Crazy Like A Fox, or Just Crazy?

With their spiking of the auto bailout, has the GOP essentially written off winning the Rust Belt states for the next decade? (Perhaps it's just a belated acknowledgment of something that has been brewing for a while and is now an undeniable reality: the GOP is essentially a regional party. And their bailout stance is in accordance with that fact.) Seems to me if they were going to 'stand on principle' and kill a bailout plan, they'd have been much better off killing TARP.