THE DEMOCRATS lost the war for staying power:

By 2014, I was hearing a lot of claims that the Republican Party was on its way out: “a regional rump party, confined to the South” was the popular line for a couple of years. Sure, they might win some midterm elections here and there, but they were demographically doomed at the presidential level. This became such conventional wisdom that when I confessed I thought Republicans were likely to retake the White House in 2016, people stared as though I had said my columns were dictated to me by the ghost of Walter Winchell.

The midterm elections of 2014 did not necessarily shake this conventional wisdom. But two recent pieces of news ought to. Tea Party favorite Matt Bevin just won an upset election in the Kentucky governor’s race. Not only did he take back a seat that Democrats have controlled for 40 of the last 44 years, but also, he won by a smashing margin, 53 percent to 44 percent. This after polls had shown his Democratic opponent, state attorney general Jack Conway, in a narrow lead and the New York Times was speculating that Bevin might “eke out” a victory by driving conservative Christians to turn out.

Meanwhile, the latest Quinnipiac poll shows Clinton losing to every major Republican primary contender except Trump. Even if you believe the more favorable polls, a Democratic strategist probably does not want to see them so close — not when Clinton is a widely known name with the nomination practically sewed up, while most Americans probably know Rubio as “Marco Who?”

Whatever your opinion on the merits of Barack Obama as a president, his tenure has been rough for his party.

The GOP’s biggest asset here is that most Dems are still unwaware of this.