The 2012 election is still over 18 months away but the Republican party has already lost it.

No, that information doesn’t come from a magic crystal ball or street corner psychic, it comes from an analysis of the current state of the GOP and in particular the main candidates for the Republican nomination next year.

The American right was moving further right in the lead up to last years mid-term election. Since major Republican gains in those elections, they have picked up the pace and kept moving right so fast it’s astonishing.

The GOP found success in the last elections because of the economy. They convinced America the system was broke, Obama couldn’t fix it and they can.

They’ll try to do the exact same thing in 2012 and will fail. Spectacularly.

Why the big change? Since their major gains at both Federal and State levels, the GOP has moved quickly to enact the strictest, most crazed anti-abortion and anti-immigration legislation you could think of.

They have waged an open war on unions in Wisconsin and other states. Wisconsin in particular provides a glaring example of today’s GOP. They rammed the bill through as fast as they could using very questionable (and possibly illegal means). They tried to pass it off as a budget related bill but it was clear as day the goal all along was union busting. Many people in Wisconsin and across the country reacted with outrage to this situation.

In only a few months in power, the GOP have been working steadily to roll back years of reforms and progress on womens rights, workers rights and civil rights. Do you really think this will go over well with the general populace??

The general populace is what the GOP needs to seize the White House and defeat Barack Obama, but there’s absolutely no way to successfully sell a far right, Christian driven agenda to a wide cross section of Americans, especially considering the way Republicans have been treating women, blacks and non-christians.

The other thing that will cause the GOP to lose in 2012 will be the lack of a good candidate. Look at these headlines from LGF over the last couple of months:

Newt Gingrich Funnels $125K Through Hate Group to Punish Iowa Justices

Newt Gingrich: My experience with cheating on my wives helped me impeach Clinton

Bachmann’s Pick for Political Director: A birther

Michele Bachmann: The media’s persecuting me by quoting my words

Michele Bachmann voted to shut down gov’t because of abortion

Michele Bachmann: Jefferson wanted to keep abortion illegal

Mike Huckaee: Americans should be forced at gunpoint to listen to David Barton

Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer: Obama is fundamentally anti-american

Mick Huckabee says Obama ‘grew up in Kenya’

Sarah Palin: made up words, blaming McCain for the 2008 loss, Blood libel, general problem remembering facts correctly (North Korean allies)

Tim Pawlenty endorses another anti-gay hate group

Tim Pawlenty gives interview to religious right’s most crazed fanatic: wants to reinstate DADT

Herman Cain: Planned Parenthood is plotting genecide against ‘Black Babies”

All of these center around comments made by potential Republican Presidential nominees for 2012.

In addition to these folks, there’s also Sarah Palin. What’s she been up to lately? Well let’s see: She’s been inventing new words on an almost daily basis, struggling to remember basic facts (did you know we have North Korean allies?), claiming John McCain of being the reason she lost the election in 2008 and accusing her critics of “blood libel”. Would you want this woman to be President?

And finally there’s Donald Trump. The Donald only recently came into the mix, but in only a few short weeks, he’s sided with the Birthers and gotten himself a gig on Fox News. Not bad at all.

It’s painfully clear there is not a single potential GOP candidate right now that has the ability, intelligence and charisma to competently lead the United States of America.

Of course the current Republican voter base would salivate over the possibility of any one of these people (except perhaps Palin, whose popularity has been waning as of late) getting a chance to take on Obama in 2012.

But the far right Christian vote base is NOT enough to win a general election. To do that, Republicans will have to come up with votes from moderates, independents, minorities and non-Christians. At this point that seems a virtually impossible task. They’ve done far too much to marginalize and alienate these groups, frequently using strong language to do so. That kind of damage just can’t be repaired in only one year.

The strategy would seem to be to take the eventual GOP nominee and attempt to move that person more to the center to connect with other voters. Problem is, the minute you do that, the far right religious voters will abandon him or her and start screaming “RINO!”.

It’s almost a perfect “lose-lose” scenario.

The GOP should pretty much forget about November 2012. Unless something radically changes soon, they’ve sealed their fate.