There was a story in the Politico yesterday that didn’t get much attention, but seeks to tell the GOP’s biggest problem this year.

Ten months before Election Day, Republicans are facing a threat that spells serious trouble for GOP candidates from the top of the ticket down to the most obscure races. The problem is the funk of the foot soldiers.

So far, the story of the 2008 campaign on the Republican side is what’s not happening.

Ambitious Republican politicians at the state and local levels are not deciding that this is the year to make a bid for higher office.

Republican contributors are not opening their wallets and writing campaign checks.

Most striking of all, Republican voters are not heading to the polls to vote in the GOP primaries in anything like participation rates of early years.

Some interesting numbers from this article

• 1.2 million Republicans voted in NH, Iowa and MI. primaries this year. 1.6 million voted in 2000
• Democrats received 127,000 donations of $200 or more in the first three quarters of 2007. The Republicans only got 84,000
• 22% of Democrats in Congress have Republican challengers as of Sept. 30. Compare that to 40% of Republicans having Democratic challengers

What does that mean? Well the article sums it up best:

More below the fold

Do the math: Republicans will have to defend more seats with less money and the threat of lower turnout.

Add to that the recent surge of Republican retirements and it spells disaster for the GOP this year.

While reading this, I got thinking of what could have caused this. One thing came to mind – the GOP’s constant lies to voters. They tell voters how they will “protect marriage”, “ban abortion” and decrease the size of government. The first two have failed constantly since the Republican take over in 1994. Worse yet to the GOP base is the fact that Republicans haven’t even put forth a good effort to make good on those campaign promises.

The final part of decreased government size has been totally nullified by the Bush administration. We have experienced record spending and growth in our government over the last seven years. Our surplus is gone and our economy is in the dumps. True I always wondered about someone who “hates government” running to work in the government. That pretty much describes the entire GOP.

The Republicans seem to have drained the banks of their political capital in 2004. They invested it all in George Bush. That was the last year of broken promises that the GOP would get excited for. Now they are bankrupt and their legacy of government control ends with George Bush. So my question to any Republican readers out there – was it worth it?