Republicans in a funk

Polls indicate that Republican voters are feeling hopeless and depressed by the course of the nation. Mired by relentless barrage of painful publicity of plunging gasoline prices, record stock market levels, reduced tax rates and surging tax revenues, and the Bush administration's failure to produce inflation despite the lowest unemployment rate in more than fiave years, Republicans believe that it could not get any worse. Meanwhile, Democrats ride a wave of public adoration due to the party's clear, positive vision for protecting the civil rights of foreign terrorists, retreating from Iraq so that the rival Muslim sects can work out their differences without American interference, and a return to the Clinton-era "spirit of cooperation" with North Korea.