A few helpful words for the GOP

The Republican party can go one of two ways here, with Arlen Specter's bitchslap/wakeup call. They can either do the intelligent thing and move towards the center, or they can move further right. While I firmly believe that they're too stupid/insane to do the prudent thing and move center, I'll snarkily offer them some advice in case that's what they decide.

1. Find some way to keep Michele Bachmann from speaking. Muzzle, surgery, safety pins, I don't care. The woman has become a standard-bearer for the most ridiculous element of the Republican party: hateful, ignorant, arrogant, lying, outlandish. In case you're thinking, 'hey, censorship!', let me say that I'm not trying to shut her up because what she says is abhorrent, I simply think the Republicans should shut her up because she and people like her are killing their party. This is strategic, not legal or moral. 
2. Stop apologizing to Rush Limbaugh when you insult him. Insulting him is good. He deserves it, for one thing. For another, he alienates independents and moderates. For a third, when you apologize to him, you look like a six year old girl twirling your pigtails in the middle of recess. 
3. Give up the gay marriage fight. It's a razor thin margin between people who believe gay marriage should be legal and people who don't, and a large majority of people believe that gay people should have the same rights. This is not a fight people care about anymore, and either way, it's not a fight you'll win.
4. Get Mitch McConnell checked out; the man always looks constipated. 
5. Actually become the party of fiscal responsibility. You've been claiming to be for decades, since at least Reagan (the idea that Reagan was fiscally responsible is demonstrably false). There's no shortage of really effin' smart economists in the world - ask them how, once this whole recession thing is over, to balance the budget and start to deflate the deficit. Then? Do it. 
6. Quit with the 'big government bad' crap. This is a recession, and people are freaking out (well, maybe some of that is from swine flu). People don't want small government anymore. You can't make a government big enough for most people right now.
7. Stop defending torture. I do not understand why this is a debate. 

Come on, Republicans. Return to the time and ideology (albeit updated) of, say, Eisenhower. Let's have two parties, what d'you say?