A friend of mine linked to this interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on his Facebook page this morning. He wasn't so much interested in Christie's presidential aspirations as he was in Christie's comments as to why Christie and other Republican Governors (such as Terry Branstad) are so popular while the national GOP tanks in the polls.
Christie's take (and I think he's right):
"At the state level, they see the Republican Party as being doers, we actually get things done for people and we’re pragmatists and we bring people together—and we do so without violating our principles.”
The friend's link was immediately followed by commenters who claimed Christie is a liberal, he'd only win in New Jersey, conservatives won't support him, etc. Other commenters said that moderates like Christie could win and accused the other commenters of "conservative purity."
Christie himself talked about the problems in Washington:
“What you’ve seen in Congress is people are playing in both end-zones and nobodies playing in the middle and trying to get things done. They’re just screaming at each other from both end-zones.”
What the reaction to this article demonstrates is the difference between ideology and a political party.
Ideologies such as conservatism, liberalism, or libertarianism are dedicated to the promotion of a specific set of ideals and the ideas spawned by those ideals.
Political parties exist to provide the apparatus to elect candidates.
I understand that political parties are made up of people motivated by specific ideologies and they work to influence the direction of the party. It's true that conservatives dominate the primary process in the Republican Party and a moderate like Christie must "tack right" to get the nomination. It's not that conservative activists don't care about electability; they believe that conservatism is WHAT gets candidates elected and our recent nominees AREN'T conservative enough.
Tension results when a nominee isn't judged "ideologically pure enough" for an activist. Does that activist work for the good of the party at that point or decide that a specific ideology is more important?
I think about these issues as 2014 and 2016 approach and we see more reports from groups like the College Republicans that point the party in a different direction than past elections. I wonder if those demanding absolute fidelity to the party platform will be able to live by that principle when the party platform contains planks with with they disagree.