A major piece of the fallout from the election results will be the re-shaping of the national Republican party in response to the disaster they have just undergone. And that re-shaping will have plenty of finger pointing and bad blood, which is just a great thing for the media (and some blog sites). The sniping between the McCain and Palin camps has already begun in earnest, with a heavy barrage aimed at Palin by McCain campaign insiders. That barrage has also been directed at Randy Scheunemann, a McCain foreign policy advisor and direct link to the neo-cons who became a key foreign policy advisor to Palin. Scheunemann has been accused of leaking to neo-con guru Bill Kristol unflattering things about the McCain campaign. Lets look at some of the juicier tidbits. From the New York Times:

As a top adviser in Senator John McCain’s now-imploded campaign tells the story, it was bad enough that Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska unwittingly scheduled, and then took, a prank telephone call from a Canadian comedian posing as the president of France. Far worse, the adviser said, she failed to inform her ticketmate about her rogue diplomacy.

I have attached portions of that call for your entertainment.

The massive bill for wadrode for Governor Palin also caused some anger in the McCain camp.

The disputes between the campaigns centered in large part on the Republican National Committee’s $150,000 wardrobe for Ms. Palin and her family, but also on what McCain advisers considered Ms. Palin’s lack of preparation for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric of CBS News and her refusal to take advice from Mr. McCain’s campaign.

On Wednesday, two top McCain campaign advisers said that the clothing purchases for Ms. Palin and her family were a particular source of outrage for them. As they portrayed it, Ms. Palin had been advised by Nicolle Wallace, a senior McCain aide, that she should buy three new suits for the Republican National Convention in St. Paul in September and three additional suits for the fall campaign. The budget for the clothes was anticipated to be from $20,000 to $25,000, the officials said. Instead, in a public relations debacle undermining Ms. Palin’s image as an everywoman “hockey mom,” bills came in to the Republican National Committee for about $150,000, including charges of $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue. The bills included clothing for Ms. Palin’s family and purchases of shoes, luggage and jewelry, the advisers said.

Scheunemann, the neo-cons man in the McCain camp, has come under severe fire.

Advisers in the McCain campaign, in suggesting that Palin advisers had been leaking damaging information about the McCain campaign to the news media, said they were particularly suspicious of Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s top foreign policy aide who had a central role in preparing Ms. Palin for the vice-presidential debate.

As a result, two senior members of the McCain campaign said on Wednesday that Mr. Scheunemann had been fired from the campaign in its final days. But Rick Davis, the McCain campaign manager, and Mr. Salter, one of Mr. McCain’s closest advisers, said Wednesday that Mr. Scheunemann had in fact not been dismissed. Mr. Scheunemann, who picked up the phone in his office at McCain campaign headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, responded that “anybody who says I was fired is either lying or delusional or a whack job.”

Some pretty interesting stuff, but the adults in the Republican Party have now begun to speak about what will be needed to rebuild the brand. There will be real differences in approach, but the demographic problems of the party are clear to some. From Politico, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty:

Pawlenty, the son of a truck driver who worked his way through college, is also passionate about the need to put a new face on the party.

“Demographically, culturally, technologically and economically the country is changing,” he noted, while the GOP is “stuck in a 30-year-old feel in tone and image.”

“We need a more forward-leaning, newer, younger, more diverse party. That does not mean that our values and principles get thrown overboard.

“But you can’t be a majority governing party getting almost no support from African-Americans, modest support from Hispanics, with a major gap with women, and decreasing support from modest income Americans.”

The party, Pawlenty concluded, “needs to be freshened up.”

Pawlenty is a smart guy, which is why he is likely to be marginalized in whatever emerges as the new G.O.P. The number two Republican in the House, Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, will be losing his job, and the Republican Caucus Chair Adam Putnam of Florida stepped down in advance of the angry mob descending upon him. It appears that House minority leader John Boehner will survive, but he will likely be in a weakened position within his caucus. The Democrats will have their own problems, but for now the Republicans are in disarray. Much more to come in the days ahead.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/27556549#27556549