Summary:
If there was ever any question as to how diverse the Republican Party is, this campaign season has answered it. The reason there are so many viable candidates in the Republican presidential primary this year is because each candidate hails from a different part of the Republican base. That Republican diversity is the subject of this article.

Details or Sample:
Rudy Giuliani hails from the liberal wing of the Republican Party. The Republican liberals are regionally based in the Northeast. They think that women should have the right to choose abortion, support destructive embryonic stem cell research, and generally support homosexual rights. They are represented inside the beltway by the Republican Main Street Coalition.

Giuliani also hails from the rule of law wing of the Party. These are the conservatives who oppose the “illegal” in illegal immigration. They often fall in with Christian conservatives (who equally value authority) and are attracted to Giuliani who was a former federal prosecutor and is widely credited with cleaning up New York City.

Mitt Romney comes from the business end of the Republican Party. Unlike their liberal counterparts; these conservatives do not care much for social issues. Money, free trade economics, money, and creative destruction are the foundation of their beliefs and a candidate´s business acumen is preferable to ideology. They are regionally based along the Wall Street-DC axis and Club for Growth is their best beltway representative.

Fred Thompson comes from the intellectual and social conservative wing of the Party. These conservatives value logic and reason as the prime driving force behind social issues, and they tend to prefer a more secular approach to politics. National Right to Life, their resident beltway representative, endorsed Thompson late last year. They are regionally based in the South, Midwest, and West, and are often mistaken for (and dominated by) Christian conservatives who tend to have a louder voice.

Mike Huckabee hails from the Christian conservative wing of the Party. Similar to their social conservative brothers; abortion and gay marriage top their list of concerns. However, unlike social conservatives, they favor a Biblical defense of their views. They are based in the churches of the South and Middle America, and tend to hold a negative view of Washington, DC where they feel they will always be perennial outsiders.

John McCain comes from the neoconservative wing of the Party. These are the war hawks that pushed for the invasion of Iraq and steadfastly support the President. Some of these same people could not stand the name McCain only eight years ago. They are based squarely inside the beltway at conservative think tanks such as Project for the New American Century and the American Enterprise Institute.

Ron Paul hails from the Constitutional and libertarian wings of the Party. This is the segment of the Party who values individual liberty as supreme and sees big government as encroaching upon that liberty. They favor states’ rights and local control and want to dismantle the bureaucratic morass that the federal government has become.

Paul also hails from the anti-war, isolationist wing of the party and was one of the original Republicans to vote against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His stances and confrontational personality have endeared him to an anti-establishment crowd who feel that he is one of them. Unfortunately for Paul, much of that crowd does not vote (Republican).

Keep in mind that these are the segments of the Republican tent that each candidate comes from, and it does not necessarily rule them out from garnering the support of other parts of the base. After all, one of the main functions of a campaign organization is coalition building. But one thing is certain, whoever ends up being the nominee will have a profound impact on the direction and character of the Republican Party for years to come.

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Written by: John Xavier
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