WASHINGTON — The Conservative Political Action Conference is as close as you can get to a skinhead convention in a nice hotel.

Frothing at the mouth, has-beens like former Vice President Dick Cheney and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, RTexas, railed against the nation’s first black president.

Nasty wannabes like Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S. C., whined that President Obama is a “socialist” and said he governs “from a teleprompter.” Fox News’ Glenn Beck, a real skinhead, also wowed the 10,000 attendees last week.

Sarah Palin skipped it. CPAC organizers implied she sought a $100,000 speaking fee. Her people suggested CPAC is tainted because its leaders blatantly shake down corporate sponsors for support.

CPAC Visigoths and their fellow travelers form a big reason that thoughtful conservatives cringe at politics. Like it or not, you Republicans, the embarrassing idiocy spread at the CPAC meeting has become the core of your effort to reclaim the House and Senate in November.

On the surface, the GOP looks like it has a good chance, with recent victories in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts. But its war wagon is running on empty.

Unlike the silk suits who showed for the CPAC meeting, folks outside the Beltway are very scared. One breadwinner in six is jobless or underemployed. Millions have lost their health insurance. Millions have lost or will lose their mortgages. One in four worries about losing his job.

Republicans hope to harness these fears, suburban resentment against Obama’s overreach and, let’s face it, a measure of racial antagonism this November. They count on the voters forgetting the last time the Republicans controlled this town. They ran it like the Mafia, starting three pre-emptive wars. GOP congressmen threw themselves a 12-year party, enriching themselves and their pals, bloating the budget while cutting taxes for the rich. The Republicans, with their wars and their tax cuts, ran up the deficits they now complain of.

Speakers auditioning at CPAC called for smaller government, more tax cuts and less spending. At the same time, Republican congressional leaders, who are now in the minority, are in the lead when requesting earmarks.

For those who have no health insurance, the Republicans offer next to nothing. Their health savings accounts work only for those who already have money. Selling health insurance across state lines would make a difference only in sparsely settled states in the upper Plains or the Rockies.

The main result would be that health insurance companies could escape whatever is left of state quality control. There is nothing in the GOP plan to stop insurance companies from gorging on trapped customers. Nothing about repealing insurers’ anti-trust exemption.

They have no realistic economic plan. Republicans complain that unemployment insurance only discourages Americans from going out and getting jobs. The GOP is selling more free trade with less government oversight at a time when our free economy is being dictated to by a centralized Communist regime in China and the Japanese oligarchy.

There is understandable anger at Washington and broad disappointment at Obama’s broken promises. They presage a GOP rich harvest in the fall. But it could be a long eight months if all the Republicans do is to obstruct real-time solutions that are being proposed by the few moderates in their ranks and some Democrats.

Voters ought to think twice about turning control of Congress back to the very same crowd of hypocritical plunderers that tore the country apart beginning a decade ago. Because these are the people still running the party.

Two great Obama moves last week: meeting with Tibet’s Dalai Lama over the ChiComs protests, and offering government help for nuclear power plants.