From the Guardian

A strange thing has happened. A movement – the conservative movement – built on the ideas of the new right and neoliberalism popularised by the likes of William F Buckley’s National Review has lost its brain. Where ideas were once its devastating weapon of choice, it is now reaching for aesthetics instead.

It is easy to fathom why. Essentially, its ideas no longer fit the times. When the United States is embroiled in war on a number of fronts – most particularly a domestic war on the economic front, a sense of crisis engulfs Washington. All the Republicans have been able to do in the face of this is to reach for the tired mantras of minimal government and tax cuts. Those solutions feel like echoes from another time, a windshield to deflect a hurricane.

At the core of this inadequate response is the smug Republican assumption that they exist in a conservative country. This was an old Republican mind trick; not quite in Jedi class but effective for a few decades none the less. Why should you vote Republican? Because it’s the American thing to do. Americans are conservative and the Republican party are America’s conservatives. No need for calculus, it’s just basic arithmetic.

It was never true but it was believed. Actually, America is a moderate country that swings between centre-right and centre. There are more conservatives than liberals for sure – 34% to 22% in the most recent presidential election. But 44% of Americans consider themselves to be moderates. The bad news for the Republicans is that they split 60% to 39% for President Obama.

So the conservative ideas factory is no longer working and no longer garners popular support. How should the Republican party react? It seems at the moment to be obsessed with a game of demographics poker. You can see how it works – I’ll see your Hillary Clinton with a Sarah Palin and I’ll raise you a Michael Steele. Oh, you’ve laid a Barack Obama. Well, we’ll go all-in with a Bobby Jindal.

It is high risk poker and unlikely to come off. It is instructive to go back to the Alan Keyes candidacy against Barack Obama for the Illinois Senate seat in 2004 to understand why. After the candidacy of Jack Ryan imploded amid personal allegations, the Illinois Republicans drafted in Alan Keyes, an African American from Maryland to take on Obama. His rightwing policies were a disastrous political platform in Illinois. Obama’s campaign became meet the people. He already had their support. He won 70% to 27%.

There is a cautionary tale here. Now, Jindal is a far more sophisticated politician than Alan Keyes but there are underlying similarities. The Louisiana governor is a traditional economic and social conservative as was seen last night. He is most definitely not new in that regard whatever the media savvy packaging. There are other Republicans who are better placed to eat into that 44% moderate vote.

Mitt Romney, had he not flip-flopped so much, given his excellent record on healthcare expansion, for example, might have been in that category. He blew it. Next time round Charlie Crist, governor of Florida, might just be theArnie Vinick candidate. He is currently being vilified by his own party for supporting President Obama’s stimulus and reinvestment plan.

It seems that ultra-partisanship is the other side of this new image-obsessed Republican party. That won’t work either and nor will going for Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee.

Governor Crist could surely make a better case to the America in which 80% think that Republicans should work in a bipartisan manner and 63% believe that Republican opposition is for political rather than policy reasons. Should the Obama economic plan work on any level that would leave Bobby Jindal in political no man’s land.

If you had been writing an anti-strategy for the Republicans on 5 November you would have certainly advised extreme partisanship mixed with some image tweaking as the road to non-recovery. That is the strategy that Governor Jindal represents. The demons remain. However, there’s no need for a Father Merrin. Rather, Republicans need to look at their country and learn the lessons of 2008.