Well, when you have a Democratic President cutting hundreds of billions from Medicare and Medicaid, you can understand why conservatives don't need a Republican Party.

Give Limbaugh credit. He asked the right question.

How in the world," we ask ourselves, "can the voters forget?" And the answer is, our side stopped teaching. Our side got wobbly. Our side wanted to make nice with the other guys.

But it was his answer that was wrong. He is assuming, as so many Republicans do, that this is a right-wing nation and that they lost the Presidential election in 2008 because they did not work hard enough to motivate the base and get them to turn out to vote.

Only their assumption is wrong. They were winning because they DID turn out their base and the Democrats did not have a similar effective set of messages and techniques - and with Reagan, the candidate.

Unfortunately for them, their policies as implemented have done what what the Democratic candidates could not do. They turned out the Democrats in opposition. And this IS a center-left nation, not a right-wing one. Only they don't believe that. They have bought their own propaganda.

The Democrats have fielded two outstanding politicians as candidates, Clinton and Obama, but the final difference was the economic disaster that the conservatives and their economic policies have inflicted on this nation. Without the economy, McCain might have had a shot. But where is the connection to "teaching conservatism" in that? That has been used up in the normal turnout, an that turnout has been declining.

If Obama doesn't get health care passed and if (when?) the Recession comes roaring back, the next Presidential election will be a tossup at best. But we and the conservatives all know that.

9/11 was their ticket into power. The farther we get away from that the less influence they'll have. But make no mistake, their corporate sponsors are way too powerful for the Republican party to disappear.