Has The Republican Party Surrendered?

GOP Maintains Solid Hold On Youth That Already Look Like Old Men...The Onion

My regular readers know that I've taken Republicans to task over the last six years (I'm an independent conservative).  For example, in 2013 I asked: Is the Republican Party A Mirage? I later followed that up with a piece entitled, "Republicans: A Spineless and Feckless Party of Chumps." And then earlier this year with this article, "Republicans: Still Tip-Toeing Through The Tulips."

In all of these articles, the same themes keeps coming to focus: 

• How did this political party lose two elections to an incumbent president who had one of the worst records in national political history?
• How does a political party fail to connect with a knockout punch against another political party that has a glass jaw?
• How did (does) a political party keep appearing spineless in the face of an administration that is so incompetent?
• How does it fail to take advantage of an opposition party that's embraced a warped political ideology like progressivism?  The evidence of progressive policy failures is now undeniable. Any casual political observer would come to this conclusion whether observing local municipal politics (e.g. Detroit, Chicago and now even New York City) to the long list of what I like to describe as "cluster f*cks" on the national (federal) level.
• With few exceptions like Ted Cruz, when was the last time the Republican Party addressed the issues of the still faltering economy, the unsustainable national debt, Obamacare and the repeated failures in foreign policy?

There's a belief among pundits that the Republicans are just too overconfident. They look at the polls and see Obama's numbers in free-fall. They see the same things many of us do as outlined above. And while that may be true, they're failing miserably in their messaging. 

In addition, while they keep bringing up their 2010 windfall, they should be reminded it was the actions of the Tea Party that enabled many Republicans during that election cycle. They also need to be reminded that it's conservative principles that win elections. We saw that with Ronald Reagan and more recently with Scott Walker. Until they improve their messaging and embrace conservative principles, they'll continue tripping over their own inaction and their own failure to lead.  

Postscript:

Yes, there's an election coming up soon but where's the leadership of the Republican Party been especially when it comes to issues like amnesty? Conspicuous by their absence.