The GOP in political turmoil?

When I think about what dilemma that the republican party is facing I couldn't help but think of the Whigs. (I just finished the reading about an hour ago). One quote that came directly to my head from Aldrich stated, "A party can be or become a majority only as long as it attracts a large number of strong and effective candidates and officeholders." Yes I realize that is pretty obvious. In order for a party to be successful they need to have candidates that are well liked in the public eye. The problem though that has come as of late is that as far as presidential candidates, it didn't seem like there was too much of a united front from the party. Reading that article in the New York Times wasn't alarming at all to me because if you watch television and you watch one of the 163920 news outlets you'll know that there has been some issues in the republican party. Was it George W. Bush that caused this? Was it too many other people in the party with their own agenda? Was it just that Barack Obama was too much of a giant that instead of him being a thorn in the GOP's side, he was actually a stake in their heart?

After Clinton's term ended the nation wasn't in very bad shape. We weren't putting a stimulus package together, Wall Street wasn't down however many thousand points they were down, and people weren't losing their houses left and right. Does that have a bit to do with the way this last election unfolded? You can bet on that. Republicans were like a deer in the headlights after election night in November. They had just suffered a loss unlike any other. Regrouping is obviously a good idea, but they have to do more than that. One of the reasons Barack Obama did so well is because he was fresh blood. People look at his experience and say he didn't have enough, but it was different because yes he was younger, and yes he was a minority, but he was accessible. He was vocal, and he allowed people to come at him with interviews and other things like per say, being in "People" Magazine. I don't care what you say, if the president is in the Star Tracks part in the beginning, it won't hurt his campaign unless he's holding a joint or something along those lines.

He plays basketball, he does NCAA pools on espn, he's a family man. Yes he is, but he's also been the opposite of what many republicans are. A lot of republicans (yes so are many democrats) are old, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I voted republican for crying out loud. I just think that in order for the republican party to remain a vital part of the two party system they have to open the doors a little bit, have a bit of reform. Reform in some of their policies and stances. When I said republicans are old I think that because of their age some of the views they have on certain issues hurt their campaigns. If democrats were in the republicans position I'd pry say the same thing, but they aren't. The GOP could use some younger candidates and make them more accessible to the public, kind of passing the torch to the younger part of the conservative party. Younger might not always be better, but in this case it can't hurt because in order for them to remain relevant they have issues to fix for future elections. Barack Obama got the minority vote. Republicans talk about wanting to get the minority vote. Minorities are a very important vote in America these days. It's been well known that 25 years from now or so Hispanic and African American populations will rise two fold. I used to look at past elections and you could see that it was a sort of cycle almost that republicans would be in office, then democrats would over take it, and then right back to republicans. It's a little more difficult to see that way though knowing that the demographics over the next twenty five years will change drastically. If the GOP wants to remain a relevant party in American society, they have to come up with new ways to try to win over some of the minority population.