Well (in a very rough sense) the Democrats campaign for personal freedoms and seek to control economic ones more (pro-choice yet more regulation). Likewise, the

Well (in a very rough sense) the Democrats campaign for personal freedoms and seek to control economic ones more (pro-choice yet more regulation). Likewise, the Republicans want economic freedoms and seek to control personal ones (low taxes, deregulation, yet ban abortion and gay marriage). Obviously, any time you generalize a party into two vectors like this, it's not exact, and I'm sure there are numerous cases of policies from both parties that don't fit this nice little mold, but I think that is what the OP was trying to point out. The Economist's definition of 'liberal' does not mean 'democrat' as it does in most of America today. They espouse 'classical liberalism', which is more libertarian in nature, but not taken to the extreme. (They, for instance, support the idea of central banks and fiat money, and a carbon tax or cap and trade scheme.) I'm not really old enough to remember, but my understanding is that the Republican party used to be more aligned to these views before they embraced the religious right to win elections.