You are exactly right about coalitions and your analysis is dead on later in the blog. But don’t confuse contempt for Fifth Columnists who actively seek to hurt the party with the tribalism you aptly described. The Frums and Parkers have marginalized themselves without any real help.

“Why do we enclave so well and why don’t we do “join” well? Even more to the point, why do Democrats seem to avoid this problem?”

Because in the end Democrats are after only one thing and care about only one thing, “controlling the power.”
Republicans actually have issues that are important to them and
tend to stick to their guns over those issues. i.e.abortion

Intro to Federalist Papers; section 5;
paragraph 4.
“…dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the zeal for a firm and efficient government.”

I’m an embarrassment to Barack!

I only scored 17 on the Obama Test

And I completely agree.

Most of the differences our groups fight over are minor compared to our similarities. We need to learn to discuss the issues that separate us without destroying the relationship.

That said, it might be instructive to state who we SHOULD toss out.

There are a couple of groups that I won’t tolerate in my party. The first are the racists groups. They have NO place here and never have. I got banned from KOS a few weeks ago for stating that the Republican party doesn’t tolerate racist groups. One of the kids tried to prove me wrong by linking to David Duke claiming he’d take 90% of the party away because we selected Steele to lead the party. It’s laughable to us, but the kids actually seem to believe it.

The second group are the socialists. I think they flock to the Democrats anyway. I think some of this group are teachable, so I try to change their ideology rather than shun them, but still, allowing socialism as an ideology in my party is not acceptable.

Socialism doesn’t work. It looks nice on paper, but it’s been tried and it’s failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

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If you stick to the core principles of Conservatism, and stop trying to be all to everyone, we will win. The Paultards don’t compromise. I’ve recently had discussions with some of them on another site. I asked the simple question, if a good Conservative candidate didn’t subscribe to their non-interventionalist Foreign Policy, would they still vote for that Canservative Candidate. The answer overwhelmingly was NO, they would not compromise THEIR principles. They have formed a new group called Campaign for Liberty. They have chapters in all states but Georgia, and have over 66,000 members, and are growing. They have infiltrated Republican sites, and are trying to enlist members from Republican sites. That is another divisive tactic, and can only peel away and split the Republicans further. Also, the Huckabee supporters are Social Conservatives, and are also unwilling to compromise their principles, as you have said, abortion is their single issue, they don’t know or care that Huckabee is not a true Conservative.

If the Republicans stuck to their core principles, vetted candidates as to their views on those core principles, and voted based on the core principles, we would have a better chance of winning. When you try to be everything to everyone, the message is diluted, and no one knows for sure what they are getting when they vote. We have to stand up for something, and stick to it.

does everyone with a word processor believe they have that one piece of insightful knowledge that will make the GOP the majority party again? This is getting to the point of being tiresome, and lord knows its entertainment value has become nil.

If memory serves me one Dem Vice Presidential Candidate was banished for not towing party line. In this case the War in Iraq but perhaps this was because the issue was embraced by all or most Dem splinter groups.

conservative meant believing in all those “cons”.As a member of the Young Americans for Freedom fighting on campus against the SDS in the late 60’s coonservatism meant believing in liberty,protected by a limited government and a strong national defense that shouted, ‘Don’t mess with me”.We were also traditional moralists,anti-abortion and pro prayer in schools.We held firm to economic principles that furthered liberty and the pursuit of happiness-low taxes and fiscal restraint.And we had communism as the perfect foil to crusade against.There were no single issue conservatives-our policiy choices were determined by our political philosophy.We were determined to win the battle for supremacy in the GOP because we knew that would be the perfect vehicle for advancing our agenda and philosophy.Along came Ronald Reagan,the perfect choice to lead our cause.Perfect because he above all others could so eloquently articulate the principles of conservatism and make them understood by more than just the right wing intelligentsia.And we enjoyed our triumphant conservative ascendancy in the eighties,riding on the wave of double landslide victories.When it was over we were left with a vacuum-filled by the Bush family,and a Republican Congress corrupted by the perks of big-government.The GOP fell apart,and fueled by the mainstream media,the American center blamed conservatives by association.What has ensued is nothing more than the cannibilization of the conservative movement.The leadership vacuum has resulted in both political candidates and pundits struggling for either direct or indirect influence,and willing to use their signature issue to obtain it.Power corrupts,power trumps principle.And until another Reagan comes along as a standard bearer for conservative thought made action we are lost.Moderates will reign in the GOP,and Democrats will rule the nation.

Do you believe that the federal government must be reduced to the size and scope defined for it in the constitution?

If so, then you believe that:

Roe V Wade should be overturned, and the abortion question left to be fought in the states.

The federal government should not be involved with either promoting OR restricting free exercise of religion.

The federal government has no business running the nation’s education or health care or retirement systems.

The federal government has no business making laws restricting our freedom to own or use guns.

Every “earmark” is completely invalid - there is no possible constitutional reason for the federal government to spend money on programs that benefit only tiny subsets of the population.

If the federal government were spending 3% of GDP primarily on defense, there would be far less corruption.

Bottom line - if we focus on this ONE THING - reducing the power of the federal government - then almost all Republicans and conservatives, and even the (mostly libertarian) Ron Paul supporters, can find common ground. (Of course, the Specters and the Snows of the party who sell out our one common principle by siding with the spenders on enormous wasteful appropriations bills are welcome to GET THE H*** OUT.)

I think if people understood how and why the Fundamentals of Conservatism really benefits their other concerns, they’d be easier to bring on board.

SoCons, for example — MOST of the GOP is anti-abortion, but many either just don’t care that much about the gay issue or believe (as I do) that at best, it is a state issue. SoCons, however, want somebody who is both anti-abortion AND willing to put it on the line for a Defense fo Marriage amendment that honestly has NO real chance at making it into the Constitution. Many of us understand immediately why, A, this would never work and, B, shouldn’t be a plank in the GOP platform, but we’re just not that good at convincing our fellow Conservatives on the subject.

The other thing I think we forget is that most members of the GOP really are SO close in most aspects, politically, that even if a pet issue doesn’t get attention right away, by supporting the Republican Party, you can at least make sure your issue doesn’t get the WRONG attention.

We were right, I think, to hammer the issue of SCOTUS during the election — and I think that needs to remain a part of the Republican conversation. That’s part of what the Dems did as well: reminded party members that, at least, Obama wouldn’t HURT their pet issues, even if he didn’t deal with them directly.

I do but if Burger King stopped serving them I probably wouldn’t eat there anymore.They would not be able to tempt me with a tofu burger either because it’s not really a hamburger now is it….?
I do not see the problem so much that Republicans do not “join well” as much as I see it as a leadership problem that isn’t the fault of the base.

If the GOP wants people who consider themselves to be conservative then they need to show them a little loyalty once in a while if they wish to receive their vote or their money.
If all the Republicans run on a platform that is similar to the DNC then it doesn’t really matter who you vote for because in the end you get the same result.

Our last candidate was a man who was not the first choice of the majority of the party but somehow he got the nod.
Was that our fault?I didn’t pick the guy and everybody groaned when he was picked.
It just wasn’t a smart move.
We all liked Sarah Palin now didn’t we and quite frankly she was the only reason that most people came out to vote for McCain.

The GOP can’t keep pulling the old bait and switch maneuver on it’s base and still expect it’s support.As a Republican and a conservative guy I expect certain things from the party and the national candidate.
They need to give me a reason to vote for them.

Why do Democrats seem to understand that if they want to be elected they need to run to the right ?We all know they are lying and so does their base but they peel off GOP votes then screw us.For some reason the GOP seems to think that they need to run to the left to get elected.They screw us before the election.They don’t even have the courtesy to tell us a lie.
It’s as if they try to throw us a bachelor party and then a drag queen jumps out of the cake and wants to sit on our lap and take away the beer.
We’re not interested.
My point is simple.
If we don’t get what we want for our vote or our money then what is the point of supporting the GOP?
Telling the voters “elect me and then I will screw you over” is not a winning strategy.

It seems to me the left had a simple, primary cause…”Hate Bush”. They could march lots of people with uniformed views behind that banner. And they could wrap their myriad issues up with that cause (Bush’s War, Bush wasn’t really the president, Bush is castigated in the pop culture, etc.)

I’m aware of many important causes on our side…your post pointed them out as key causes for individual coalitions. What is the simple, primary cause for our side which ties the coalitions together? And what brings along those voters with fleeting attention paid to politics?

I think part of our “problem” (if that’s the word to use) is that, given our respect for history, we give deference to what works and what doesn’t. All of the silly talk about “change in government” implies “new ideas for government”. I don’t believe there’s many “new ideas” for government…only old, and older ones. Consider the pop culture’s penchant for change/new/different..and how that’s somehow always better. Conservatives continue to defend and/or fight for solutions that have worked for 100s or 1000s of years. How boring is that?!?

The rise and fall of movements in America follows a predictable pattern. One party coalesces around a movement, and then rises to power on the excesses of the other party and the discrediting of their movement. Once in power, they consolidate, become overconfident, and commit their own excesses. In due time, they too are replaced.

When that happens, the movement goes through an initial period of denial, where they yearn for the glory days of their success. Part of this denial is a continued insistence on ideological purity. Instead of becoming more inclusive, they become less inclusive, hoping that a return to their past positions will bring renewed success. Eventually they realize they must rebuild a new coalition. The time it takes to reach this realization determines how long they will be effectively marginalized.

We saw this pattern with the Democrats in the last 20 years. During the Clinton years, the “new Democrats” found a politically successful formula for a (relatively) pro-business centrist Democratic coalition. When they lost power in 2000, their initial reaction was to retreat into ideological purity. Hence radical green Al Gore and anti-military former hippie John Kerry as their candidates in 2000 and 2004.

When they finally realized they had to build a coaltion to regain power, they stopped fighting over ideological purity and produced a slate of candidates who appear to be reasonable, non-ideological, and centrist, led by a presidential candidate who did a magnificent job of concealing his core leftist philosophy under a veneer of centrism..

The cycle will continue. What goes around comes around. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are helpfully hurrying it along by badly overplaying their hand on spending and taxes. We have a winning formula with fiscal responsibility and arresting the role of the federal government in our society. However, as long as we are more focused on who we cast out of the party than on who we bring in, we will not be able to shift the balance of power. We need to quickly get beyond the denial stage and accept that what was before, is no more.

of everyone having their “pet issue” if life weren’t so comparatively luxurious as it has been over the last 40 years or so. I look at countries such as Iraq, beaten down and held hostage for 30 years or more, and I see what their new-found freedom means to them, or to any number of countries that were previously dominated by the USSR.

Were we to have our freedom and prosperity so sharply curtailed, as it looks as if we might, then some of these issues would, of necessity, fall by the wayside in their importance as we joined together to fight for our freedom once more.

In other words, we’ve been living large for too long. Time to get leaner and meaner, if not by choice, then by necessity.

I wrote along similar lines last week (http://www.redstate.com/praying/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=29) and got 35 comments similar to the above - the only thing it seems we can passionately agree on is our disagreement!! People! Wake up! While we are bickering on the sidelines, the liberals are hijacking the country. To communism! Ronald Reagan said that if the 80% of the GOP could agree on any issue, that was fine by him. And it worked then, it can work now. No one is saying throw away your principles. Just be a little more tolerant of the fringe on one issue - those people may be your greatest supporters on the other issues!

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Republican single issue voters, though, are often offended by expectations of compromise even amongst their own. The slightest move to the wrong side of the line is enough to end associations in a huff. Those principles, or that principle is the Raison d’être, the end all, be all of the matter. Any association that does not pass the litmus test is quickly ended, often vehemently. All too often, the art of compromise amongst our own is eschewed for hidebound insistence on near-term goals.

First, compromise is a good and necessary thing, as long as the core principles are not violated. Which, of course, makes compromising a hard thing to do. It also makes it hard to trust the other factions in the part, if you fear they will compromise your actions in regards to your one issue. Even if you can find common ground on the smaller issues, if your one big issue is in danger of being shaped into something you disagree with, you are less likely to want to form coalitions.

The core problem Conservatives face is the fact we base our beliefs and policies on principal. I look across the aisle and I don’t see Liberals standing on principal very often - I see them stand on emotional stakes. In my opinion, it is easier for their factions to join because it’s at an emotional level, not a principled one.

and to WTH, if we do not purge the RINO spenders and power grabbers, we will forever be in this cycle of being open to hijack and then failure in important elections

What good is a politician who will not vote with his or her party on an issue that is part of the core of the party. Those politicians should have been driven out (through nonsupport at the state and national RNC level) long ago.

I strongly believe that we must have candidates who will support the party platform. Perhaps Reagan was right. 80% might be enough. I know that 20% will not suffice.

As one who believes that words mean something, I believe in the party platform. However, there have been times in the last 20 years that I have not wanted to be identified with the party because the so-called leaders of the party have oft times decided they did not want to be identified with me.

the Democrat party as united, but they are not. Even now the cracks in their temporary coalition are growing. The squishy middle is beginning to perceive the bill of goods the MSM sold them in the last election.

Some of our problem stems from the fact that we have our fights in public, whereas they still (for the most part) meet in closed door sessions for their knife fights. We had a multitude of viable conservative candidates running against one maverick last election. The Democrats had two contenders and a lot of hangers on. Their contenders reasonably quickly eliminated the hangers on and got down to a one-on-one fight. Yeah, their party rules drug it out for forever, but once you got into March, their hangers on were pretty much gone. On our side, it never came down to a one-on-one match. It was a bar brawl until the sheriff showed up and awarded it to McCain on points. I suspect that if any one of the conservative candidates alone would have been up against McCain (even Huckabee) McCain would not have won.

your points are well taken but where I see a problem…and you obviously do by continuously bring SoCons up is in the fact that SoCons by and large agree with the whole package of conservative thought with some notable exceptions and you do a good job pointing that out…SoCons for the most part can agree with most of the separate elements in the party except the most radical leftists on social issues and the radical libertarians…(and I find myself leaning largely toward even radical Libertarians).

Where the problem arises as I see it, is in the other elements in the party that are embarrassed to be associated with the unwashed masses in the SoCon community and demand that we all shut up and tow the line.

There is plenty of blame to go around to be sure…but I don’t see how a lack of compromise has caused the problems we now face:

SoCons have soldiered on for 36 years and we still have abortion on demand, we still have GOD being driven from our schools with a switch, we still have the federal government regulating what can be said from America’s pulpits and we are still treated like the crazy aunt in the attic like we were this year by McCain and his clowns.

Those of us who agree on limited government and sound fiscal policy have soldiered on as well…yet we still see government grow exponentially and we’re facing trillion dollar deficits already with trillion dollar Tarp II and Stimulus II waiting to be brought up soon! Yet we’re faced with having Specter Snowe and Collins voting with Democrats to help them pass their agenda while giving a couple Democrats from Fiscally Conservative States cover to vote against it.

Those of us who agree on Foreign Policy get to sit back and watch Chuck Hagel, Dick Lugar and a cabal of liberal internationalists insisting we give our national sovereignty over to an organization run by third world dictators and despots who hate us as even declare our imminent loss of wars vital to our national security and always ready to kiss the Democrats rings on foreign policy and national defense…

Lack of compromise to my mind isn’t the problem…and ideological purity hasn’t been tried so I don’t see how that’s an issue! (GOD I wish it had been tried over the last four years).

What I see as the problem in this Party and I know I never fail to point it out…is the fifth column in our midst set up specifically to drag our Party to the left on every issue that can be imagined forming organizations within the Party to thwart the will of the majority of the Party!

You’ve got the Log Cabin Republicans, Republicans for Choice, Pro Choice Republicans, etc that are there specifically to thwart the vast majority of the party who are culturally conservative and insist on attack traditional values voters at every turn.

We’ve got the RMSP who is there to not only thwart the will of the Culturally conservative segment of the Party but are also made up of Big Government Liberals who see no problem in expanding government and see those of us enraged by earmarks and pork laden trash like the so called stimulus package as enemies and ignorant peasants to be squashed!

The Democrats always advance the ball against us because they never quit on any issue…Thy enforce ideological purity within their ranks and drive dissenters out like Lieberman and Miller. They wait for the outrage about legislation they lose on to die and bring it back 2, 4, or 12 years later…they keep the press working on our weakest ideologues toll they wear them down and end up passing their agenda with Republican’s help…It’s time that stopped and those that leave the reservation are invited to leave if they can’t or won’t cooperate with the majority of us who are against them!

That said, I like your point:

….we need to make better coalitions. If the Constitutionalists can team up with the Social Cons and make a more powerful coalition than the Neocons and the country clubbers, then let the stronger lead the pack and the weaker acquiesce, happy for a seat at the table, until such time as another coalition wins the upper hand.

And I agree with it…but so long as the groups and leaders I mentioned above insist on forming up and building coalitions designed to stand in the way of our electoral success and stop the Democrat’s long term march to drive us into a socialist oblivion…I will continue to fight with every fiber of my being to drive them into the ground!

I’ll never again be browbeaten and nagged into voting for a Dole or McCain by the canard that a vote against one of them is a vote for a Clinton or an Obama…The days of “My party right or wrong, my party do or die are” done for me

The “Big Tent” analogy isn’t the correct one…the correct one is a MAGNET…we need to be a MAGNET that draws these independents in who are sick and tired of what’s going on in Washington—Fred Thompson

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