What Today's Republicans Believe, Ctd

Nate Silver gets deep into the cross-tabs of the lasted Kos poll and notices how similar GOP opinion is across the country. He thinks this will make crafting a GOP national message easier but also make Republicans pick candidates who don't fit the district:

If you take two Republican Congressional candidates and put them in the same primary, the outcome is liable to be the same whether that primary takes place in Alabama, Michigan, Idaho or Rhode Island, and whether the electorate is older or younger, more male or more female...Thus, the Republicans are more likely to make suboptimal electoral decisions in individual districts -- we have a fresh example from last night, in fact, in IL-10, a D+6 district where the Republicans nominated the conservative Bob Dold rather than the moderate Beth Coulson. But the Democrats are likely to have a difficult time articulating an optimal national message -- and perhaps as a result a more difficult time governing.

This, to my mind, is a function of ideology and religion, rather than ideas and politics, being the core elements of a party. It's also a function of Fox News creating a national ideology through a national propaganda arm of the RNC. Well, they will reap what they sow. At least I hope so if real conservatism is going to one day find a comeback in American political discourse.