Is the GOP lost or found?

Over at VFR Auster has put up an article concerning how the GOP has lost its way; how that it has abandoned its conservative principles (and its conservative base), adopting instead liberalism thinly veiled in conservative lingo.

Auster writes:

Give people greater liberty? How the heck does liberty fit into this list of nanny-state programs promising to supply people's every material need? The answer is that the Republican pols are trying, in their sincere, pathetic way, to get with the statist swing of things established by Hillary and Obama, while still sounding Republican notes. And the commenters at the NRCC site are having none of it. Cole's pronouncement is greeted by the electronic equivalent of hundreds of tomatoes being thrown at him. The commenters want the GOP to be--surprise--a conservative party, not an imitation Democratic party.

It's as though the Republican leadership and the Republican grassroots are in different worlds. The elite remain encapsulated, speaking to specialists who tell them what to say. These losers never try to relate to reality with their own minds. The idea never occurs to them. Reality is not something they live in and try to understand; it's something they seek to manage from a distance, with the help of political technicians. That's the only way to make sense of their spectacular cluelessness. Didn't the uprising against the comprehensive immigration bill last year tell the Republican leaders anything? Don't they leaders understand that conservative voters want the federal government, first and foremost, to protect the nation's basic existence and liberties, not to help people balance work, children, and care for elderly parents?

Have you ever noticed that the more urgently the GOP pols try to come up with a good set of policies, and the louder they trumpet their latest set, the sillier the policies get? It's because they're lost. They're lost because, as said above, they lack their own, independent view of reality, based on their own experience, thinking, discussion, and reading, and so they are dependent on outside and artificial sources, such as opinion polls and consultants, to tell them about it.

While I agree with most everything Mr. Auster says, I would simply ask how it is possible for the elected (GOP or otherwise), directly dependent on electors with insanely minimal qualifications as they are, to adhere to any principles even remotely "conservative?"

Once more, our founding fathers exhibited great wisdom in devising a system of government in which power was distributed, not only among the several branches, but among the several spheres of government; a system in which the electors had to meet stiffer qualifications, and even so, were not directly responsible for electing certain of their representatives. And etc...

I actually think that the GOP has finally found its place in liberal dominated America. Just an alternative liberal party for all those dependents who aren't particularly fond of the other one and those that represent it ... for whatever reason.

There's never a shortage of dependents in a dependent, entitlement society. It seems the GOP is finally beginning to truly understand this concept and apply it. Thus the GOP is competing with the Democrats, not on superior principle and ideas, but on who can pass out the most freebies to their prospective constituents while at the same time treating them with a dignity which they have not earned and do not deserve. What I'd like to know is how the GOP thinks it can win in such a competition? Or does it?