David Weigel on what ails Republicans:

Paul Jost, head of the Virginia chapter of the Club for Growth, was the group’s unsuccessful candidate for the GOP nomination for Virginia’s 1st District House seat. In that state the party has lost ground in four consecutive state elections (2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007), finally losing control of the state Senate in 2007, even though conservatives defeated a tax hike referendum in 2002.
“Our brand is badly damaged,” Jost admits. Like many economic conservatives, he attributes the damage to tax hikes earlier in the decade. Moderate Republicans broke with their party and supported the increases, giving Democrats the votes to pass them. That collaboration, Jost argues, gives Democrats room to blur the differences between the parties and run on competence. It also allows Democrats like Mark Warner and Tim Kaine—the former and current governors, respectively—to tell voters they won’t raise taxes, to raise them anyway, and to feel no electoral backlash.
“The problem in this state is that people don’t trust us on the tax message,” Jost says. “Taxes went up under the Republicans. When the Democratic governors wanted to hike taxes, both houses—which were run by the Republicans, remember —caved in. So why should people believe us right now?” Many Republicans in Virginia tried to change the subject from taxes to immigration, hoping this was a “good government” argument they could win on. It wasn’t.