"GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead!"

Who said that?  The Left Wing Media?  A Democratic Senator from Michigan?  A pithy TPM blogger?  Would you believe ultra-Conservative columnist,  Morning Joe staple, and all around good guy, Patrick J. Buchanan?  Start believing!

In a column for Human Events, The Toyota Republicans, Buchanan reads the party the riot act:

What are Republicans thinking of, pulling the plug, at Christmas, on GM, risking swift death for the greatest manufacturing company in American history, a strategic asset and pillar of the U.S. economy.

And, he's really mad:

Is the Republican Party so fanatic in its ideology that, rather than sin against a commandment of Milton Friedman, it is willing to see America written forever out of this fantastic market, let millions of jobs vanish and write off the industrial Midwest?

Pat understands the root of the problem (see TPM, Southern Auto Industry - Some Backstory, by steve katz):

"We have a number of profitable automakers in America, and they should not be disadvantaged for making wise business decisions while failure is rewarded," says Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

DeMint is referring to "profitable automakers" like BMW, which sited a plant in Spartanburg, after South Carolina offered the Germans a $150 million subsidy and $80 million to expand.

Of course, Pat needs to get in a good old isolationist, America First, dig:

General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn't bomb Pearl Harbor.

Pat doesn't stop with cars:

Do the Republicans not yet understand how they lost the New Majority coalition that gave them three landslides and five victories in six presidential races from 1968 to 1988? Do they not know why the Reagan Democrats in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are going home?

The Republican Party gave their jobs away!

How? By telling U.S. manufacturers they could shut plants here, get rid of their U.S. workers, build factories in Mexico, Asia or China, and ship their products back, free of charge.

Republican globalists gave U.S. manufacturers every incentive to go abroad and take their jobs with them, the jobs of Middle America.

Pat gets what's wrong with the economy...the status quo.

The Replicants (nee Republicans) problems don't stop, there.  In a Swampland blog, Dark Days Ahead: Why Republicans Need Xmas Vacation, michaelscherer writes:

It's bad. Never mind that for two elections in a row Republicans have lost political independents by wide margins. Never mind that their reputation for competence is approaching Bernie Madoff-like levels, or that the nation's demographic shift, particularly the growth in Latino voters, imperils their electoral future. Never mind that party leaders will return to Washington next year with less actual power than at any point since 1995. The real Republican concern is this: The deteriorating economy now threatens to undermine the political value of the GOP's fundamental identity as the party of private markets and limited government.

The old ways aren't working:

In the face of this peril, conservatives find themselves without leadership, direction, or even a cogent ideological response to the crisis. Conservative lodestars, like Dick Cheney, are warning of Herbert Hoover times if Republicans don't open up the federal pocketbooks. Even President Bush has admitted that he "abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." And he did not succeed, clearing the way for much more abandoning to come.

What's a Replicant to do?  Not much according to Adam Nagourney,  Obama frustrates Republicans' desire to criticize:

"I think at a time like this, at a time of crisis, a lot of people would like to see people try to work together, especially with Obama not even being sworn in yet," said Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, who is a leading candidate to be the next leader of the Republican National Committee. "What you don't want to be is the party that's always attacking or being negative with no alternatives."

And, from the top down, Republicans are eating their own:

Its attempt to link Obama to the corruption scandal in Illinois drew criticism not only from McCain but also from Newt Gingrich, a Republican former speaker of the House of Representatives.

"I was saddened to learn that at a time of national trial, when a president-elect is preparing to take office in the midst of the worst financial crisis in over 70 years, that the Republican National Committee is engaged in the sort of negative, attack politics that the voters rejected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles," Gingrich wrote in a letter to Duncan.

I've got a suggestion for the Republicans, it combines all the things they do best...impeach Rod Blagojevich!

What Republicans really need are leaders with ideas that aren't tied to the status quo.  Unfortunately, they would lose 75% of their base.

This is the time for Democrats, of all stripes to come together to fix our countries common problems, and relegate the current crop of die hard Republicans to wander the political desert for the next 40 years.

Where's Sarah Palin, your party needs you?