I can't believe what has happened to the political base. it's so senseless that I first thought it humorous, until I realized that the disease ran very deep in the base.
We have always differed within the base, but we always put it aside to vote in the general elections, and we did this as a minority party under much pressure during those days.
Now, things have markedly changed, with so much acidity directed by the social conservatives and the libertines (to a lesser degree)directly toward the WRONG targets!
Rather than take on their counterpart legitimate enemy within the Democrat base, they chose to direct their fire at the base and it's supporting political structure. They have essentially sawed off the limb that they were sitting on, and now blame the tree. They do this in the name of the Constitution, principle, God and victory for the Founder's, much is the same vain as any radical element that gets involved in a political fight. As such, political history, common sense and compromise are the first casualties in the fight.
The problem with this sort of thinking, is that it has never worked. It has always resulted in defeat, and is very hard to come back from. (just ask the Dem's)
IMO, it is all academic at this point. This political base will require total remodeling and reconstruction, and this will take a few election cycles to accomplish. The problem is that we have not yet hit bottom, and will be forced to endure this cycle before the 2008 smack-down. For those of us who have watched this develop and tried to stop it for years, the next two years will be very painful.
Yeah, I've seen your intellectual-sounding arguments for "remodeling" conservatism out of the Republican Party before.
Can you say "Whigs?"
Contrast that with 1960 when the party was mostly folks whose families had voted Republican since the Civil War with main street and country club conservatives thrown in, and was a chronic minority in Congress that had not elected a real conservative President since Coolidge.