Doubtful.

More significant - can the US avoid the fate of the Soviet Union?

Pat is right about the Whig Party analogy, but generally wrong about why. It has nothing to do with Iraq/Iran policy or social issues. Pat lives in the Media/Washington bubble so his analysis is not perfect.

Deficit spending and the lack of courageous leaders with integrity is why the Repugs have such a bad image.

If you lose TWICE to 0bama then you do not have what it takes to lead in the 21st century.

#2 hit on what I´ve been thinking. Unsustainable spending on unattainable goals.

The founding papers of this party state their purposes.
One is the uplifting of the black race...or words to that effect.
Freeing same is mentioned, so that uplifitng can occur.
Well folks, thosse folks´ve been free since the 13th amendment was ratified.
Time to go.
This time , if we get a chance , it will be ourselves we free.

It is so easy. Takes only 17 states to boycott the Electoral College fiasco. No vote is then possible and the House elects the President. Wake up you idiots....

The Republican Party will never go out of existence...public financing and automatic ballot access will keep even a decayed carcass alive. The Whigs had neither of those to cement their continued existence. So, the change must come from within...which is doubtful because the current party has shown itself unfaithful to its Reaganist "triad" of small government, low taxes, and strong national security, since Bush41 moved his lips, and the younger, more minority national electorate unwilling to consider an alternative to Julia´s wonderful life. Caddell is absolutely right when he cites the Bush43 administration as a turn in the wrong direction for Republicanism. Imagine had Obama federalized local schools with "No Child", created TSA and DHS for our "security", or even just expanded Medicare. Where´d all that come from? And we almost got "real immigration reform." Nice man, wonderful family, and an awful president with whom his own policies of easy money caught up weeks before he was to leave office. So, now what? Another 60 years in the wilderness? Looks like it to me, certainly at the national level. Today´s Republican "brand" is the political "New Coke."

I am totally disgusted with the Pubbies! They have open primaries the oppositions subverts. We keep nominating the dumbest of the dumb candidates. Nope- I´m all for either dramatically changing the party or replacing it with a new, stronger, more determined party.

I love the way that ever since the election everyone´s talking about the GOP instead of what Bam´s going to do to us now.

That said, one the most important things for the GOP to do is to stop letting the elite talk radio Establishment push awful candidates like our Senate candidates in Missouri & Indiana (and Delaware & Nevada last time).

The Republican party broke even in the national elections and won more elections in 2010 and 2012 then the democrats.

It is the democrats that should be worried.

Republicans have made a lot of mistakes but the party´s extinction sounds more like wishful thinking. At the state and local level the party is doing well in many parts of the country.
Not to minimize Romney´s loss, but Reagan is the only Republican to defeat an incumbent Democrat in more than 100 years. And Obama´s re-election was one of the narrowest for a second term in US history.

Did anyone ask if the Democrat Party would go the way of the Whigs after GWB won two terms?

What´s more absurd is that the GOP dominates the states...we have 30 governorships and control of around 28-29 state legislatures. Why on earth would we go the way of the Whigs? Silly premise.

What would the numbers have been in an honest election??

This past one was as bad as those under Stalin.

" deeply discredited in the eyes of the rest of the country, and so the Democrats--the party tied to the South--lost nine of the 11 presidential elections from 1868 to 1908"

Pat fails to mention that most Southerners were not allowed to vote during the decade after the civil war. Anyone who supported the Confederacy (judged by whether they supported the Union) was not allowed to vote. They were also not allowed to run for office. That means only Republicans (e.g. Union army generals) were elected for a long time.

Good observation by #13, but therein lies the problem. A strong GOP would never sit still and let an election be stolen the way this one was.