By GAIL COLLINS
Published: March 6, 2009
... he fact that the Republicans, who just picked Steele last month, are having this debate underlines the fact that this is a party with more woes than Job. The still-undecided Minnesota Senate race is almost certainly going to go to the Democrat, Al Franken, although the Republicans are trying to postpone that dreaded day as long as possible. Some are calling for a new election, which requires them to say, with a straight face, that you can’t let something as important as a Senate seat be decided by just a few hundred ballots ...
This will certainly require all the moral suasion available to the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, a man with the natural charisma of an oyster. He’s currently trapped in a feud with Jim Bunning, one of the 41 and a fellow Kentuckian. Bunning, a man with all the natural charisma of an arthritic pit bull, has grown increasingly eccentric even by Senate standards, and McConnell would like him to retire at the end of his term before he does something really strange. Stranger than announcing that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will die within nine months, which Bunning has already done ...
Actually what Steele said was: “I’m always open to everything, baby, absolutely.” This came shortly after his vow to The Washington Times that the party would stand for conservative principles applied “to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.” It suggests that one of Steele’s most profound problems is a conviction that the Republican Party can become cool.
The Republican Party is not going to be cool. The Democratic Party is barely cool, and it has Barack Obama. The Republicans have Rush Limbaugh, a man whose popularity among Americans under the age of 60 is lower than a share of Citigroup stock ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/opinion/07collins.html?_r=1
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