Democrats are currently high-fiving each other, not just because President Obama issued empty promise after empty promise to his Progressive Liberal base during his Inauguaration speech, but because Democrats have a foot on the throat of the Republican Party—and the mercy strike is scheduled to arrive any moment.

After all, visit any conservative website or blog and you see a bunch of grumpy people bitching about how awful everything is, and how nothing is going to work, and how the Stupid Party screwed themselves yet again…possibly this time into oblivion. The feedback that the Democrats are winning is coming completely from the Right.

Some signs the GOP is starting to remove the clown makeup.

Conservatives should take heart. The GOP is getting a bit less stupid; in fact, there are signs that a brain is starting to awaken.

First, the Senate is very precarious right now; even Senator Harry Reid is reluctant to discuss any gun legislation for fear that it will cost him his leadership there. Remember: the Democrats have only a five-seat majority, and signs are that nine or even ten seats will be strongly contested in 2014. And the GOP is starting to realize it.

The first major test of this awareness is coming soon: Republicans have made it clear that they will approve a debt-ceiling increase (which, to be fair, they ought to since they helped approve the spending that necessitated this last year) on the condition that the Senate vote on a budget. This, as you know, is something the Senate has intentionally failed to do since forever simply because a budget would expose how badly the Democrats have managed your money.

You might disagree that the GOP will hold to this condition. That question may be moot: the fact it took the GOP more than three years to realize this is itself a massive signal. And the position is pretty serious: obey the GOP and pass a budget, or we all forfeit our pay. After the Boehner boner, you might think this risky; word is, all House Republicans are signed on.

Second, the GOP has actually listened to the Czar and poached Patrick Ruffini, an independent consultant who attended numerous Obama re-election strategy meetings. He is now assisting the GOP and has produced a motherlode of information on how the Obama campaign did what they did, and successfully won the swing states initially tilting Republican. The Czar has not seen this information, mind you, but hears the GOP discovered a lot of its assumptions were way off about how the Obama campaign worked. Ruffini mentioned that the 2016 Republican campaign cannot be a simple re-tooling of 2012: the 2016 campaign must look and be entirely different. The GOP is learning it could actually beat the Democrats at their own game, and have learned how badly they would have blown it again.

Third, the GOP is learning that it pretty well has the answers to the 2014 quiz. The President has made it quite clear what his agenda now is and where the next big fights will be. For example, the GOP is discovering that early 2012 comments about immigration cost them dearly (losing nearly all the Hispanic votes that Bush won in 2004). Newt Gingrich’s softer position on immigration was, in a sense, the smarter play. With immigration certain to be a battle into 2014, the GOP can better position itself. Condi Rice, for example, has openly stated the GOP handled this issue pathetically and that no more mistakes like that should ever happen.

But forget about immigration per se for a moment: our point isn’t that the GOP can win re-election by somehow beating the President on immigration; the point is that the GOP is learning that Americans have forgotten what conservative beliefs are. It isn’t that the GOP has been running the wrong candidates since 1992, but that the voters are not associating the Republican Party with what it is they want in a candidate. Instead of looking for the next Reagan, they ought to be looking to the original Reagan—who steadily and carefully crafted a message well before 1980 that conservative government was an American government. It took time, but Reagan did it. Use what he taught you.

Now that the GOP knows where the fights are going to be, they can start nudging the American people and whispering “Yeah, we don’t agree with that, either.”

So far we have seen three positive signs that the GOP is awakening from a long slumber. It may not happen by 2016, but in some respects it’s happening right now.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.