I wonder how hard it's going to be for the Republican Party to extricate itself from being put directly into these people's hands. Yes, they've been part of the overall conservative thing for a long time now, but this campaign has made these people the bread and butter of the whole party. How can any moderate or centrist person possibly allow themselves to be aligned with this? The Republican Party has 4 years of serious work to do to reverse this damage if they have any hope in 2012.
There's an interesting column by David Brooks (the conservative journalist) about that in a recent NYT. He basically mourns the loss of conservative intelligence in the mainstream party. They've pretty much sold their souls to the devil...
Because to idiots, an STD test means that you fear you have an STD. They don't consider the fact that he's a politician and sometimes a politician has to be a leader.