The columns are all over the place, and all the analyses seem to be the same.

The Republican Party is supposedly deader than a doornail. Except in a handful of states in mid-America and in the South, Americans, according to these columnists, see Republicans as irrelevant, out-of-touch, mean-spirited dinosaurs.

And, they continue, among those groups that will demographically define the America of tomorrow -- the under-30 crowd and non-white America -- Republicans are toast.

These many columns inevitably lead to the conclusion that Republicans have no choice but to lighten up on the conservative agenda and buy into a new America of big government and gay marriage.

But, may I remind folks, that we just had a presidential election in which 130 million voters cast ballots and the difference between the winner and the loser was 9 million votes. Not exactly what I would call an insurmountable divide.

Nor should we forget that there was that window following the Republican convention when the McCain-Palin ticket was leading.

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows 42 percent self-identifying as Democrats compared to 31 percent as Republicans. But the same poll shows 35 percent identifying as conservatives compared to 24 percent as liberals.

According to Dick Polman of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic Party shows what's wrong with Republicans -- they can't tolerate moderates -- and not what is wrong with Specter.

But there is little doubt that Specter changed parties because polls were showing him getting his clock cleaned in the Republican primary by conservative Pat Toomey.

More revealing about Specter is that, in light of this, he didn't simply choose to retire.

Here is a 79 year old man, elected five times to the US Senate as a Republican, who concluded that it is so important that he continue -- that he have a sixth term, serving well into his eighties -- that he totally shafts the party that supported his national candidacy for almost 30 years. Continued...