The Rational Vote

Coalitions are interesting creatures.  Take various groups of voters motivated by "overlapping enough" issues and throw their support together to win an election.  Both the Republican and Democratic Parties are coalitions, of course, but you wonder as you watch this particular Republican Primary process if the Republican coalition is the more fractious of the two.

The Republican/conservative coalition has been described and reported quite a bit over the years and is again a current topic.

I've seen various labels given to different elements of the Republican coalition...here is my attempt to describe them:

Fiscal conservatives ('small government conservatives' etc.): main concern is national debt, balancing budgets, fears of over promising on "entitlement" spending, etc.

Constitutional conservatives: motivated by limited government, sticking to original intent in interpreting the US Constitution, tend to be more libertarian.  Think Ron Paul and some Tea Party groups.  Also, Second Amendment (gun ownership rights) voters.  "Get the government off our backs" conservatives.

Social conservatives: think of religiously motivated voters, issues including pro-life, protection of traditional marriage, importance of religious freedom, etc.  Within this group, there are fractures which can be related to identification with particular churches or branches of Christianity, etc.

Military/Foreign Policy conservatives: care a great deal about maintaining the strength of our military and using American strength with firmness and integrity to support American ideals of freedom and peace around the world.

Unfortunately, it seems that these groups have been working more at cross purposes than with common purpose in recent years.  Romney's challenge is in large part a reflection of the difficulty of inviting these groups to join together and trust him with the charge to stand firm for all of the above if he is elected president.

More to come on the challenge, and how this might be done...