> I smell blood. And a republican president in 2016.
The Republicans haven't shown any sign of fixing the structural problems in their party that prevented them from offering an electable candidate in 2012. If they don't do that first, they won't do any better in 2016.
As John Huntsman noted in one of the early GOP debates: "Listen, when you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution, all I'm saying is that, in order for the Republican Party to win, we can't run from science". Unfortunately for the GOP, their nomination process almost guarantees that people like Huntsman, who believe that running from science is the wrong approach, are out early.
The Republicans need to get the Tea Party to split off and form a third party, and then run moderate Republicans. They would then be able to run candidates who don't want to fuck the environment, massively cut science budgets, ignore climate change, put all our energy eggs in the oil basket, cut aid to the poor, and so on. This would give them candidates that align better with the majority (and more important with the directions the majority is trending). They could more than make up for the loss of the Tea Party people, I think, by getting independents and picking up some moderate Democrats.