North by Northwestern is pleased to bring back Dormroom Debate, where two students take on a political issue from opposite sides of the political spectrum. This week, our writers grapple with the uncertain future of the Republican Party and just how much trouble the GOP is in after the 2012 election. Photos of the authors by Sunny Kang / North by Northwestern.

I’m a Medill sophomore double majoring in American history and I’ve been liberal as long as I could remember.

While growing up in the far suburbs of New York City in a devoutly Democratic family certainly has its influences, the ideas of my parents’ party have always just made sense to me, even when we’ve butted heads about just how far these ideas should be taken.

To me, it makes sense to have a government that invests in and financially protects its citizens as long as they meet their end of the bargain. It makes sense to me to have a government that guarantees not only freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion. It makes sense to me to have a government that’s more concerned with preserving peace than projecting power.

But more than anything, I believe if politicians focused more on the good of their country and less on the good of their party, the actions that they’d take would make a lot more sense.

When it comes to missed opportunities for the Republican Party, it doesn't get much worse than 2012.

With a majority in the House of Representatives, an economy slowly rebounding from near ruin and a president who overestimated how well his policies would work and then failed to communicate the smaller but significant progress they did make, the Grand Old Party seemed poised to take back the reigns of the American government.

Now all they needed was a charismatic presidential candidate with clearly defined conservative policies who could relate with the millions of Americans tired with the seemingly unfulfilled promises of the Obama administration. All they needed to do was drive home one simple message: Obama and his party are all fluff, no filler.

Instead they ran Mitt Romney, arguably the only competent candidate with enough funding to challenge Obama (sorry, Jon Huntsman).

Then, they paired a political opportunist and his inconsistent platform with an ideologue budget-hawk who relied on faulty math and lies to pander to voters who despised Obama anyway, inherently neglecting the independent and undecided voters upon which their success would be contingent.

To cap it all off, the GOP turned a campaign that in all logic should have been a manifesto on economic policy into one about abortion, women's rights and even rape.

The result? On election night, Obama handily beat Romney, winning eight of nine swing states in the process. The Democrats slightly improved their majority in the Senate and the Republican majority in the House was reduced by eight seats. The most crushing blow for the GOP was not the diminutive ground that they lost, but rather the enormous ground that they failed to gain.

But why was it that the Republicans failed to muster a suitable presidential candidate or take back a government bogged down in partisan bickering, a debt crisis and a near-stagnant economy on Obama's watch?

It wasn't because the Democrats are particularly strong, but rather because forces within and outside of the Republican Party are weakening it.

First and foremost is the Tea Party caucus within the House of Representatives.

In 2010, the GOP regained control of Congress by riding a wave of extreme conservatism and fear of government incited by the passage of Obamacare and the stimulus package.

Taking cues from the Tea Party movement that put them in power, newly anointed Speaker of the House John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took great pains to oppose anything Obama tried to do, aiming to make him a one term president.

The "Party of No" strategy worked well enough to bring Congress's approval rating to abysmal, Nickelback-ian lows and set up the financial calamity known as the Fiscal Cliff.

But in an ironic and poetically just twist of fate, the same force that brought the party to power is threatening its basic functionality two years later. The recent battle over the Fiscal Cliff is a perfect case study.

While the Democrats did argue internally, some Republican congressmen refused to vote for a deal that raised taxes, citing their allegiance to Grover Norquist's no-tax pledge when he himself said that the proposed solution would be innocuous enough to pass his test.

In the end, the cliff was avoided in part, but the Republican leadership went separate ways with their votes. Boehner and Ryan voted yea while Cantor and Florida Senator Marco Rubio voted nay. Even before the vote, the Republicans had ample opportunity to shove the spending cuts they so passionately desired into the deal, but failed to reach an agreement on how to do so before a decision was due.

Just how damaged and hapless the Republican leadership is will be tested in the impending battle over the debt ceiling crisis and sequestration. Like in 2012, the Republicans have enough political capital to make a serious mark on Washington, in this case by shaping just how much money our federal government spends in the future.

But then again, like in 2012, it's not the ideas that are holding the party back: it's the execution. It's a lack of clear leadership and unity that prevents Republicans who want to take a responsible approach to federal spending from agreeing with Republicans who want a government so small they can "drown it in the bathtub."

As anti-idealistic as it sounds, the political polarization in Washington has reached a point where bipartisan agreements aren't a goal but rather a concession. But if the Republicans want to defeat the Democrats, first they must defeat themselves.