Can things get worse for the Republican party? The country is mired in an unpopular war, led by a crippled administration and an isolated president. In the 2006 elections, voters gave the Republicans fair warning of the rout that might await them in 2008. The party's candidates to succeed George W. Bush still talk as though business as usual will do. This week another candidate, Fred Thompson, formally joins the race: another face, another style, no new ideas. Not that Republicans are failing to capture the headlines. Americans find the humiliation of Larry Craig - only the latest "family values" Republican to make a mockery of that notion - quite riveting.

Before last year's elections, it was argued that Republicans would soon have to choose between the political strategy associated with Karl Rove - energise the party's core of God-fearing supporters and get them to the polls - and broadening the party's appeal to centrists and independents. Crushing defeat seemed to say that the Rovian approach had had its day and that if the party was to see another Republican in the White House in 2009 it would need to change. No genius of political tactics was needed to see what form this repositioning needed to take.