Razing Arizona

Stop me if you've heard this one before.
An Arizona Republican senator runs for President and gets trounced, leading to internal bickering and backbiting that seems to guarantee the party is headed for entrenched backbencher status.
While that may seem to describe the current state of political affairs given Barrack Obama's electoral landslide over Republican John McCain, longtime GOP faithful could be excused for having a certain sense of deja vu.
In 1964 Lyndon Johnson crushed the bid of Sen. Barry Goldwater, of Arizona that had many debating the demise of the Grand Old Party. But within four years - thanks in a large measure to the Vietnam War and, to a smaller degree, the third-party candidacy of George Wallace - Nixon retook the White House for Republicans, ushering in a generation of GOP domination of the Oval Office, with the exception of the Watergate-fueled one term presidency of Jimmy Carter.
Obama's win did not approach Johnson's landslide, but was convincing. Although he "only" won by about 8 million votes out of 125 million cast (Johnson beat Goldwater by 16 million votes with only 70 million cast) Obama piled up a convincing 365-173 electoral victory (giving McCain Missouri's 11 electoral votes, though that state has yet to be officially declared).
Four years is several lifetimes in politics, as witnessed by the period between Johnson's 1964 drubbing of Goldwater to 1968's Nixonian comback. Then witness the tectonic change from 1972 - when Nixon piled up a 520-17 electoral victory over Democrat George McGovern, winning by 18 million votes - to 1974, when Nixon was forced to resign from office in disgrace after the Watergatge coverup.
So all those Republicans beating themselves up right now over the future direction of the party need only look backwards to see what "could be" again.