The Plutocrats v. The Theocrats

As the primaries (finally) approach, it is increasingly apparent that the real GOP battle is between the business wing and the social conservative wing of the party. Is the real showdown going to be over the future of the GOP?

Paul Waldman | December 13, 2007

After months of tedium and mindless chest-thumping, the race for the Republican presidential nomination finally got interesting over the last couple of weeks. And the way it did so highlights the fundamental rift threatening the future of the GOP: the divide between the party's corporate/anti-tax wing, which includes the people who write the checks, and its social conservative wing, which includes the people who get bodies to the polls. It's the plutocrats versus the theocrats, and at the moment it's hard to tell who's going to win.

Try to imagine the combination of pain and dread now covering the Mitt Romney campaign like a wet wool blanket. After all the work, after all the enthusiastic pandering, after outspending his opponents by millions, after the months in which he was the only candidate airing ads in Iowa, his support there turned out to be a mile wide and an inch deep. At the first opportunity, the social conservatives whose feet he had kissed with such commitment wandered away from his gleaming campaign and over to that smooth-talking preacher setting up folding chairs in his bare-bones storefront.