I do think that if Republicans could ever manage to govern nationally mostly like the fantasy Northeastern Republican governor* - the Mitt Romney, Bill Welds of the imagination - they could hold onto power for a long time.
This isn't because I think, as we were told repeatedly when Obama won, that America is and will always be a "center right nation." It's because the deck is stacked in favor of Republicans in a few ways.
A couple of examples are that the money men and journalists (not unrelated!) love them and the unrepresentative Senate is horribly skewed in their favor.
The flip side of this is that Democrats do amazingly well, considering. I don't think its observed enough that it's a fucking miracle that the Democrats manage to keep as many seats as they do in the Senate.
"What if Republicans, but almost good?" is, of course, a journalist fantasy, not mine. I don't think they're capable for reasons that don't get enough attention (they aren't Massachusetts Mitts, their agenda isn't actually popular and never is once they try to implement it). But if they could...
*It's very funny that when we ran out of those guys, journalists gave Chris Christie - approval rating, 14% - an apartment in the green room.
