Republicans Convinced they'll Win Big, a Landslide for Romney, without ever offering a Plan.

There’s no self-criticism on the Republican side of the aisle. That’s been my biggest complaint about conservative voters for the last 3 years.

With no reflection on where things might have gone wrong, Republicans will only get more radicalized as time marches on. My conservative friend in Milwaukee called the other day cranked up from a political fundraiser, blathering on about winning by a huge margin, and taking the country back. I asked him what he thought would happen under Romney...he had nothing. The election is just another prize, another victory in the win column, and it won't matter one bit if his life is made more difficult now or in the future. A win justifies the party ideology, and they will never fail because there's always someone else to blame.   

Peter St. Onge: You probably read this week about that backyard display in Plaza Midwood. It was a stuffed body with the president’s photo attached to the head, a noose wrapped around the neck. It was visible to the public, including neighborhood children … there also was an Obama effigy in California this week, another in Indiana and Utah. And it wasn’t long ago that we saw bumper stickers in Charlotte and other cities that read: “Don’t Re-Nig in 2012.” Isolated cases, you say? Last week, 39 percent of respondents to an Associated Press survey said the president was born in another country.

It’s proud ignorance and joyful ugliness, and all of it has been embraced and feared – but rarely criticized – by Republican leaders.

How, some wonder, can voters choose a president … with no new ideas about how to change either? For some, it’s because the alternative means voting with the birthers and the racists. It means being on the same team as the debate crowd that booed a gay soldier, or the crowd that cheered the idea of letting a sick man with no health insurance die.

But we have yet to see Romney hanging from a noose.

Maybe the best thing that can happen for them – for all of us – is for extremism to lose, and for hate not to be – as it never should – a winning strategy.