The Republicans have been so dismembered that they will have little influence on Obama’s administration. He will likely find his real opponents within this own party.

When Clinton was first elected the party pushed too far left, primarily with Hillary Health care and other issues such as gays in this military. It quickly cost them control of the Congress. Consolidation of Obama’s power base may require him to use him new power to constrain his own party.

The Republicans are fragmented. There is the religious right/ pro life part of the party; there is the free market solutions segment; there is the fiscally conservative yet still somewhat authoritarian segment; and there is the neoconservative/ world police segment whose mission is to avert the next Hitler.

Many generally conservative voters have a problem with one or more of these segments of the Republican Party. If the Democrats could shed the tax and spend label and become the party of fiscal responsibility they could rule for decades.

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