Reading between the lines: so what you're really saying Pat is that 20% of white women identify more with a female VP candidate (who likely shares only some of their views) than with a half-Black Presidential candidate who also shares only some of their views. In other words, its race and gender politics trumping any issues with a party that has given us one of the worst presidencies in the history of the country.

That's asinine, and I'm frankly more conservative than most people here on this board.

Really, I'd like to see the Republicans come back reformed and closer to what their stated mission is: economic warriors, not Talibanic cultural warriors. It's going to take a defeat to do that . . .

The truth is that Ronald Reagan's quip about government being the problem holds water less and less as the country grows. But the Democrats' tendency to try to combat every societal ill with an expensive government solution is equally abhorent, ineffective, and expensive. We NEED a Republican party that will fight for not only smaller government, but efficient use of government where required. We're never going to get that with the current lot of 3rd generation Reaganites, who have been corrupted by their own success.

The culture wars are just a distraction from all of this. If people want to behave better, it's going to have to come from the consciousness of the citzenry, not prompted by government policy.