Ahhh, gee, Tom...yeah, that was a good one, and I stand by the sentiment. Tell ya what: If the GOP goes belly up, for as long as there's no major party replacing it, I'll change my registration to Independent. Bookmark that.

The word "principle" is tricky because it has two closely related meanings. In one sense it refers to natural or physical law, such as "the principle of the conservation of mass". The other evokes morality and behavior, as in "a man of principles".

You seem to view principles primarily in the first, ideological sense (i.e., free-market capitalism is a principle and not just a system); while I find myself talking more about the second sense of principles (which has nothing to do with shirt color). And it's the latter to which I referred in that original quote about "principled conservatives". You can't lose ideological planks (though you could add or remove them from an ideology over time), but you can lose your moral and ethical compass--your principles--and I believe that that is the fundamental reason that the GOP has lost so many members and seems to be on the skids.

Contrary to the face-saving rhetoric of the right these days, it is not because your ideological principles are insufficiently conservative. (That, I have to say, is one of the most breathtaking bits of self-delusion I've ever seen come out of the right. How can you possibly believe, after losing an election [badly] to somebody you attacked relentlessly as a "liberal", that what the country wants is less liberalism and more conservatism? Whatever you're smoking, I want some!)

The Amazon blurb for Carville's book offers a straightforward and completely rational alternative explanation:

To understand the emergence of a lasting Democratic majority we'll first have to spend a few moments reviewing the profound and relentless incompetence of the Bush administration -- and the pursuant collapse of the Republican Party. That means looking back at the failure of Republican ideas -- including a wholesale rejection of the myth of conservative superiority on the economy -- and holding our noses long enough to survey the gallery of truly repellent scoundrels, scandals, and screwups that the Republican Party has been responsible for over the last eight years.

(emphasis added)

Thanks for the tip about Carville's new book. I may search for it, but maybe not. From the Amazon blurb it almost sounds like he copied Hugh Hewitt's book dreaming of a "permanent Republican majority" and merely changed the polarity. That's based only on the blurb though, and it's interesting that he claims (in the blurb, anyway) that it's demographics rather than electoral and parliamentary trickery which he expects to result in the change. I think both of them are fantasizing, regardless of method; human nature is the serpent in that garden. If the Democrats dominate more than a decade, they'll begin to split into factions, the most conservative of which will simply reconstitute the political Right. Permanent majorites cannot last under our system; as I said in that quote, "Our system is a catamaran, designed to be stable with both pontoons in the water".