That might take some doing since the current Republican leadership don’t believe they have a problem. You would think with the trouncing they took in the election, they would realize it’s time to work together.

That in it self would go far to improve the Republican image.

Most of these ‘suggestions’ for the Republican party are to be more like the Democrats…John McCain tried that and he lost. His campaign was Republican ‘light’ and it didn’t bode well with his supporters. Conservatism is a strong point of the Republican party and it has fallen apart because of its abandonment of these principles.

I, too, say, "Yesssss" to this, Candice.  I couldn’t have described the Republicans better.  It’s so obvious & becoming more so every day.  I thought that the flailing would stop at the election.  I was wrong.

The intransigence of Republicans of late corresponds directly to the brainwashing hate machine known as Republican radio and Fox News that has pervaded this country. Before corporated-owned (read: Republican) mega-corporations like Citadel and Clear Channel monopolized the airwaves, there was a vested interest in mutual cooperation. But big-money media conglomerates driven by ratings discovered that, if they pandered to the zealots and wackos with hate speech, it would draw a larger listenership than boring, calm conversation. And so it ballooned to the point where the Neal Boortz’s, Sean Hannity’s, Laura Ingraham’s, et al., are everywhere on the dial. Each day, even if there’s nothing newsworthy going on, let’s pretend to be so incensed by any little thing that, as talk-show hosts, we’re foaming at the mouth.

A good example is Barack Obama’s brave call to rescue the captain at sea from pirates. It should’ve been a great moment for him and the entire country. Instead, Boortz goes on the airwaves drumming up some nonsense about Obama having ordered the snipings only if there was "imminent danger". Somehow, Boortz tried to twist it around that Obama risked lives. Boortz was all in a tither about it - a perfect example of manufactured anger. He knew full well that Obama had done a good deed, but that wouldn’t sound good acknowledging that on Republican Hate Radio, so let’s pretend to get all worked up over some phrase that Obama supposedly used in ordering the heroic attacks.

So, that’s where the Right stands nowadays. Even heroic and patriotic acts are lambasted, if they are carried off by a Democrat. That never would’ve been the case under Reagan, for example. As Conservative as he was, people knew there was a sense of fair play about him. You get what you give. If Republicans want to embrace this kind of nasty, line-in-the-sand behavior, then there will continue to be this deep divide between the parties.

Of course, the Democrats aren’t always sweet, either, and I wouldn’t mind an Independent party overtaking what passes as the G.O.P. these days, to provide the necessary checks and balances. Or even a three-party system might work.

One good piece of news is that the propaganda machine known as Republican Radio that spreads hate on more than 3,000 stations is not sustainable. The stations and corporations are dying. I think a modified version of the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated, as well, to level the playing field a bit. And that portion of the Communications Act of 1934 that decreed that stations must "educate and inform" the audience should be reinstated, as well. For local news is a dying commodity not only in the form of newspapers and magazines going belly-up, but for radio news, as well, which has become a rip-and-read operation since the Michael Reagan-led Federal Communications Commission deregulated the industry in 1993.