You're Advising the Republicans....

[pbrower2a]

I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts into a clear message, so bear with me:

1. Check out the racists up in Massachusetts.

Democratic support for John Kerry maxed out in a couple of counties in Massachusetts in 2004.

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I look at the map and I see the culture of the Ozarks and Appalachians. Little of that area voted for Kerry in 2004, anyway. It's not sympathetic to the exotic, and it is better described as conservative than as racist. People there know what a black person is, but they just couldn't figure out Obama. Obama did little campaigning there because such was inefficient.

In 2012 Obama has a record upon which to run -- or if you are a GOP optimist, to run from.

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Of course not. Neither John McCain nor Sarah Palin is racist; look at the family photos, and note the absence of rhetorical bigotry on race.

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Not mine. But most Republican politicians have little to offer to most blacks -- whether in urban America irrespective of income -- or in the rural South, where political life polarizes along ethnic lines into the worst sort of machine politics: Chicago corruption without the efficiency.  The GOP loses blacks whether they are the suburban middle class (where the GOP did unusually badly with all ethnic groups, so it wasn't only race) because they misunderstand Suburbia -- and they don't reach poor blacks in the South as they reach poor whites.

The only "growth" constituency for the GOP in 2008 was poor whites, a capricious bloc of voters. If I were a GOP leader I would be concerned.   

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Favorite son daughter effect, as in Arizona, and it would be excused.

[pbrower2a]

Shortly after the elections, I would have advised them to change a lot of things.  But looking over this thread, it's increasingly clear that the Democrat Party will self-destruct from their own cockiness and self-righteousness, allowing the Republicans to emerge from the embers.  The more things change ...

Cockiness and self-righteousness among the mass support do not lose elections for the party. A reputation for unresponsiveness, corruption, and incompetence among elected leaders and their staffs does. The GOP had the Dubya era to live down  -- and still does.

[pbrower2a]

In any case, I'm not sure how you can cling dearly to that one thing considering that hispanics and asians, the two largest growing minority groups, are trending against you, young people are trending against you (and have been for a long time), certain key swing areas & states are trending against you (and have been for a long time), Obama's approvals have remained in roughly the same area so far, a record low number of people identify as Republicans, voters have been ditching the Republican party steadily in critical states, people strongly disapprove of congressional Republicans, and people deeply distrust Republican competence on the economy and favor the Democrats by wide margins.

Yes, people distrust the GOP, but after 2-4 years of democrats controlling the two elected branches of government, voters may start returning to the GOP. Republicans seem to be slowly changing their positions on foreign policy, as well as returning to their fiscal constraint, economically conservative roots. I wouldn't be surprised if the GOP made significant gains in the house, and maybe even some in the senate, simply because party leaders realize they have to be more inclusive. So youth, asians, and hispanics are trending Democrat for now, but this could quickly change given the right circumstances.

It will take time for the GOP to re-establish the brand, which means that GOP candidates will need to establish themselves as fiscal conservatives with genuine solutions to problems that the Democrats (including Obama) either don't address or can't address. 
I have to disagree with you on these demographic trends. Yes, those groups trended more democratic than the nation as a whole, but most of the nation trended democratic anyway. I suspect that if Republicans tone down the social conservatism, and rid their party of neo-cons, they could win the youth vote. As for hispanics, I think they really would've voted like white voters if it weren't for the housing crisis and harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric coming from some GOP candidates.

I don't see current young voters becoming pro-business conservatives until they see major reforms of our economic system. They have seen American capitalism at its worst in decades and they have seen only that. Not until they start finding success as owner-operators of small businesses will they have any cause to vote Republican -- such as the low-tax, low-service agenda that one associates with conservatives. I remain convinced that the formation of small businesses is the long-term solution to economic decline (and we have been in economic decline since about 2000)..