American politics has been dominated by the Republicans and Democrats for the last 150 years. Today they are simply two symbiotic factions of the same establishment Party. Each one's power is based on making one half of the country feel threatened by the other. The Republican Party is not dead. This election year just isn't the GOP's turn to be a rockstar.
Obama will get elected, and then the honeymoon will end, and then he will get blamed for the wash of problems that will inevitably come, because he will do nothing to fundamentally change the parasitic system that put him in power. The people will get fed up, a Republican will be held up as a savior, the people will elect him, and be content once again that change is happening because the letter next to the President's name is different.