Wick Allison believes that the GOP has "abandoned the most basic moral value of all: fairness":
We all know that eliminating the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy will not make much of a difference in the deficit ($42 billion a year, by most estimates). But anybody who preaches on that point will find himself talking to an empty auditorium. And if raising taxes on the rich is redistributionist socialism, someone should should have told Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan, whose rates on the rich were 91, 70, and 50 percent.
Millman is in the same ballpark:
The GOP could moderate its stance on social issues, or could switch its position on immigration, or what have you. And these things might help or might hurt – I can see arguments for both sides. But I suspect that, ultimately, those questions are window dressing. the GOP cannot become a governing party again if it doesn’t find an economic message that has some relation to the actual economic situation in the country.
The Dish 