The Republican Party 2.0

OMG.

All the talk about the 1980s must have been a welcome respite for the Republicans, whose current situation is rather less memorable. The résumés of the men on the stage served as reminders of the GOP's problems: Duncan, who presided over the party's electoral debacle in November; Anuzis, who watched the GOP implode in Michigan; Dawson, a former member of an all-white country club. Then, of course, there was Saltsman, who mailed party members a CD with the parody song "Barack the Magic Negro." Saltsman's indiscretion has dominated the race, but moderator Norquist, a devoted Republican, was kind enough not to ask the candidates about the Magic Negro. Instead, he led them on a painful discussion about the Grand Old Party's efforts to appeal to the young.

"We have to do it in the Facebook, with the Twittering, the different technology that young people are using today," Duncan ventured.

"Let me just say that I have 4,000 friends on Facebook," contributed Blackwell, putting his hand on Dawson's and Anuzis's knees. "That's probably more than these two guys put together, but who's counting, you know?" Acknowledged Saltsman: "I'm not sure all of us combined Twitter as much as Saul."

Anuzis claimed he had "somewhere between 2- and 3,000" Facebook friends, which prompted Blackwell to remind the audience that he has 4,000 friends on the social networking site by waving four fingers behind Anuzis's head.

They then went on to quantify how many guns each of them owns.