Quote of the Day
"[T]he first Republican debate of the 2008 campaign was, in its own way, encouraging -- for the Republicans, for California and for the nation. The breadth of small-fries in the field makes it hard to define a coherent Republican message, but that's a sign of intellectual ferment in the troubled GOP.... The initial Republican field is capacious enough to contain a strongly religious 'double-life' opponent of both abortion and the death penalty (Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback), a libertarian gadfly (Texas Rep. Ron Paul), a successful former governor and bureaucratic reformer (erstwhile Bush Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson) and -- in Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo -- the nation's most prominent and radical immigration restrictionist who also happens to be a tax-hating, medical-marijuana-supporting heir to Reagan's Western maverick legacy" -- editorial in today's Los Angeles Times
That's actually a very good point. Despite the common portrayal of the GOP as single-minded and marching in lockstep, (except on immigration, apparently), there's a lot of debate and openness within the Republican party. We have death-penalty supporters and opponents, abortion supporters and opponents, flat-taxers and tax-hikers, libertarians and large-government types. The Democrats should envy our intellectual diversity. It's why it's both frustrating and stimulating to be a Republican.