Please, let's not even go to that perennial bit of mythology, especially after you reduced Republicans to paleocons (a group whose most powerful figure in Repub

Please, let's not even go to that perennial bit of mythology, especially after you reduced Republicans to paleocons (a group whose most powerful figure in Republican circles is, well, Ron Paul) and neocons (a disfavored group glowering at the populists and others who elbowed them out of power a few years ago). Otherwise, we have to drag up all the self-congratulating Republican mythology that they use when they lose power in whole or in part, and neither of us want to dwell on that brand of glurge. The truth is that both Democrats and Republicans are fundamentally centrist parties with halos of more right-wing or left-wing members who have little actual power, but don't feel they have any home anywhere else. Their communities have decades-old mythologies about why they win or lose power that have little or nothing to do with why Americans vote.