Good news for the Republican party.  Bunning was in deep trouble in all of his matchups.  As an incumbent polling in the 30s and 40s, Bunning probably the most vulnerable Senate incumbent this cycle.  The remaining GOP'ers don't poll much better, but they are not not incumbents.  In a state that went for John McCain by seventeen points, Republicans should be in a strong position to hold the seat.  Nonetheless, this is not a done deal, as Democrats have strong nominees in Attorney General Jack Conway and Lieutenant Governor Dan Mongiardo.

Quite a bit of discussion has been going about the fate of the Republican party, and whether it has been consigned to regional party status. Jim Geraghty has a pretty good summary of "yea" votes, and makes a good case for "nay."

Maybe I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but I remember back in the ancient bygone year of aught-four, when people were bemoaning the Democrats' transformation into a  party that could only compete on the West coast and in New England, effectively ceding the rest of the country to the Republicans.  This was, as I recall, the whole impetus behind Howard Dean's "50-state strategy," and why many Democrats were looking toward a Mark Warner or Evan Bayh candidacy before the roof caved in on Republicans.

When things go really badly for a party -- and it happens to all parties -- that party tends to be reduced to its base.   Democrats' share of the 2-party vote actually improved in New England in 1994, while they were getting slaughtered elsewhere (along these lines, I can also recall a magazine cover from 1995 or so, with the cover "Is The Party Over?" with cartoon donkeys on the front.  Sound familiar?).  After 1946, Democrats were largely reduced back to their base in the South and in Northern cities.  After 1964 and 1974, Republicans were left with some of their "main street" small town districts, and not much else.  In other words, what is going isn't without precedent, and the other party almost always bounces back (in fact, always has bounced back, at least since the 1850s).

Let's also not forget that the South is not such a terrible base for the GOP to have.  There are 131 Southern districts, not including pseudo-Southern states like Kentucky, Oklahoma and Missouri.  This is 30% of the seats in the country, and only 70-odd seats shy of a majority.  It is six times as many seats as are located in New England, half again as many times the number of seats in New England plus NY, PA, NJ and DE, and close to the 149 seats in those areas plus California, Oregon, and Washington.  Quite frankly, the tradeoff for most of the South was worth sacrificing New England, from a partisan perspective.

There are ominous signs for the Republicans, of course.  The party presently shows little interest in nominating candidates who can compete in moderate regions of the country, while the Democrats have no such problem.  The youth vote is trending away, and the electorate -- even in the South -- isn't getting whiter.  But to assume that the party won't adapt at some point in the next decade -- or that young voters and Hispanics will continue inevitably to vote Democratic at their current rate -- is a pretty big assumption to make, and may look as foolish in hindsight as the assumption that if the Democrats kept nominating liberals, they couldn't win outside of the Northeast and Pacific coast.

"Our country needs a strong, diverse Republican Party," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said yesterday at a press conference touting the Democrats' legislative achievements in the first 100 days of the Obama administration.

Speaker Pelosi may really mean it -- up to a point. But she's clearly relishing the increased dominance of her majority to impose its will on the country. The Democrats' willingness to utilize reconciliation to push through future big ticket items on the agenda -- like health care -- demonstrates that the Speaker and her party aren't interested in opening any doors to let the Republicans in out of the legislative wilderness.

At the same time, Ms. Pelosi recognizes that, as a purely tactical matter, Democrats want and need a viable opposition party to use as a political foil. With Mr. Specter's defection, Democrats now have something approaching complete control of government and will own the consequences of whatever legislation they pass.

A Republican Party that has flat-lined offers few opportunities for Ms. Pelosi to shift the blame. She sincerely wants a GOP that is ambulatory (if heavily medicated) that she can cast as obstructionists and villains in the unfolding drama of President Obama and the Democratic Party seeking to deliver the "change" agenda the America supposedly voted for last fall.

Rick Newman and Maryann Keller look at Chrysler and come to the same conclusion: the company is screwed - and Chapter 11 won't save it.

"I would put it this way: They're doing a very poor imitation of a national party. That's how I would put it. In two elections, they have proven to be essentially a regional party with isolated geographic support in three places: The south, rural Midwestern states, and part of the Rocky Mountain states." - UVA Prof Larry Sabato discussing the Republican party.

Russ Smith interviews Tom Schaller.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), first elected in 2000, is fresh off two close races in his moderate district north of Chicago, which has voted for Al Gore, John Kerry and Barack Obama in the last three presidential elections. He's reportedly "poised" to run for Senate, and a new PPP poll indicates he's in good position at the starting gate.

According to the survey (April 24-26, 991 RV, MoE +/- 3.1%), Kirk, who's still not well-known statewide, runs even with Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias and leads both Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Sen. Roland Burris. He trails Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, though many expect her to run for governor.

Kirk 53 - Burris 19 - Und 28

Kirk 37 - Schakowsky 33 - Und 30

Kirk 35 - Giannoulias 35 - Und 29

Kirk 33 - Madigan 49 - Und 18

Should Kirk choose to run for re-election, he'll have a Democratic challenger awaiting him. State Sen. Michael Bond announced yesterday his intentions to run for the 10th District seat.

More Americans clinging to their guns, say new data from Pew.

National Journal interviews Utah Governor John Huntsman, which includes this bit on the GOP and civil unions:

NJ: Would you consider yourself more moderate than other Republicans when it comes to social issues?

Huntsman: I don't do well with tags. I'm a traditional Republican. People hired me to balance budgets, to make the economy work and to find fixes for health care and energy and transportation, and that's what I spend every waking hour doing. They didn't hire me to be a moralizer.

NJ: Why have you chosen to speak out in favor of civil unions?

Huntsman: Well, I didn't speak out on them, I was asked. And that's typically how journalism works. You're asked a question, you answer it and then it becomes a story. I have long been in favor of fairness and equality as long as I've been in office, and as long as I am in office that's exactly what I'll stand for.

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to gay marriage. I believe [marriage] should be between a man and a woman. I believe marriage ceremonies are sacred and they draw strongly on all sorts of traditions. But subordinate to that, we've not done a very good job in providing others who are in nontraditional relationships equal treatment. And I think there's probably room for improvement there.

NJ: There has been movement in states around the country toward gay marriage, and McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt recently called for the party to support such marriages. What's your reaction to Schmidt's comments?

Huntsman: We have a real need to broaden our base as a party. When you look at the demographics of the Republican Party, we've lost a good many voters and a good many voters have gone independent. And you have to ask yourself a question: Why is the independent "party" larger than either the Republican or Democratic Party?...

The Republican Party is going to have to make some strides to win independents back into the fold, and that's not going to be an easy thing to do. But if we do something about showing a sense of fairness and equality toward all citizens, that might be a good first step.