There have been suggestions that Barack Obama could be another Jimmy Carter - an unlikely Washington outsider, flush with new ideas and riding a wave of disgust with the current administration - after which the Republicans will be back in force. But I think that misses the larger historical picture here. Carter simply disrupted a realignment that was very much in progress - he squeaked by with 50.1% of the vote. But the Republicans weren't done - don't forget that at the Republican convention that year, Ronald Reagan got bigger applause than Gerald Ford. And in 1980, Reagan was ready and waiting, with charisma, optimism, and big, bold ideas.

From 1968, when the Democrats lost the South to George Wallace, the Republicans have controlled the conversation. As Josh writes,

Remember that Clinton never won 50% of the vote - not even in 1996 - and won his first term by out-Reaganing his two opponents (at which he wouldn't have succeeded if Ross Perot hadn't siphoned nearly 19% from Bush). And once again, at the Republican convention that year, the next wave of Republican dominance could be seen: Pat Buchanan gave his (in)famous Culture War speech.

So rather than comparing the 2008 election of Barack Obama to 1976, or even 1992, I think there's a potentially useful comparison to be made to 1968 - a long-time incumbent party finally crumbling and splitting under the weight of its contradictions, making way for a new majority party to shape the national conversation. During the 2008 campaign, the Republican candidate did what Democrats have been doing for decades: tried to be a Republican version of the Democrat ("change," "reform," etc).

And unlike 1976 and 1992, there's no obvious next evolutionary step for the Republicans. Some, like the blogger Patrick Ruffini (thanks to John Heilemann at New York for pointing this out), suggest that Sarah Palin may be the standard-bearer in 2012 - using the analogy of Howard Dean's downfall as a Presidential candidate and rapid rise to head of the Democratic National Committee:

Well, yes. But there's a crucial difference. That took place after decades of triangulators took the left-leaning base for granted. The Republican base has been in power, in all three houses of government, for the last eight years - and McCain played pretty hard toward them. Palin isn't Goldwater, a populist beating back the moderate gate-keepers. There aren't any moderate gate-keepers in the Republican Party anymore; George W. Bush drove them all away. Several of them, most prominently Colin Powell, endorsed Obama.

Palin may indeed be back in 2012, but she'll be the voice of a dying party movement, one that began in 1968 and increased in anti-government, social-conservative populism until it became incoherent. There's nothing to reinvigorate there. It's the Republican moderates - ironically, the Barry Goldwater conservatives - who've become disaffected and ignored by their party. Sarah Palin isn't Goldwater; she's the Right's McGovern.

Even if Obama turns out to be another Carter, it still isn't clear that the Republicans will be able to put up any coherent resistance to him in 2012. They're leaderless, split between traditional conservatives and rabid right-wing populists, and laden with so many contradictions from decades of that fragile coalition that they've got no central narrative to put up against the Democrats' fairly simple, compelling one: fix the economy by focusing on the middle and working class, make healthcare more affordable, end the war in Iraq, and invest in an energy economy.

Don't take my word for it. Just look a this breathtaking map from the New York Times, showing which counties voted more Republican this year compared to 2004 and which voted more Democratic: