Is it over for the Republican Party?

Our friends Hugh Hewitt and Bill Bennett are on a sort of Three Tenors tour playing to big houses and talking about Obama’s first 100 days. They are speaking at the Minneapolis Convention Center tonight together with Dennis Prager. If Bill makes it to bed on time tonight, I’ll be joining him tomorrow morning in the studio at the top of the hour around 8:00 am (Eastern), 7:00 am (Central) to talk at least a bit about the future of the Republican Party.

It wasn’t long ago that liberal commentators such as Thomas Edsall and Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger foresaw a bright future for the Republican Party. So did conservative commentators such as Fred Barnes and Jim Geraghty.

I took issue with Barnes in my 2003 post “What is realignment?” and with Geraghty in my 2006 National Review piece “Still a majority?” I hope to get a chance to take these pieces up with Bill and Seth Liebsohn tomorrow morning.

Now that the wise men of Time and many others are writing the obituary for the Republican Party, the conventional wisdom is rapidly shifting in the other direction. They may be right this time, but I would like to provide grounds for keeping an open mind on the question.

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