Go read Patrick Hynes’ recent essay, charging conservatives are acting like a self-important identity group, and not a political movement. (And remind yourself that while Hynes works for John McCain’s campaign, this is the New Hampshire consultant/blogger’s thoughts, not those of the Arizona Senator.)

First things first: Is the country turning left? Well, sure it has, since 2005.

A huge part of that is A) a sense of no progress in Iraq B) botched reaction to Katrina and general sense of government-wide incompetence and  C) scandals.

The Republican, and for that matter conservative “brand” have been shot to hell.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. Blame George W. Bush for his poor management skills. Blame Dick Cheney for concluding he didn’t need to engage his critics or the press at any point during his two terms. Blame Bush for not visiting New Orleans immediately, for not swatting down the urban legends surrounding Hurricane Katrina. Blame Bush for following that horrific failure to see what the rest of the country was seeing with the decision to nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Blame everyone around Bush for not having the guts to say, “Mr. President, Harriet is a wonderful person and a fine lawyer, but she doesn’t belong on the highest court in the land.” Blame those in the Congressional GOP who didn’t see the potential fallout of intervening in the Terry Schiavo case.

Blame Mark Foley. And Bob Ney. And Don Sherwood. And John Sweeney. And Curt Weldon. And Tom DeLay. Blame Conrad Burns for snuggling with Jack Abramoff. Blame George Allen for not paying attention to demographic changes in his home state, and not seeing how “macaca” would play in the northern Virginia suburbs. Blame an Ohio state GOP for stepping deep into a smelly pit of scandal, and blame state parties in Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for corroding and falling apart.

But there’s another reason that the country is feeling more pro-liberal than it has in the recent past – most Americans remember few, if any, of the downsides of Democratic rule. The two most recent eras of all-Democratic rule were 1976-1980 and 1993-1994. After Jimmy Carter’s gas lines, malaise, Iran hostage crisis and the Russians marching into Afghanistan, they gave Reagan 44 states. After the latter – tax hikes, the health care debacle, Jocelyn Elders urging the teaching of masturbation in schools, the World Series being canceled, the invasion of Haiti – the country recoiled and elected Republicans in droves.

In the modern era, all-Democratic control of government tends to result in disaster, with the country waking up, asking, “what the hell is this? We didn’t vote for this!” and voting for Republicans ASAP. But those are twenty-seven and thirteen years ago, respectively. The Republican errors are fresh, visible, in the headlines every day.

So 2010 and 2012 will look great for the GOP if Democrats win the White House next year. But in the meantime, how do you fix this? You either rack up more successes, or you spotlight the other guy’s failures. In the former category, if I’m a Republican congressional leader, I’m looking over lists of ideas like the “9 With 90” and Ruffini’s list and measuring support among the Blue Dog Democrats. Then I get those Democrats to get those bills through the committee, and file discharge petition after discharge petition (if you have 218 signatures, the Speaker has to bring a vote to the floor) and I make the Democrats vote against a popular idea time and time again. We’ve got to spotlight our governors, demonstrate successful reforms in the states, these little laboratories of democracy. You rebuild the Republican and Conservative brands by demonstrating successful ideas and policies independent of President Bush, who will, by very early next year, no longer be the face of the party.

Is the problem, as Hynes writes, “we have reverted back to type: A Republican Party and a conservative movement that really doesn’t give a s*** about ordinary people”?

I don’t think that’s quite the problem, but he’s in the neighborhood. One of the phenomenon I’m finding seriously troubling is the recent consolidation of Democratic support among just about every minority group. I know it will be a long time before Republicans run well among blacks. I don’t expect a GOP candidate to win over a majority of Latinos, other than Cuban-Americans. But is there any reason that Asian-Americans should be overwhelmingly Democratic? Indian-Americans? (Maybe future Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will shift that.) Immigrant Africans? Eastern Europeans? Can this party appeal to anybody besides white, Christian, married couples?

I’m suspecting the Tom Tancredo wing of the party. A giant chunk of the electorate doesn’t want to be within ten miles of a party that gives off a whiff of racism, and everything from Trent Lott’s praise of Strom Thurmond to “Macaca” to “nuke Mecca” to “Havana is the same as Miami” to efforts to ban legal immigration to outrage over Spanish-language books out of the Denver Public Library …. there are too many Republican lawmakers who are way too reckless in their rhetoric when it comes to issues dealing with ethnic minorities. And those who disagree with them aren’t always helping. When Lindsey Graham eagerly tells the New York Times about the “racism” in the immigration debate, he’s not helping anyone but himself and the New York Times. Insult a man or woman and they’ll never vote for your party again.

UPDATE: Patrick Ruffini and I are on similar pages…

 The time to do a deal on immigration that defused these tensions was three years ago, not now. The Administration went way out on a limb for extreme regularization, hoping to lead the party there, when they should have gone for achievable objectives that also gave serious conservatives like Duncan Hunter what they really wanted (basic enforcement). Instead, we now have the Tancredoites baying for mass deportation and buying into groups that are not only anti-illegal immigration, but anti-population and anti-growth, funded by radical environmentalists like John Tanton. And we have exposed an entire generation of Latino voters to this message, erasing whatever hard-earned gains we might have achieved. There was an enforcement-first road that could have worked, but it was not taken.

Ours is a changing society. 25% of the population over 40 is a member of a minority group. That number for those under-40 is 40%. 46% of the children born in the U.S. last year were non-white…

So what is conservatism’s message for a multiracial nation? It seems to me there is a greater opportunity for a positive message of assimilation. The old identity politics are breaking down before our eyes. The inner cities that Mike Gerson built a worldview around are literally disappearing. African Americans are moving to the suburbs, and becoming middle class. Hispanics have shown that they behave more like swing voters if you treat them as such. (We bounced back nicely from our post-187 21% showing in ‘96.) Minorities are becoming more independent, and interwoven into the fabric of American society. That should create new opportunities for Republicans, if we remain the party that represents the hope of upward mobility.

He also offers policy proposal ideas for the environment/global warming and health care. Buena Suerte, Patrick (look, I just made a Tancredoite burst a vein in his forehead). I think the most depressing things about the reaction to the “9 with 90″ list was A) the number of Republicans who not only believe that global warming is a hoax (I don’t want to rehash that debate here) but who believe that their candidates will be just fine by not addressing this issue. A Republican candidate at any level should have a plan to improve air quality, to establish their bona fides as somebody who loves the environment, because the moment you’re painted as pro-polluter, you have an uphill battle.

And B) the relative lack of reaction to my (admittedly vague) health care plank. I know this is a comparably boring and wonky issue, but it’s one the Democrats will use to beat Republicans’ heads in if they don’t have their own plans, solutions and ideas. It affects just about everybody and just about everybody has encountered a complicated, frustrating bureaucracy in the course of getting their health care.