

Why 2014? Because that would be the second midterm of a Democratic president.

I don’t believe them. How many times do we have to bury a political party before it reanimates itself off of the corpse of the other political party?

Besides, this Fred Thompson guy is going to save the Republican Party from disaster in 2008.

It is an interesting turn of the dice. Following 2004, the word was that the “Values Voters” were out in force, drowning out the Democratic Party. That lie was put to bed almost immediately, during the Terri Schiavo debacle. I wonder what lie about the Democratic Party resurgance is about to put to bed.

Now then, I may as well say that that link was part of a cluster of articles on cursor.org yesterday which included this snippet:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was close to leaving the Republican Party in 2001, weeks before then-Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) famously announced his decision to become an Independent, according to former Democratic lawmakers who say they were involved in the discussions.

In interviews with The Hill this month, former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and ex-Rep. Tom Downey (D-N.Y.) said there were nearly two months of talks with the maverick lawmaker following an approach by John Weaver, McCain’s chief political strategist.

Democrats had contacted Jeffords and then-Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) in the early months of 2001 about switching parties, but in McCain’s case, they said, it was McCain’s top strategist who came to them.

McCain’s aides go on to deny this, saying that it was the Democrats who fervently courted him. Both parties to this issue have a reason to stick by that side of the story. My mind wanders to the story that John McCain and John Kerry had three discussions on having McCain be Kerry’s running mate, which somewhere someone mentioned was indeed two more times than necessary for McCain simply to state “Not interested.”

The implications are a bit depressing. John McCain in the Democratic Party (or Caucus) would make a two-fer of a McCain — Lieberman Splurge on through Iraq and onto Iran and Syria Caucus — unstoppable, come to think of it, as McCain has cultivated a uniquely friendly relationship with the beltway media (to the point where he has gotten to sit alone on the Sunday blathering shows, as opposed to the typical Democratic guest and Republican guest set-up — which, I suspect is one of the great manifestations of the reason that the Republican primary voter hesitates toward him. Other manifestations include the above – mentioned dalliances with Kerry and Daschle). Never mind, I never much liked his claim to Maverick Democratic – friendly fame anyway — McCain – Feingold — which is a plumbing operation of corraling big money, duct-taping up one pressure area so that it can explode out a new pressure point in the convoluted system.

As it were, 9/11 happened and the motivation to stay with the Republican Party became rather powerful.  The Democratic Majority in the Senate became useless — Jeffords’s switch languishing into meaninglessness.  Suppose for a moment McCain and Chaffee switched.  The question about the Democratic Party is — does such a large net of muddled “Visions” move them along?  Could they just go ahead and invite James Inhofe into the party, and while they’re at it claim the ideological mantle of Ronald Reagan?  I don’t quite get it.

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