What if the Gipper led the 2012 GOP?

Since President Obama's re-election, the sense that the GOP is in the midst of an existential crisis has only deepened.

Rep. Patrick Henry's proposal to kick Ulysses S. Grant off the $50 bill and put Ronald Reagan in his stead is sort of awesomely tone-deaf. The proposal here is to send the nation's first black president legislation that would erase the guy who won the Civil War and replace him with the guy who cut a lot of taxes.

Ronald Reagan is an icon among anti-tax conservatives. The late president's rhetoric is clear but his record, not so much. Reagan still casts a long shadow over political debate in the U.S.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

US President Barack Obama is using his Christmas holiday in Hawaii to read up on former president Ronald Reagan, an icon for the resurgent Republicans he will face next year.The president "is reading a biography right now on Ronald Reagan by Lou Cannon," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs wrote Friday on the micro-blogging website Twitter.Obama has taken an interest in the former president ahead of his return to a more deeply divided Washington next month, when the Republican opposition will assume control of the House of Representatives.