The three faces of the Republican Party

The Antiplanner has a very interesting post up, about the fractured coalition that is the GOP:

The Iowa caucuses highlighted a little-known fact about the Republican Party: it is really a coalition of three different groups. First and best-known are the “conservatives,” represented by Rick Santorum and the 25 percent of Iowa caucuses who voted for him. Conservatives tend to be fiscally conservative, but are more reliably socially conservative, meaning they tend to oppose such things as gay rights, abortion, and recreational drugs.

The second group is the libertarians, represented by Ron Paul and the 21 percent of the caucuses who voted for him (although Gary Johnson, who was ignored by the media and the party, is closer to being a true libertarian). Perhaps even more than conservatives, the libertarians are hard-core fiscal conservatives. But they are social liberals, favoring gay rights, legalization of recreational drugs, and (for the most part) legalized abortions.

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Advocates of the latter view call themselves neoconservatives and form the third group that makes up the Republican Party. This is a strange name because historically it was liberals, starting with Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, who advocated U.S. military action that was not strictly for self defense, while it was conservatives such as Henry Cabot Lodge and Robert Taft who opposed such actions.

His conclusions about the Tea Party, and whether a Romney victory would be a defeat for him are spot on but you'll have to RTWT.  Smart stuff.