With this year’s GOP platform taking a more extreme position on immigration than even the modest reforms President George W Bush tried and failed to pass when he was in office, a Republican victory will remain elusive without a fundamental policy change.

Of course, one of the Republicans who gets this – and who many outside the Tea Party see as the future for the GOP – is President Bush’s brother Jeb. Among immigration moderates there is a real hope that the Bush brand will have recovered enough for him  to run in four years’ time.But the Republicans have a deep bench, and need to take advantage of that choice to have that fundamental debate about their future they have avoided for too long.Meantime, the only logical conclusion from the 2012 election is that even if the Republican party can’t embrace immigration reform ideologically, they should do out of simple maths. Demographics have shored up states like Nevada, Colorado and Virginia as swing states. In four years, Arizona could well be in that category, and in a couple more cycles, so too could be Texas.

Unless the Republicans recognise there just aren’t enough white men to win them an election and they need to broaden their current coalition, they are doomed to further defeat.