In Is There an Elephant in Here? — which reprints the first chapter of his new book, The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians, and the Battle to Control the Republican Party — Ryan Sager looks at the struggle for control of the modern conservative movement:
By smoothing off its rough, small-government edges, Rove’s theory goes, the GOP can pick off ever-bigger chunks of the Democrats’ base: working-class voters can be won over by dropping traditional Republican objections to generous spending on entitlement programs; black, Hispanic and Catholic voters can be won over with ever-harsher attacks on abortion and homosexuality; big business can be kept on board through ever-larger corporate subsidies and tax breaks, and so on and so forth. By being as many things to as many people as possible, according to the theory, the Republican Party may be able to eclipse the Democratic Party for decades to come. Bush is the test case.
Definitely read the whole article.