Bill Roggio has some good advice for Democrats who want to be taken more seriously on national security. Unfortunately for them (and for the prospect of a serious opposition to the Republicans), they're probably constitutionally incapable of taking it right now. They'll have to lose a few more elections first.

Pretty much on target, but I'd cast it a bit differently.

Democrats lack the party discipline of the Republicans. Few Republicans stray from the party line because they know what would happen. (Money is the carrot and stick.) Republican equivalents of exploitative hangers-on like Michael Moore (sure, they must exist) are either decisively embraced if it serves the party's purpose or they are decisively hung out to dry, unlike the Dem's usual equivocation driven by a fear of alienating anyone potential Dem voters.

In short, there is a discernible Republican line on most issues. Stray from it and you get whacked. That's usually not true for Democrats. Individual Dems say looney things that the rest of the party does not disavow. As a result, those looney things are perceived as Democrat policy.

Try listening to me, okay?

Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

You're half right. The Republicans does a better job of distancing themselves from the moonbat fringe. But it's the other party with the lack of talking point diversity. When it comes to policy, the Dems have a far narrower range of ideas than the GOP of RINOs, conservatives, and screw-the-First-Amendment Arizonans.

I am responding to "billg" and not Senator Hagel, of course.

"Talking point diversity", Alan doesn't count for much unless you're booking guests for Sunday morning TV or any given yapfest on cable. Those shows have little political relevancy since they confirm the opinions of their viewers.

Electoral politics runs on cash. The Republicans are more willing and more able to use that cash, and the threat of no cash, to ensure that everyone stays inside the party fences.

Obviously, that discipline is less effecctive if someone has independent sources of money.

Between presidential elections, the Dems are less a coherent political party and more a coalition of people with some shared objectives.

My point was that elected Republicans are a far more ideologically diverse group than elected Democrats.

Maybe you should offer some clear examples as to how Republicans and not Democrats "ensure that everyone stays inside the party fences."

Do you agree with this portrait: that the GOP has fences drawn between non-radicals (left and right) and radicals (left and right), and the Democrat Party draws them between left (radical and non-radical) and right (radical and non-radical)?