GOP dead?

If you read the intertubes lately, it would appear that the GOP has already lost in 2010. Read this CNN article or this Washington Post article. To a Republican these articles must be absurdly alarmist and to a Democrat, perhaps too pie-in-the-sky.

To their main point: with the newly announced retirement of Ohio Senator George Voinovich, the Republican party now has five open Senate seats to defend next cycle: Bond (Missouri), Brownback (Kansas), Martinez (Florida), and Hutchison (Texas). Missouri, Florida, and Ohio are notorious swing states, and Gov. Sebelius could easily win in Kansas if she runs. Democrats, on the other hand, think that only one seat is competitive: Reid (Nevada). Couple this with 59 current Democratic seats, and the GOP is understandably nervous.

Today former Rep. Tom Davis (VA-11) offers an all-is-not-lost approach to Republicans, a way for them to rebuild their party. Calling for a more moderate approach, Davis believes that returning to past ideas of conservativism is disastrous, as the electorate thought Republicans were exactly true to their conservative principles. Yet Ben Smith argues, Democrats have purged all swing-district moderate Republicans, and you will not hear calls for moderation in Republican circles, especially in the race for the RNC Chairmanship.

Let's not get excited (or depressed, if you are so inclined) here, folks. In political real-time, two years is an eternity. Take the two years between the Republican beat-down of 2004 and the Democratic tsunami of 2006 as an example (i.e., the fall-outs from Terry Schiavo, Scooter Libby, Hurricane Katrina, et al.).