Is the GOP Falling Apart?

One of the dangers of writing a blog is that you'll eventually wind up
repeatting yourself. And I do -- often. But that's because so many
things bear repeating. So here it goes -- in a two party system, both
parties are, by necessity, coalition parties. I think this is extremely
important to remember when you're talking about american politics. Both
the Republican and Democratic parties represent more than one school of
thought and, therefore, represent more than one constituency who
believe their issue is the most important issue in the world.

What
the Republican Party is doing right now is relearning that fact. After
six years of pretending to stand for one thing -- and that one thing
being the neocon utopian vision -- they're finding that not everyone in
the party agrees. The fiscal conservatives were happy enough with tax
cuts -- until the spending got seriously out of control. The hawks were
happy with the war -- until mission creep set in, the objectives became
vague, and it started going south. And, as I've pointed out again and
again, the religious conservatives have been happy with the rhetoric --
until it became clear that there'd never be any actual action on their
issues.

There are more in the GOP coalition -- the global free
marketeers, the libertarian-minded, the gun nuts, the corporate
stooges, the talk radio brainwashed, etc. And each group thinks they're
the real Republicans and everyone else is merely an ally...

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