After three losses in congressional special elections, the Republican Party is faced with a formidable task: Reinventing the brand.  The old Bush brand has been rejected by voters.  What will replace it? One or two such defeats is disquieting but this week's 8-point loss by the GOP candidate in Mississippi, the third such defeat, suggests a trend. Voters are rejecting Republicans in places where Republicans should be winning.

The second and third loss, in Louisiana's 6th District and Mississippi's 1st District, were in districts that were decidedly Republican in 2004.  Bush won in the Louisiana district by 59 percent and and in the Mississippi district by 62 percent.  These are Republican districts.  What gives? President Bush's prolonged disapproval rating is partly to blame.  But even Republicans are admitting that the party lacks a forward-looking agenda and that the GOP must take some responsibility for the gridlock and partisan division in the nation's capital that voters are rejecting.

As Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Thursday, "When you lose three of these in a row, you have to get beyond campaign tactics and take a hard look: Is there something wrong with your product?"

At stake for the Rs is further decline in congressional numbers.  The GOP now has a 37-seat deficit in the House, which is likely to grow in November without a turn-around.  Even more damaging to the party is the erosion of its hold on the South, with Barack Obama at the head of the Democratic ticket.  The surge in black turnout could signal a threat to GOP domination in the South, the New York Times writes. 

Cole, for one, has an understanding of what needs to be done. "Republicans must undertake bold efforts to define a forward looking agenda that offers the kid of positive change voters are looking for."

A Gingrich-style Contract for America, maybe?

The party's presumptive nominee John McCain may have led the way with his "crystal ball speech" Thursday.  McCain outlined what he hopes the country will look like at the end of his first presidential term, and it was not a Bush-like worldview.  Having come from the Senate, McCain has greater respect for the constitutional balance between the Congress and the White House.  In a McCain presidency, perhaps we could expect less of the White House running roughshod over Congress.

Besides setting 2013 as a target date for having won the war in Iraq and bringing home most of the troops, McCain also forecast several years of economic growth, more accessible health care, attention to global warming, a secure Southern border and humane treatment of immigrants in the country illegally.  But most important was the tone he projected:  "The era of the permanent campaign will end.  The era of problem solving will begin."

Ironically, Bush went to Washington by casting himself as "a uniter not a divider."  In his naivete, however, after governing in Texas, which has a part-time Legislature, Bush didn't realize the extent of the institutional partisanship in Washington.  McCain at least has a greater understanding of that and the importance of checks and balances -- as opposed to the "my way or the highway" attitude that has emanated from the current White House. In his speech Thursday, McCain called for an end to the divisive partisanship.  It's a winning issue.  Look what it's done for Obama.

The McCain campaign has even been using an Obama sound-alike slogan of late,"The Change Your Deserve," only to find out that the same slogan is used for an anti-depressant.  Perhaps that's fitting.  The Republican Party is in more than a funk.  It's in a depression that only can be cured by a positive message and specific agenda that will match the optimistic appeal that has proved successful to date for Obama.

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