In New York right now, the GOP is engaging in some public internecine warfare. The vote comes tomorrow and the GOP is urging its base to choose the more “conservative” of the two. In the automated phone calls that voters are subjected to, the following snippet can be heard:

Blah Blah Blah. Liberals suck – or something like that; and then: “Or do you believe in Republican conservative values, like thrift, personal responsibility, and family? Let’s tell the liberals, enough is enough.” – these calls went out in order to talk Republicans into not voting for the moderate one – i.e. not a dipshit – in favor of the hard-liner – i.e. demagogue fool.

You might not know this, and I didn’t either, but apparently one of the conservative values is Thrift. Who knew the Republicans were so concerned about saving money? They quadrupled the size of government; they spent a trillion dollars in Iraq; and they seem to be made up almost entirely of extremely rich bigots. And it’s been a long long time since an elected Republican showed much concern for thrift. I doubt there are too many Republicans eating Ramen soup to save money. Another conservative value? Personal Responsibility. This doesn’t seem to hold water either. In fact, right now the two individuals personally responsible for the current state of this country are in deeper denial than Pete Rose. Neither Dick Cheney nor George Bush have taken responsibility for a single misstep on anything. Not torture. Not the economy. Or making a huge leap towards socialism by buying into our country’s largest – and most incompetent – banks. Instead of taking responsibility, they choose to “not recall” what they did. Family. The conservatives claim this value to be firmly within their grasp. Yet it’s the Obamas who seem to be actually living this value conservatives hold so dear. We’ve seen a parade of Republicans fall on their family-value faces over the last year: whether it’s a governor hiking the Appalachian Trail in South America or a Senator going out of his way to find employment for his mistress’ boyfriend.

There comes a time when people wake up and realize that actions really do speak louder than words. You can claim something great in your mission statement  (you can bet Bernie Madoff didn’t have Ponzi Scheme anywhere in his mission statement); but if you can’t back it up, it’s time to change your tune. It’s time to rebrand yourself and start anew. For the Republicans, they can go one of two ways. They can either double-down on their current tactics of hypocrisy and latent racism – “Or do you believe in Republican conservative values, like largesse, cronyism and white supremacy?” – or they can come up with an actual viable alternative to what the democrats are doing. This is a two-party system we have. Republicans might want to at least try and make a play for being the second one.

The only way they are going to do that is communicate honestly on a platform that people can actually believe. Personally, I’m not holding my breath.