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In case the writers at the NYT hadn't yet noticed, we live in a two party, candidate centered, winner-take-all electoral system, not a proportionally represented parliamentary system. That distinction has consequences.

Of course our parties are diverse.

Of course they are made up of members who don't agree on everything.

Of course there are multiple fault lines running though both parties.

Of course there are members in each party who, were they to live in other regions of the country, might choose to belong to the opposing party.

This is not new.

This is, in fact, how it has been in this nation for over 200 years.

Furthermore, many of the problems the Republican Party currently faces are based on the fact that, like the writers at today's NYT, they too have forgotten these very fundamental facts. Governing with "a majority of the majority" is bound to make your internal divisions worse, not better. Imposing strict ideological discipline will inevitably put your more moderate members at greater, not lesser, electoral risk. Playing to your base, and only your base, will inevitably alienate, not attract, the moderates in your party. And like it or not, in this two party system, those moderates have but one other choice - the party of your opposition.

And yet somehow Rove is a genius and the Democrats are doomed. Remind me again why the NYT is the nation's "paper of record?" Because if one of my students wrote this sort of nonsense in their paper...