WELL, IT WAS FUN WHILE IT LASTED...:

The Republican Recovery (W. James Antle, III, 7.30.09, American Spectator)

On the heels of two disastrous election cycles, the conventional wisdom was that Republicans were doomed to wander in the wilderness for decades unless their party underwent serious changes. Even on the right, there quickly emerged a cottage industry of conservative self-help books dedicated to helping the GOP rebuild and rebrand.

The prescriptions varied depending on the authors' policy prescriptions: embrace big government or repudiate compassionate conservatism, rethink the national security policy of the Bush years or return to the approach of the first Bush term, jettison polarizing social issues or use them to build bridges into minority communities. But there was some rough consensus that the party needed to formulate an economic agenda for the middle class, come to terms with its past failures and find its voice on issues like health care.

Republicans have done almost none of these things.