How It Feels To Lose, GOP-Style.

I enjoy reading about politricks. It's almost like some strange form of Intellectual pRon™ for me. And one thing I've really enjoyed reading this past week is election post-mortems from the GOP braintrust.

After getting your clock cleaned epically for the 2nd time in 2 elections, you'd think these guys would be seriously re-examining their overall tone and policies, and trying to figure out how to retool reserve their fortunes in rapidly changing America. But nah, not the GOP. Instead of doing some serious soul searching, they're poking in all the wrong directions looking for blame. If I were to explore my Super Bowl gambling options, I'd wager that these folks emerge from their ongoing "exit polls and focus groups" none the wiser.

Nobody's broken down the party's complete and utter lack of post-drubbing self-awareness better than the Washington Post's Dana Milbank.

And now begins the quadrennial exercise of coming to terms with the loss of a presidency.

Denial. “I think this is premature,” Karl Rove protested on Fox News election night, after the cable network, along with other news outlets, correctly projected that President Obama had won Ohio — and therefore the presidency. “We’ve got to be careful about calling things.”

The weather. “Hurricane Sandy saved Barack Obama’s presidency,” Haley Barbour, the Mississippi governor and former Republican Party chairman, informed NBC’s Matt Lauer.

The governor of New Jersey. “A lot of people feel like Christie hurt, that we definitely lost four or five points between the storm and Chris Christie giving Obama a chance to be bigger than life,” one of Romney’s biggest fundraisers told The Post’s Philip Rucker.

Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana. “Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock and Chris Christie undermined the Republican message,” a Romney adviser told National Review.

The Republican Party’s moderation. “We need a third party to save this country,” Herman Cain said in a radio appearance.

Failing to talk about foreign policy and Obamacare. “Those are major issues and Romney rarely mentioned them in the final days,” a Romney adviser said to National Review.

Failing to talk about abortion. “Mitt Romney … never highlighted this vulnerability,” complained Marjorie Dannenfelser of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List.

Milbank's excellent piece goes through the littany of excuses, none of which seem to mention the party's continual insults, slights, marginalization, and alienation of blacks, hispanics, women, and young voters.

You can't insult people to the core, then magically expect them to vote for you.

That dog don't hunt.

Question: Will the GOP figure this out, or are they on the fast track to becoming a regional minority party at best?