Republicans are making a comeback! So declares Politico! Mark today on your calendar as the day that voters officially forgave the Republican Party for intentionally polarizing the electorate, presenting the same failed ideas as new ones, and for eight long years of hell.
Forget that polls show that fewer Americans than ever identify themselves as Republicans:
The state of the Republican Party remains grim. Just 22 percent of those surveyed identified themselves as Republicans, near April's decades-long low point. Thirty-six percent said they have a favorable impression of the GOP, and 56 percent said they have an unfavorable impression.
Forget that Americans, as angry as they are about bailouts, still trust President Obama more than Republicans on just about every issue:
Obama leads congressional Republicans by more than 20 points in public trust on dealing with health care, the deficit, terrorism and the economy.
Forget that Republicans have only made their uphill demographics battle even worse:
37 percent of the general population and 42 percent of Hispanics said they'd feel less favorably toward the Republican Party if Senate Republicans "overwhelmingly oppose" Sotomayor, 54, a Latina federal appellate judge from New York.
A much smaller number - 24 percent of the general population and 20 percent of Hispanics - said that organized GOP opposition would endear Republicans to them.
Forget that RNC Chairman Michael Steele already declared just last month that the GOP's downhill spiral was over, before the party's poll numbers fell further:
"The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done," Steele said. "We have turned the page, we have turned the corner. No more looking in the rearview mirror. From this point forward, we will focus all of our energies on winning the future."
And forget that Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Martin, authors of Politico's soon-to-be talking-head soundbite, can hardly take seriously the idea that the Republican Party is surging:
At first blush, this sounds absurd. After all, polls show the GOP more unpopular than ever, and the John Ensign sex scandal serves as a vivid, real-time reminder of why many see the party as a collection of hypocrites.
Does it really only take six months for a political party which has betrayed America time and time again - having authorized President Bush to wage endless war, voted to repress our civil liberties, defended big business in the war on American prosperity, and employed a scorched-earth strategy each and every day in Congress - to reinvigorate itself with an infusion of old faces and old ideas?
Anything can happen. Ronald Reagan won the presidency just one election cycle after Richard Nixon left the White House in shame, after all. But this just seems awfully premature. Mission Accomplished, anyone?
Cross-posted at The New Argument.