The Republican Party is a nervous coalition of three right-wing groups. They are the religious right wing, the fiscal right wing, and the military-industrial complex right wing. The religious right wingers want to ban abortion, throw gays and lesbians out of society, and institute an evangelical Christian theocracy. The fiscal right wingers want to eliminate taxes on the wealthy and spend our way to bankruptcy. The military-industrial complex right wingers want to keep us in wars, sending poor kids to fight and die, and give huge, lucrative government contracts to member companies.

In 1980 they hit the jackpot. Ronald Reagan appealed to all three groups. It was brilliant politicking. He cozied up to Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed for the religious RW vote, talked tax cuts all over the place for the fiscal RW folks, and evoked the "evil empire" for the MI-complex RWers.

In 1988 George H.W. Bush could appeal to the MI-complex folks easily. His "read my lips" statement was designed specifically for the fiscal RWers. And his choice of Dan Quayle, while on the surface seeming to be inept, actually completed the cycle by appealing to the religious RW. When he acceded to Democratic demands for fiscal responsibility, he lost the support of one of those groups, and lost his bid for re-election.

Bob Dole didn't really appeal to any of these groups, and he lost.

George W. Bush appealed to the religious and fiscal RWers, and Dick Cheney brought in the MI-complex group. Guess who's in the White House.

Now, the three groups are seriously split. Mike Huckabee is the religious guy, Mitt Romney is the fiscal guy, and John McCain is the MI-complex guy. As we learned in 1992, they need all three on one ticket in order to win, which means someone has to appeal to at least two of those groups -- and there doesn't appear to be anyone who can.

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