^^^
let's face it you have to go pretty far back to find a time when the republicans weren't awful. then again the way i see it, it seems like since the nixon years up until recently both parties have actively tried to live down to their respective stereotypes.. except the republicans are so totally removed from reality *now* that the average white/jewish democrat can't really live down to the tea party fantasy of evil marxists or whatever. they're just stuff white people like.
I'm honestly not sure how any non-Republican can find a period after 1876 in which the Republicans would honestly be worth supporting or weren't completely awful. It puzzles me to see people in this thread say that Reagan was were the GOP lost it's mind, but before that they were okay. Or worse, that Pat Buchanan was the last straw. The GOP has always (at least since 1876 when they finally exiled the Abolitionists) been a coalition of robber barons (see: the entire Gilded Age/Progressive Era/New Deal period/since then), xenophobes and racists (Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion!), Christian fundamentalists (though of the respectable(TM) Northern anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic variety), militarist hard-ons (We must attack Spain! We must get involved in World War I! But not WWII...come on Hitler isn't as bad as Rosenfeld! We must beat the commies in Korea! We must bomb Vietnam into the stone age! We must invade Iraq for no reason! We must bomb Russia! etc), and all around awful, terrible elements in American society that are all about making money and getting people killed in the name of making money.
As you well know I'm one of the first people to bring up the moral hypocrisy of the Republican Party at like practically every chance I get. I for one, given my demographic background and ideological preferences, certainly would have no reason to even consider voting Republican after Grant.
However, in terms of objective presidential (which I'm assuming the question was about) electability, not necessarily that they were right in the head. Reagan was one of the worst things to happen to the nation, no doubt. However, he and the GOPhers who preceded him seemed to have a legit strategy in somehow having enough wide appeal to give the GOP a natural advantage at getting elected. Sure, the GOP had hard times during Hoover too, but they somehow corrected that shark jump. I came into this thread assuming, again, the question was about them jumping the shark in terms of appeal to voters in the modern age (mostly based off the poll choices) and in presidential elections. They managed to build a successful coalition post Goldwater, so I don't consider that a shark jump. Watergate was woefully short lived in it's effects. And again Reagan/Bush was probably the GOP's most successful marketing campaign since Teddy Roosevelt (who has continued to this day to convince millions that he was a left wing hero and not the pawn of crony capitalism that he really was).
But yes, if you mean morally or in view of "what's right" they definitely lost it a long time ago.
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