Barry Eisler, Heart of the Matter, writes on the travails of the GOP over the past 6 years.  This is a must read post.

It begins with this question: 

 Pause here for a moment if you're a Republican. Ask yourself how you would feel if a Democratic president and congress had executed the Iraq war as Bush and the Republican congress have. What would be your take on a Democratic president if, six years following his inauguration, Kim Jung Il tested his first atomic bomb? And if that president had accomplished nothing in those six years to slow Iran's march toward possessing nuclear weapons? Would you give him a pass -- especially if he himself had named these three countries as the greatest threats to America's security?

and ends with this statement:

 I'm a conservative. And I'll be voting a straight Democratic ticket on November 7. A Democratic victory in one, and hopefully both, houses of congress is the only way I can see of shocking the Republicans back to ideology, principle, and competence. If you care about the party, and about the country, this time you'll vote Democratic.

This election may well do that, or certainly begin the process.