It is hard to get groups such as the religious right and the libertarians on the same page in many cases. Many of the groups on the left simply want more money or you to vote a certain way on things like women's issues. The rest of the party platform is take it or leave it for these people. Republicans expect the whole package in every candidate. How many times during the Democratic Presidential Primary have you heard a liberal say "he's just not liberal enough for me". Almost never when compared to Republicans who always seem to be worried about how conservative their candidate is. Being a republican candidate is walking a tight rope of what is acceptable to the general public and what is acceptable to republican primary voters. What we end up with is a party platform that is a convoluted mess that allows candidates to shift from uberconservative to middle of the road without much difficulty. Republicans should stop putting their candidates through hell on how old the world is and focus on issues that people actually care about.
Wow. It's bizarre. If I understand this guy's presentation right, I'm a conservative. I think his comments on the family were right on target. Gay behavior is not the problem. Scapegoating it while doing nothing to address the underlying morass that casual marriage/divorce, living together, fathers whose role in the family ends and impregnation is just a lot of empty wind.
Mich, I'm not going to tell you it never happens. Obviously it does, or the Democratic Party would never change at all. However, I've never seen it become a major story the way it becomes a major story for the GOP. (And believe me, I'm not saying the soul searching isn't warranted. It is.)
Republicans make an easier target because the party demands much greater conformity. The party's themes and talking point don't vary a lot. There is an amazing amount of similarity in what they're talking about and what they say in the range from talk radio, to Fox, to conservative analysts in other televised media. There's even an amazing parallel between what's controversial on Fox and what gets posted on Hornfans. Railing on Democrats is much harder because they are much less organized and conformist.
