Does it not seem that the GOP's 2008 primaries are going to prove particularly chock full o' nuts? Democrats always have the odd liberal outlier or two, but Republicans, now, have Tom Tancredo commanding an army of xenophobes while Sam Brownback promises to install Christ back on the Oval Office. And these guys may be marginal figures, but they're atop serious constituencies with real power in the right's presidential primaries. It all goes back to the odd value judgments made on interest groups.
It's well known that Democrats are in hock to unions and blacks, environmentalists and baby-killers. Indeed, for Clinton to win, he had to prove himself independent of these forces. But somehow, the crazies comprising the GOP's base never got tarred with the same brush, never became similarly unacceptable. Republicans need not disavow them, it's Democrats who need to constantly profess respect. It's bizarre. Maybe post-Schiavo, Brownback and his orcish forces will prove as repellent as they did in Florida, while Tancredo and his minutemen will do for Republicans nationally what Pete Wilson's prop 187 did for them in California. Given the flack Democrats have received for helping minorities and working folks, it'd really be only fair.
