Republicans would be in better shape had the Democrats put up better candidates in 2004 and 2000

How many (including Yoda) voted AGAINST Bush's opposition in 2000 and 2004 rather than
voting FOR him?
http://tinyurl.com/otuc6r
When Pat Buchanan is right, he's right. (Well, he's always "right" but not always correct but is, here.)
The Party of Frank Ricci by Patrick J. Buchanan 05/08/2009
,,,Republicans are going through an identity crisis,...suffering from doubt and despair. Why is the party in trouble? Simple. Dubya got a hold of the keys, got high on neocon hooch, and crashed and rolled the family SUV. He launched an unnecessary war against a country that had not attacked us. With his utopian No Child Left Behind scheme and his Medicare drug plan, he did his passable imitation of LBJ, and blew a hole in the budget.Touting globalism, he presided over the loss of one in every four U.S. manufacturing jobs and ran up $5 trillion in trade deficits. He refused to defend the Mexican border against an invasion, then pushed an amnesty for the invaders. ...Become again the party of Frank Ricci...a fireman in New Haven, Conn., with 11 years...suffers from dyslexia, ...pursued his dream of becoming a lieutenant and a captain....Ricci quit his second job. He bought $1,000 worth of the textbooks he was told to study, had a friend read them onto tapes to compensate for his dyslexia, studied every spare hour he got, and sat for the test, to compete for one of eight lieutenant slots open.Frank made it. Frank Ricci came in sixth....Concluding the test results would, if used by the department, have an "adverse impact" on the black community, New Haven tossed out the results and called for new exams to ensure a "fair" outcome.
...What is being done to Frank Ricci is exactly what was done to black folks for decades. ... And it is just as wrong as it was then. ...New Haven contends the "disparate impact" of the test hurts the black community, proving discrimination. But does the relative absence of blacks in the National Hockey League prove discrimination?
If the Republican Party wants a future, it will become again the party that stands on the principle that "No discrimination means no discrimination," that stands with the victims of state bigotry, and that stands up to hypocrites like the Jim Crow liberals of New Haven....Affirmative action began as a mandate to cast a wider net and ensure all had an equal shot. It has become a mighty engine of state injustice ...In Michigan, Washington and California, none of them red states, majorities have voted to abolish affirmative action. Only Colorado failed in a dead heat last fall. A Republican drive to write into federal law an end to all race and gender preferences, as well as to all race and gender discrimination, is a cause whose time has come.
This is a winning issue for the GOP, for it is rooted in principle and comports with what is written on the human heart. Down deep, even liberals know that what is being done to Frank Ricci is not right.