Markos Moulitsas

For decades, the National Rifle Association and its allies in the gun lobby have held sway in electoral politics, using clout and campaign cash to keep a tight rein on candidates. It’s been a one-sided affair, and gun proponents ruled the roost.

Conservatives are masters of manufactured outrage, no doubt about it. But traditionally, their conspiracy theories have at least had some sort of internal logic to them — from Vince Foster’s supposed murder at the hand of the Clintons to Barack Obama’s supposedly forged birth certificate. 

“The GOP today is a tale of two parties,” reads the Republican National Committee’s 2012 autopsy report — a document that is proving to be the gift that keeps on giving to this column. “One of them, the gubernatorial wing, is growing and successful. The other, the federal wing, is increasingly marginalizing itself, and unless changes are made, it will be increasingly difficult for Republicans to win another presidential election in the near future.”

In 2012, for the first time ever, the percentage of the nation’s African-Americans who voted outpaced the percentage of whites who voted.

As if Republicans don’t have enough structural problems, from their unpopular ideology to shrinking demographic base, their unyielding allegiance to the gun lobby — and its unreasonable opposition to universal background checks — delivers an unexpected Democratic advantage in 2014.

The Republican Party’s efforts to rebrand continue to run up against that biggest of stumbling blocks: the Republican Party’s actual beliefs. 

In 1964, having signed the Civil Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson supposedly turned to an aide and said, “We have lost the South for a generation

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the Republican National Committee argued for “rebranding” itself to better appeal to communities of color and younger voters.

Just 10 years ago I was at the forefront of a Democratic Party civil war

The main stage backdrop at last week’s Conservative Political Action Conference couldn’t have been more fitting. It featured Ronald Reagan, born in 1911; William Buckley, born in 1925; Jesse Helms, born in 1921; and Barry Goldwater, born in 1909 — an ideal assortment for a movement hell-bent on living in the past.