WHAT AILS THE REPUBLICANS? WHERE DOES ONE START? WELL... WITH FRANK LUNTZ OF COURSE

Most of the consultants in DC are terminally brain dead. That would include all of the Inside-the-Beltway Democrats and many of the Republicans. But not all of the Republicans. That's because when Republican consultants give bad advise and make their candidates lose elections, they have to look for a different line of work. Democratic losers get more money and power... always. Frank Luntz is much smarter than any Inside the Beltway Democratic consultant (but so is my neighbor's dog Sergeant-- and this is a sweet but really dumb dog). A few weeks ago Luntz spoke to Rolling Stone about Al Gore and made a lot more sense than the Democrats who were interviewed.

GOP consultant Luntz, a lot sharper than Democratic consultants of his generation, points out that "Democratic voters in 2008 are not only looking to turn back the last eight years, but to erase the last eight years. If I were working for Gore, I'd message around a single word: Imagine. 'Imagine if I'd been president instead of George W. Bush. Imagine where we'd be today.'"

Unfortunately, Democratic Inside-the-Beltway consultants only talk about billable tv ad rates and which restaurants are best to dine at. Today's Washington Post features a column's worth of free advice to the GOP from the currently out-of-favor Luntz. (Boehner-head, who hates hearing anything that causes ripples, doesn't want any bad tasting medicine no matter how sick the patient and he's banned Luntz from GOP councils.) And it's more bad-tasting medicine.

Republicans in Congress cannot regain their majority merely by relying on a coalition of traditional conservatives and evangelicals. They must reach out to what I call "the fed-ups" -- a large and growing constituency of independent voters who have held the balance of power in every election since 1992, and will hold it again in 2008...

How incredible that the antidote to what ails the Republicans can be found in the words of a famous Democrat. In his tragic run for the presidency in 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy said, "Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?' " The magnificent poetry of that challenge -- to do more and to do better -- is at the core of who we are as a society, what we want for America and for ourselves. Here is the reason why the Republican Party has faded from relevance in the past two years.

Despite its many problems, the United States remains a nation of dreamers. The American psyche is genetically wired to see possibilities. Faith in the future is in our DNA. It's why we historically vote for the more positive, hopeful, upbeat candidates.

Yet my recent public opinion research has recorded unprecedented anxiety about the country's direction. Just 34 percent of the voting public believe that the America of tomorrow will be better than the America of today, while 57 percent think it will be worse.

This explains why so many people have lost patience with the current U.S. leadership. It is no wonder that 52 percent of voters in my election night survey said they were "mad as hell" about politics and politicians. Can you blame them? It doesn't matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, the outlook is grim: a war with no end in sight, rising costs of health care, borders that are poorly patrolled, schools that are failing, manufacturing that is disappearing, and a culture that is coarsening.

Boehner and his team don't want to hear from Luntz that for swing voters Republicans represent the politics of hypocrisy and failure. Their rubber stamp congressional caucuses have no message and no agenda-- other than to stay in power and to feast at the public trough. So nearly 40 of them went down to defeat, including two right-wing ex-superstars who were being talked up as presidential timber (before the election): Rick Santorum and George Macacawitz Allen. What Boehner and the congressional Republicans do want to hear is more of what Luntz says is making them gravely ill.

It is unfortunate that the Republican Party is currently dominated by hyperpartisan, gut-punching professional politicians and expert technicians whom I wouldn't want to face at the dark end of the electoral alley. They specialize in the flawless execution of "wedge" politics. That may have worked well in past elections, but no longer. The latest gimmick is "branding" -- a Madison Avenue technique -- to reverse the Republican slide. But political parties are not brands, slogans are not a replacement for ideas and you don't sell leaders the way you sell widgets.

Many rank-and-file Republicans agree. But the party apparatus still doesn't get it. Over the years, I have become unpopular with the GOP hierarchy by telling the apparatchiks what they needed to know, not what they wanted to hear. Nowadays my work is far from the day-to-day grind of political partisanship. But if I were still in the thick of it, my guidance would be just 20 words long: Be bold, return to basics, stop telling, start asking, focus on results, abolish "earmarks" and embrace a permanent balanced budget.

It's too late for the Republicans to take that advice and expect anyone to believe them. And there's a lot of wisdom in it-- or in some of it-- that will work for Democrats. In fact, it looks like Nancy Pelosi had already been hard at work on some of those 20 words, doesn't it? And what did Republicans do when Speaker Pelosi and "Democrats began pushing through their 'Six for '06' proposals in the first 100 hours? They called a news conference not to present counter-proposals to guide the minority over the next two years, but to complain that the Democrats were treating them unfairly. They objected that the committee process was being skirted and members were denied opportunities to offer amendments... They were upset over who was or was not allowed to offer amendments on the floor. (Note to Republicans: Americans don't care.)"

Luntz writes that his current polling-- always the best in the business-- "show that Democrats now hold a perceived advantage with voters not just on reducing deficits and balancing the budget but on an issue long seen as a GOP strength: ending wasteful spending." His solution for them is very proactive-- and against their nature. "Step one should be the abolition of earmarks for hometown and home-state projects. Nothing will undermine the lobbyist culture more than a clear and definitive statement that there will never again be a highway project like the Alaskan 'bridge to nowhere.' Step two is to once again stand for accountability, a principle abandoned in the last Congress."

Right now the Republican Party is thoroughly associated with corruption, venality and war, war and more war. A report in today's Times of London claims that American generals are threatening to resign if Bush goes along with Cheney's demands to attack Iran. Meanwhile the Bush Regime is once again trying to cover up their failure to capture or kill Osama bin-Laden by saying it isn't important. That doesn't resonate with the voters; not even a little. Many Americans, especially the one prone to authoritarianism-- Bush's base-- were willing to dociley give up their freedoms and privacy because they believed what Bush said about bin-Laden and they were sucked in by his dead or alive bravado. Now they're hearing "I don't know that it's all that important, frankly." Uh... no. Someone is going to start repeating-- and people will start paying attention to-- what Benjamin Franklin famously said at the tumultuous birth of our nation: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." That could be engraved on the tombstone of the GOP for quite a few election cycles.