From a reader:

Utter BS!
The reason why they are debating issues on the GOP side is simply because there is more disagreement and at least some important GOP special interest group has a serious problem with any of the Republican candidates…
There is so much discussion because (unlike Obama and Hillary-) none of the GOP frontrunners has managed to meet all the requirements of their political base.
The Dems are currently where conservative activists would *LIKE* the GOP to be, namely, no apostasies from the party orthodoxy regarding abortion, Iraq, taxes & spending etc. and consequently no “mavericks”.
Don’t you think everyone on your side would be much, much happier if you were now choosing between Fred Thompson, George Allen and Mitt Romney (assuming he had converted to Christianity [so much for conservatives being above “identity politics”, by the way…] as well as managed to conclusively prove to conservatives that his flip-flopping was both genuine and that he would stay “flipped”) rather than between McCain and Mike Huckabee? The discussion would then concern mostly issues related to electability, i.e. would it be better to have a full spectrum conservative technocrat from Massachusetts or would a folksy full spectrum conservative from the South fare better against Obama or Hillary.

Me: Uh huh. This strikes me as far more bovinely excrementous. What partisan Republicans would like and the reality of Republican /conservative politics are very different things. As I noted in my column, the Reagan coalition itself was ideational not transactional — he gathered together people who believed different things. The Democrats’ coalitions are usually about bringing together different groups who want the same thing but look different. They are a transactional party, a popular front party. They tell union workers “we’ll give you what you want if you agree to support giving feminists what they want and black groups what they want.” Historically, Democrats win by promising to slice the pie generously for constituencies like teachers unions, racial party bosses etc. The Republicans historically say, “if you believe 7 of these 10 things, you’re a Republican.” Now obviously a political party, even a conservative one, plays its own patronage games but the differences are nonetheless remarkable.

Meanwhile, conservatives (not the same thing as Republicans) argue about their beliefs a lot, lot more – a point I’ve been making for years.

Lastly, it’s just hilarious how liberals are always bemoaning how the Republicans aren’t a “big tent” party (Translation: the GOP is the pro-life party). But the reality is that the GOP is obviously the big tent party because we actually have lots of people who really disagree about lots of stuff. Pro-choice Rudy Giuliani was the frontrunner for a year. McCain is sewing up the nomination. Indeed, the reader is right when he says:

The reason why they are debating issues on the GOP side is simply because there is more disagreement and at least some important GOP special interest group has a serious problem with any of the Republican candidates…
There is so much discussion because (unlike Obama and Hillary-) none of the GOP frontrunners has managed to meet all the requirements of their political base.

Exactly! The Democrats are ideologically and intellectually more homogeneous. They don’t have arguments because intellectual dissent is less well tolerated in a Democratic Party where diversity is only measured by skin color, gender and sexuality. Meanwhile Republicans tend to argue about issues and substance. I thought that was sort of like, you know, the point of my column.