Reason senior editor Radley Balko says the Republicans are heading toward a crushing defeat in November... and that's exactly what the party needs to save itself.

The Bush years have not been kind to traditional GOP principles:

In the last eight years, the GOP has given us a monstrous new federal bureaucracy in the Department of Homeland Security. In the prescription drug benefit, it's given us the largest new federal entitlement since the Johnson administration. Federal spending — even on items not related to war or national security — has soared. And we now get to watch as the party that's supposed to be "free market" nationalizes huge chunks of the economy's financial sector.

Balko believes a drubbing on Election Day would be both a wakeup call and an opportunity for the party to shed some dead weight:

If they do lose, the GOP would be wise to regroup and rebuild from scratch; scrap the current leadership and, most importantly, purge the party of the "national greatness," neoconservative influence. Big-government conservatism has bloated the federal government, bogged us down in what will ultimately be a trillion-dollar war, and set us down the road to European-style socialism. It's hard to think of how Obama could be worse. He'll just be bad in different ways....

Which brings me back to why the Republicans need to get throttled: A humiliated, decimated GOP that rejuvenates and rebuilds around the principles of limited government, free markets, and rugged individualism is really the only chance for voters to possibly get a real choice in federal elections down the road.

If the GOP does get blown out next month, they should consider Balko's suggestions. A vibrant and articulate candidate with the traditional Republican message of limited government power and intrusion, modest spending, and non-interventionism would do very well in 2012.