GOP = Intellectual Salad
One thing that I think separates the 2008 Republican field from the Democratic field is intellectual diversity represented among the Republicans. For example, in watching yesterday's GOP debate (which I missed), DELiberal blogger donviti opines "Ron Paul is like that Sesame Street tune One of these guys is not like the other, How the hell is he up there?"
Makes perfect sense to me. Ron Paul has a strong libertarian streak to him, and libertarians have been a part of the GOP coalition since the 1950s. The fact that Ron Paul can share a bid with John McCain and Tom Tancredo says a lot about the intellectual strength of the GOP. There are many schools of thought within the Republican Party, though most are still unified under the basic tenets of "smaller government is better government" and "America is the greatest country on earth." (Obviously I am reducing these ideas to bumper sticker proportions, it is a bit more complex than that.)
I can sit here and write a too-long post about each of the major schools of right-leaning thought (oh wait, I did that already) and then categorize each Republican candidate, but that doesn't seem all that productive because it isn't that difficult to figure out. What's interesting to me is that I can't to this for the Democratic field.
While I freely admit this could because I am just really ignorant in my knowledge of center-left philosophy, I suspect this is because there aren't really that many divergent "schools" within the Democratic establishment. I know that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have different positions on some issues, but I can't tell you why like I can with the GOPers.
Any explanations for this?
Makes perfect sense to me. Ron Paul has a strong libertarian streak to him, and libertarians have been a part of the GOP coalition since the 1950s. The fact that Ron Paul can share a bid with John McCain and Tom Tancredo says a lot about the intellectual strength of the GOP. There are many schools of thought within the Republican Party, though most are still unified under the basic tenets of "smaller government is better government" and "America is the greatest country on earth." (Obviously I am reducing these ideas to bumper sticker proportions, it is a bit more complex than that.)
I can sit here and write a too-long post about each of the major schools of right-leaning thought (oh wait, I did that already) and then categorize each Republican candidate, but that doesn't seem all that productive because it isn't that difficult to figure out. What's interesting to me is that I can't to this for the Democratic field.
While I freely admit this could because I am just really ignorant in my knowledge of center-left philosophy, I suspect this is because there aren't really that many divergent "schools" within the Democratic establishment. I know that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have different positions on some issues, but I can't tell you why like I can with the GOPers.
Any explanations for this?
Labels: 2008 Watch, Conservaism
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