(in the Marlon Brando sense) that the Republicans bow and scrape to.

When I went to the US in the late 90s, I was listening to radio news, and they had a piece in which they said, on the topic they were discussing, "talk show host Rush Limbaugh said ...", and then they cut to a fool mouthing off, rather incoherently, about whatever it was. So I assumed this was a caller to his program, and I waited to see what this Limbaugh guy, whom I'd never heard of, would say to expand on this, that made it worth reporting his views on a news program.

But there was nothing. That 'caller' was Limbaugh, though he sounded as if he was just an angry man phoning in the first thing that came into his head in a coffee break. Limbaugh was Joe The Plumber, just several years earlier - a certain type of man recognises themselves in him, and thinks he speaks for them. But they're both just windbags, with the confidence to carry on shouting whatever they want to. The Republicans have mistaken that confidence for 'leadership'.

And now the Republicans have crowned him the irreproachable leader of their party. It really does look like the end of that party. The official chairman actually grovels, and talks about his 'leadership'. If the Republicans hadn't been such arseholes in the preceding years, it'd be worrying. But you can't help feeling they deserve this humiliation.

I wonder where the replacement for the party will come from. There's no doubt there will still be a major party to the right of the Democrats, but will the Libertarians grow to become it? Will an explicitly Christian Fundamentalist party appear? Will moderates look to join the Democrats?