The political winds shift back and forth over the years between Republicans and Democrats. Anyone who makes statements about a party being "dead" hasn't looked back very far into history. "dead" for the moment maybe, but I think the most accurate statement is "down but not out".
After Nixon, the majority of voters wanted nothing to do with Republicans, and we ended up with arguably one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, Carter. With the country in bad shape economically and humiliated by the Iranians holding our embassy staff hostage for a long time, the Democrats were not very popular at all in the 1980 elections and voted in Reagan by a landslide.
Reagan's success kept everyone happy through a reelection and the election of his VP Bush Sr. to president in '88, with the Republicans by far the dominant power for many years. But by '92 voters seemed bored with the Republicans and elected a charming goof Democrat, Clinton. A few years later we seemed fed up with him and the house and senate went back to Republican majority. In 2000 a Republican was voted back to the White House, and of course, in '08 the dissatisfaction with the war and the economy led to the Democrats sweeping back to power and many of the "experts" saying the Republicans days are over for good.
After a term or two of screwing things up, by imposing big government and higher energy taxes on us, dictating what kinds of cars we can buy, etc., and our inevitable decrease in standard of living, the voters will most likely be pretty fed up with Democrats and lo and behold, we'll find the Republicans voted back in the majority.
The cycle continues and seems pretty easy to predict, I don't think that will ever change!
