GOP Primary Voting Trends

Our Founding Fathers contemplated and debated immense, radical thoughts...like what actually constituted human "rights", from whence they were derived and what power government should be allowed to wield over the people. There once was a time when even the common men of this country were willing to consider and argue about important, big ideas (westward expansion, slavery, anti-trust legislation, civil rights, etc.) as well. Sadly, thinking about things larger than yourself seems to have become an antiquated concept; the political squabbles of today would seem trivial to prior generations. Anyone who has been watching the results from this year's wide-open Republican primary elections is seeing what amounts to selfishness and "groupthink".

Most of this year's candidates have flaws that make them less attractive to some segment of the overall party. Much has been made of carrying forward the Reagan mantle...an ideological conservatism in three areas: social (traditional family values), fiscal (free-market policies and smaller government), and national security (through military strength and democracy-spreading foreign policy). Reagan knew that some political compromise, but not a compromise of principles, was necessary to join the diverse branches of conservative thought into a lasting majority. He said that, "you do not get to be a majority party by searching for groups you won't associate or work with." However, rather than rallying around the core conservative principles that Reagan embraced, today's Republicans have begun to increasingly retrench themselves into separate camps over narrowly-defined issues.