Most of us will probably agree that the 2008 elections are shaping up differently than those in 2000 and 2004. Many Democrats are distancing themselves from Bill Clinton's politics (and his wife) - inconceivable just a short time ago. Republicans have lost their normal cohesiveness, and don't have a candidate that they can all get behind. Something is definitely happening these days, and both parties are reshaping themselves.

So far this time around, I haven't heard much about the old standards - abortion, gun control, flag-burning, prayer in schools, welfare reform, social security, Israel, etc. Maybe it's because those things pale in comparison to our actual problems (Iraq and the economy), or maybe those are no longer the issues that separate Republicans from Democrats.

So, what does each party stand for this time around? What is each party's rock-solid foundation principle, and what are the secondary issues that fill out the platforms?

What should those be for each party (at least if they want to win the presidency)?

So, what does each party stand for this time around? What is each party's rock-solid foundation principle, and what are the secondary issues that fill out the platforms?

I don't think we can say at this point. It all depends on who the nominee is.

On the Democratic side, if Obama is the nominee, the party mantra will be "Change we can believe in". The focus will be on shaking up how we do things in Washington. The question will be: can he get it done?

If Hillary is the nominee, the Democrats will stand as a return to the Clinton era. They will de-emphasize the partisan nature of the Clinton administration and focus on how good things were (from their point of view). They will try their best to stamp out the image that instead of the secretary sleeping with the boss, it will be the secretary sleeping with the boss's husband...BIG difference.

For McCain, I think his focus will be Islamic terrorists. It's all he ever talks about and I am really starting to doubt he can win in the general election.

For Romney the focus will be on fixing Washington. I'm actually beginning to hope for a Romney/Obama matchup because they both are strumming similar fiddles: Washington needs to be fixed. Romney does have experience turning around bad situations (the Olympics, private companies) while Obama talks a good game but has no experience at doing it. Both are true outsiders to Washington.

What should those be for each party (at least if they want to win the presidency)?

This is a broad question and varies with each candidate. I think Obama's course is the closest to the best one. Focus on change, wiggle out of giving details. Washington needs change, does that mean doing away with some of the Nanny state programs we have or doing more of the same? Who knows?

Clinton must become more likeable or else the partisanship will simply elevate over her term (if she wins). Even some Democrats cringe at the thought of Clinton II.

McCain would be the candidate most helped if some sort of Islamic attack occurs between now and November. His sole focus is foreign policy, which may doom him in these uncertain economic times. He needs to readjust his focus for the general election.

Romney's change mantra must get out to more people. What is he going to change? How is he going to do it? No idea here, but he does have experience fixing broken organizations.

1.) Well there's a full dictionary definition, but that would be long and boring since most people know it. I have to agree that it deals mostly with the individual running under the guise of that party moreso than what the party believes.

2.) Each party needs a strong economic policy. Republicans should be, well: Conservative. While Democrats need to be Liberal. In a perfect world, each party would have strong stances on social programs and anti-corruption laws.

I would agree, and point out that that means that neither party therefore has any 'rock solid foundation principle'. Such a foundation wouldn't sway depending on who the nominee was. Well, it does indicate that the the 'rock-solid foundation principle' of either party is 'say whatever you think stands the best chance of getting you elected'. Not sure you'll see that on any of their campaign stickers, though.

What should those be for each party (at least if they want to win the presidency)?

Ahh, that last part is the kicker, isn't it? Consider the Republican Party. What they should be for is addressing the looming entitlement funding crisis. Will doing that get them elected? Given the national yawn over this issue, not likely. It is that last part that leads to their being no 'rock-solid foundation principles', but instead a series of 'what sounds good now'? Kind of the antithesis of principles, and more like sand dunes flowing with the wind than solid rock.

Seems that each just makes sure they oppose anything said by the other. I have been watching the slow movement by the "Elites" of both parties to poison the current lead candidates. Resentment towards Clinton and McCain is almost visceral--well in McCain's case it is. The professional conservatives (Hannity, Limbaugh, coulter) Are treating McCain like he is bill Clinton himself. Coulter's comparison of Mac vs Hilary was hilarious. The Dems are trying to be subtle--but failing. There is a very large movement to raise Obama and Kill the Clintons off without giving the GOP too much actual material to use if Hilary gets the nod.

Turnea's Reagan thread is a great indicator of where the parties are today. I swear bush is a 60's democrat before the push hard left. How McCain could harm "conservatism" any worse than Dubya is beyond my comprehension. Where is the world headed when Democrats seem fiscally responsible.
Consider the derision of the hard right towards Guliani, McCain and the Govenator. They were great examples when Bush and Rove needed any help they could get getting the second term. "C'mon in Liberals, Moderates and Fiscal Only Conservatives. Its a BIG tent"....
Now they are just run of the mill 'liberals' lying in wait to destroy the GOP from within.

I think we have become a tired and worn nation. The politics of today was fresh in the 30's for the left and the 80's for the right. Both sides need to bust the mold and rethink everything they pursue.

1. So, what does each party stand for this time around? What is each party's rock-solid foundation principle, and what are the secondary issues that fill out the platforms?

Actually, listing the differences as though they were discrete positions is virtually meaningless to me. Though the pundits, politicians, talk show hosts, news programs all continue in this vein, it has become apparent that a conservative's position on issues can only be determined relative to the liberal's position (and vice-versa).

I believe however in order to have a conversation about those relative positions it is important to accept the reality (IMO) that the country continues to move steadily towards a more socialist and secularist state. Of course, there continues to be loud opposition against this dynamic (my voice included) though in the long run it will not make the difference. Hence, you'll hear Bush and others labeled (at least fiscally) the "liberals" of 40 yrs ago. And so now, a republican spends like an old-school democrat and a democrat spends like some of our more socialist allies across the pond. Or a republican's take on social morality reads like the democrat's playbook from 20, 30, 40 yrs ago?

Through this increasingly liberal socialist/secularist lens one can begin to stake out the "relative" territory of each party. In other words, fewer and fewer rock solid repubs speak out against abortion. Instead, they are now the party of "less" lattitude when determing legal circumstances for the procedure. Gun control? "Less" restrictions. Prayer in schools? OK, we won't call it prayer - we'll call it 5-minute meditation time (watered-down label for prayer). Welfare reform? Well, let's not kick "too many" off the roles "too quickly". And so on, and so on....

2. What should those be for each party (at least if they want to win the presidency)?

Here are the three primary themes that should seperate the dems from repubs:

*Social/Moral Issues: dems want less government involvement and repubs want more.

*Fiscal Issues: dems want more government spending on behalf of the whole and repubs want less.

*National Defense: dems want a less interventionist stance and repubs want more.

Interestingly, I have to believe both parties of "yester-year" would be thunderstruck at what their respective party seeks to get away with in this election.

Excellent post, Vanguard! I hadn't really thought of the current flux in both parties in those terms before, but I agree we are headed in that direction, and it does indeed explain the difficulties the parties are having defining themselves--particularly the Republicans. I wanted to highlight one particular thing you stated:



Although these trends have been discussed multiple times here at (and elsewhere), I hadn't seen them phrased so succinctly before. Note the schism for the Repubs here. To maintain a consistent stance, one should either be in favor of more government, or less. Now, it appears, it depends on the particular issue. For myself, I don't make the distinction--I believe in less government regardless of the issue. Hence my disaffection with the current Republican party and platform, one which is shared by millions of others. This is the dilemma the Republican party must solve. The interesting thing will be which side of the fence here they fall on...catering to the fiscal Repubs while giving lip service to the social Repubs, or visa versa. They can't really fully support both groups, but need both sets of votes.

Good post Vanguard.


As a fiscal conservative who stopped voting republican specifically because of the Social republicans, I would vote dumping the social conservatives. The largest blocs of independents generally seem to run more towards the libertarian types to the greater or lesser degree. The social conservatives already show a wide range as they split between the 3 current candidates. I think Huckabee shows a dangerous trend from social conservatives. Label it under "faith based" themes and big government is acceptable. I think the Democrats have FINALLY realized this and are going to effectively drain away a lot of the social conservative types. I would be bold enough to say from the south. The catholic mold of social conservative has always been socialist leaning.
A far wider group now is available that wants government out of their lives. I think the liberty minded Independents are today's Christian Right as far as a powerful voting bloc to be gained. Where Reagan redesigned the playing field by going after the Christian right i think a smart GOP candidate could do the same with libertarians and moderates.

The Dems I fully believe are targeting the Christian right, while they will never get the die hard anti abortionists and those who hate gay marriage, I think they can bleed off enough with faith based style government programs to start sucking away the GOP's numbers. They had better hope its Hilary because I do believe that Obama can make socialism sound cool again. The GOP's failure to even approach small government and their willingness to legislate morality have busted Reagan's three legged stool.

It just doesn't work over the long run to say "I feel your pain but its your own fault and you deserve your pain and we a'int going to help you out at all" The Dems offer of aid is just too suggestive to people in need after awhile. Doesn't matter if it is a mortgage with a crippling adjustable rate at the end. As recent history clearly shows people are going to start signing on the dotted line. Give America a Kennedyesque voice to promote it and the Dems will dominate for so long there will be nothing left when the chance to unseat them rises again.

It is 1980 again and the Democrats have their Reagan and he may get the nomination. The GOP has a Dukakis and a Ted Kennedy.

I don't think it is as cut and dry as this. For you, government should be smaller/less intrusive, but that does not mean it is inconsistent for someone else's stance to include the possibility of a larger or more intrusive government if that is needed to fulfill their view of ideal government.

As a broad issue: crime. I don't think that being soft on crime is in most self-identified conservatives view of being a conservative. Being tough on crime means having more police officers, enforcing certain laws more vigorously, and so on. More government intrusion (from a certain point of view) but certainly this would be within the conservative world view.

Another issue: abortion. Many if not most conservatives see this as a freedom/liberty issue. Not the freedom of the mother, but the freedom of the unborn to have life. If it requires government intervention to provide an innocent a chance as taking their first breath, then so be it. Again, this is completely within the conservative agenda in the freedom category.

Conservatives for the most part do not believe that government has no role. But it should be a limited role of protecting individuals from aggressors, both internal (crime, abortion) and external (which is why most conservatives advocate a strong military and foreign policy).

Conservatism, to me, is limited government which does play a significant role in the areas where it is agreed (via the Constitution) that it should have power. It does not automatically mean smaller government or less government intrusion in all areas.

Amlord, all valid points. Let me rephrase and point out what I think the issue the Repubs face is. Those issues that social conservatives tend to view as important (abortion, gay rights/sanctity of marriage, etc), tend to be much less important to those in the fiscal conservative camp. Now, it is possible to cater to those interests while still maintaining fiscal conservatism, thus pleasing both groups. However, recently the Republican party has lost all connection with fiscal conservatism, leaving only those issues that aren't so important to that group. This leaves little for fiscal conservatives to support. I don't see the current set of candidates bridging both of these groups, meaning the party is going to have to choose between them. If you look at recent history, you can see that, in fact, they've already made that choice, and fiscal conservatism lost out. It will take some doing to get them back in their camp. The only thing they currently have going for them is that both of the Democratic candidates tend to have a pretty liberal streak in them, leaving fiscal conservatives no where else to go.

I think the fiscal conservatives are in a bind.

McCain did not support the Bush tax cuts, although he is anti-pork. Huckabee keeps saying he wants to hang a "going out of business" sign on the doors of the IRS. Romney has actually run successful businesses and turned around failing operations, including the Olympics. [Before the whining hits I will add that Ron Paul is not viable and not viewed as a serious option by 90% of the country.]

Of course, most Republicans are not strictly fiscal conservatives alone, they are usually either defense conservatives or social conservatives as well, giving them some more meat to weight their options with.

Social conservatives are likely to go to Huckabee or McCain. Defense conservatives are most likely in the McCain camp.

So you have a triangle of these three conservative values and each candidate has their strength (if we give Romney the fiscal conservative crowd via his business skills). Which means a three way race with people on the fence leaning towards the guy they think can win. That seems to be McCain.

I think that's a very fair analysis since the Bush Administration has managed to divide its own party by way of managing the war in Iraq. Defense conservatives probably made up the core of Guiliani's support and has now given McCain the edge he needed in Super Tuesday, and he draws in some of the more moderate Social Conservatives. I think it's important to remember that Fiscal Conservatives are more likely than not to flock to Romney because of his big-business record.

By way of liberals, I think the same classification of Defense Liberal could've gone to Joe Biden for his foreign policy experience and his earlier positions on the war in Iraq.

The presidential election is going to define these parties for at least the nxt couple of post-Bush election cycles. So what I'm seeing are two parties co-opting each other's ideas, and presenting independent, ideologically flexible candidates to the American public. With McCain at the helm, there are only two wedge issues in this election: Universal Health Care, and the war. The wedge issues of the past 20 years are over.

The attempts of certain faith groups to write an amendment banning gay marriage have been spoiled again and again.

The attempts of certain mayors, governors, and gay rights activists to legalize gay marriage or civil unions have been spoiled, again and again.

The attempts of certain "pro-family" groups to censor TV -- the so-called censorship wars -- have been fought to a stalemate. The FCC has fined radio stations and TV outlets as much as they can feasibly can, yet sex, drugs, and violence still rule on America's airwaves. In fact, a reuters study recently concluded that the number of drug/alcohol references in popular music has more than doubled since the 1980s.

Roe V. Wade will not be overturned -- not during this supreme court, and neither of the plausible next presidents would appoint judges likely to overturn it. With every election cycle that passes, Roe V. Wade sounds less like a radical ruling, and the label 'activist judges' increasingly seems to apply to those judges who would overturn it.

Global warming is accepted science, no matter how many exaggerations Al Gore made in his movie. No matter how silly and pious Hollywood liberals get over the issue, it is an increasingly bi-partistan issue.

With John McCain as the GOP frontrunner, it is no longer politically feasible to defend the use of interrogative torture, or waterboarding.

Social security will never be privatized. Bush semi-tried, he failed.

After several election cycles, McCain - Feingold is an embedded feature on the American political landscape.

The federal government is too bogged down in Iraq and a massive budgetary crisis to seriously consider the mass deportation of America's illegal immigrants. America's mayors have shown clearly that they are not in the business of deporting illegal immigrants. They are in the business of fighting crime, which requires police cooperation with illegal immigrants.

Nobody talks about welfare anymore. Whatever controversy surrounded the issue post-Clinton, was swept off the table by 9/11.

Democrats are about as invested in the reconstruction of New Orleans as republicans which is to say, not very.

I could go on.

What's remarkable is that, at least for the time being, none of these age old, divisive, party-defining issues are going anywhere. The top tier candidates shelved these issues to focus on the economy, Iraq, health care, Anyone noticed that the dem debates have been pretty repetitive? No talk of gay marriage, abortion, affirmative action or welfare. Just Iraq, the economy, and health care. Mitt Romney and John Edwards have very different beliefs about the role of the federal government, but both have been more or less rejected by their own party.

We are left with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, three candidates whose defining feature is their willingness to break with their own party. Only one of those candidates could be considered 'divisive,' and she is as much of a centrist as the democrats have aside from Joe Lieberman. Only one of those candidates could be considered 'liberal,' and his primary campaign promise isn't universal pre-K, or socialized medicine, but a promise to work with republicans and independents.

I think the days of partisan dogma are waning, at least on the presidential level. The reason partisan personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are fuming about John McCain isn't because of his amnesty bill or his campaign finance reform. It's because their jobs are at stake. The silent majority has spoken, and they have rejected the Edwards's and the Romneys of this cycle and chosen the Obamas and McCains.

When have Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama "broken with their party"? Clinton's vote on Iraq? The one in which she joined half the Democrats on?

Obama and Clinton both want some form of universal (i.e. socialized) medicine. Obama is definitely trying for a more universal appeal by being short on details (at least in his speeches). Clinton would be, by far, the most divisive President of the three.


Huh? There isn't any landslide for McCain. Yes, he has gotten a larger share of votes than the others, but he has not won a clear majority of Republicans. Who is this "silent majority"?

McCain got only 41% of the vote in California. His big wins came in liberal states which he has virtually no hope of carrying in November: New York (51%) New Jersey (55%) Connecticut (52%). Heck, he got less than 50% in his home state of Arizona among Republicans. He certainly has more support than the other Republicans running, but he certainly has not wowed me with any runaway victories. Romney has won three states with 60% or more of the votes (Utah, Wyoming, Colorado) and three more with 50% or more (Nevada, Maine, Massachussets). This shows that the party is divided, not that any "silent majority" (who apparently don't constitute more than 50%...) has spoken.

I'm glad that the Democrats rejected Edwards the class warfare candidate. I wish the party as a whole would reject the "us against them" mentality, but that doesn't drum up votes I guess.

How about Kyl-Lieberman? Or her refusal to set a date for troop withdrawal -- she's all but openly admitted that the US will keep troops in Iraq at least until her second term.

It took her only 6, 7 years to break with the left wing of her party on three of the biggest issues: Iran, Iraq, and troop withdrawal. That's pretty impressive.

Not to mention her husband: Mr. Welfare Reform, The Era Of Big Government is Over Bill Clinton. The guy who gave us "Big Business Democrats."

The Clintons have been aggravating their party's base since Bill ran against Paul Tsongas. They are the model of centrist, corporate democrats, something we liberals strategically forget since they are also the only democrats who have been able to win presidential elections in the past 30 years.

Barack Obama? How about his agreement to launch a strike into Pakistan if necessary? Not exactly your moveon.org position. Or his support for the Peruvian free trade agreement -- not exactly your union worker-pleasing vote. His support for higher fuel standards is offensive to voters in the UAW, and his support of nuclear power is offensive to environmentalists. He voted for the fence on the Mexican border. He campaigned in South Carolina with a gay-bashing homophobic gospel singer. He went in front of Ebeneezer baptist church on MLK day and denounced black anti-semitism. How much more flexibility do you think a democrat would have to exercise to please your definition of unorthodox in this age of partisan politics and 51-percent elections?


OK, maybe I should have used the word 'silent plurality.' Big whoop. Mitt Romney just dropped out.

It's a fact of American politics that, since Reagan, the Republican party has drifted towards the right, while the democrats have played an awkward game of catch-up. The mere fact that the dem's 51-senator lead in congress is thanks to Jim Webb, Reagan's ex-naval secretary tells you everything you need to know about the trajectory of American politics.

Clearly, on the presidential level, however, that trajectory is changing.

In my view, this election is going to be about leadership styles, and on the dem side, it already is. John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton disagree on really only three important issues: Iraq, health care, and maybe some details about how economic relief should be implemented, post-mortgage crisis. This is going to be a campaign about opposite personalities -- about trust, honesty, and experience. Which is why the GOP was smart to nominate John McCain. Better for them to win with John McCain than to lose to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

REPS = Exploit people for corporate gains (Corporate Welfare).
DEMS = Make people dependant on Government so they can be important (Handouts, Welfare...)

Both: squander the taxpayers money for self gain, (Recession, debt etc...) Polarize the populace so they will fight
amongst themselves and not demand politicians do a good job. Screw up America and give themselves a raise
while they are at it. Mutually avoid debating the problems that the "Duopoly" have created for America.


Think what's possible if Paul or Nader would hold office for 4yr !
http://www.votenader.org/issues/
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/