You know what I find really really reeeeeeeeeeeeeally interesting right now?

[Spike89]

101. It all stems from a serious flaw in the GOP

The GOP is actually two very, very different groups of people. They all might call themselves conservatives, but they don't mean the same thing by conservative. The money (and thus "control&quot of the party has always been in the hands of the business/corporate faction. Those people really don't give a rat's behind about religious wedge issues (gay marriage, abortion, etc.). They care only about pro-business issue (low taxes, deregulation, etc.) The reality is that most of the corporate group are probably quite liberal in their private social views, but know they need the coalition.
The other faction within the republican coalition is of course the fundy and social conservatives. They've never had much power, but have reliably been pandered to by the right. Low information voters with lots of anger, they really don't care about abstract economic policy. Sure, they latch onto simplistic slogans and are affected by the economy, but when it comes down to it, they are mostly ticked off that "their taxes are going to homos and to doctors that kill babies". Anyway, we can call these guys the Tea Party, even though they aren't all actually in the Tea Party.
The Tea Party folks actually have some political power--there are a lot of socially pissed off people in this country. They aren't a majority, despite what they say, but they certainly outnumber the corporate bosses.
So, we have the elite (near 10%, even though 9 out of 10 only think they are elite) banding with about 40% of the population to make nearly 50% which makes the Republican party very competitive with the Democratic party--it at least explains Reagan, Bush, and W. The problem is the republicans MUST run a corporate candidate for POTUS, a tea bagger president won't work for the corporate faction. Not a problem in the past, W and Reagan were each quite willing to pander to the Tea party types, but were every bit as corporatist as Romney. Of course Bush I wasn't good at the pandering and lost his reelection.
Romney is pure corporatist and no one on either side believes he cares much about the social issues--he'll say whatever he thinks will help him on those topics.
They are totally screwed with Romney as a candidate.