The G.O.P.’s Post-Tucson Traumatic Stress Disorder – NYTimes.com

Interesting article from Frank Rich today…

If the GOP is tiring of the rabid right and people realize they have nothing to offer, will the Dems finally capitalize on the GOP lack of ideas?

Or will they show the usually lack of nerve and cede the communications war in the name of bi-partisanship?

If they had had an effective communications strategy and some balls, we would have a better Health Care plan-with the Public Option- and they would still control the House of Representatives.  Oh, and we might have had a chance at true infrastructure development and Financial Reform.  Then President Obama might be viewed more as FDR than the Herbert Hoover imagery that is being used more and more often in the press…

Glenn Beck’s ratings at Fox News continued their steady decline, falling to an all-time low last month. He has lost 39 percent of his viewers in a year and 48 percent of the prime 25-to-54 age demographic. His strenuous recent efforts to portray the Egyptian revolution as an apocalyptic leftist-jihadist conspiracy have inspired more laughs than adherents.

Sarah Palin’s tailspin is also pronounced. It can be seen in polls, certainly: the ABC News-Washington Post survey found that 30 percent of Americans approved of her response to the Tucson massacre and 46 percent did not. (Obama’s numbers in the same poll were 78 percent favorable, 12 percent negative.) But equally telling was the fate of a Palin speech scheduled for May at a so-called Patriots & Warriors Gala in Glendale, Colo.

Tickets to see Palin, announced at $185 on Jan. 16, eight days after Tucson, were slashed to half-price in early February. Then the speech was canceled altogether, with the organizers blaming “safety concerns resulting from an onslaught of negative feedback.” But when The Denver Post sought out the Glendale police chief, he reported there had been no threats or other causes for alarm. The real “negative feedback” may have been anemic ticket sales, particularly if they were to cover Palin’s standard $100,000 fee.

What may at long last be dawning on some Republican grandees is that a provocateur who puts her political adversaries in the cross hairs and then instructs her acolytes to “RELOAD” frightens most voters.

via The G.O.P.’s Post-Tucson Traumatic Stress Disorder – NYTimes.com.