The collapse of the conservative coalition?

Two articles, one in the Wall Street Journal and another in the New York Times discuss the evolution of the GOP from different perspectives. David Brooks of the NYT examines the issue philosophically, while the WSJ examines the numbers behind the issue

From the NYT:

Over the past few decades, the Republican Party has championed a series of reforms designed to devolve power to the individual, through tax cuts, private pensions and medical accounts. The temperamental conservative does not see a nation composed of individuals who should be given maximum liberty to make choices. Instead, the individual is a part of a social organism and thrives only within the attachments to family, community and nation that precede choice.

Therefore, the temperamental conservative values social cohesion alongside
individual freedom and worries that too much individualism, too much
segmentation, too much tension between races and groups will tear the underlying
unity on which all else depends. Without unity, the police are regarded as alien
powers, the country will fracture under the strain of war and the economy will
be undermined by lack of social trust.To put it bluntly, over the past several years, the G.O.P. has made ideological choices that offend conservatism’s Burkean roots. This may seem like an airy-fairy thing that does nothing more than provoke a few dissenting columns from William F. Buckley, George F. Will and Andrew Sullivan. But suburban, Midwestern and many business voters are dispositional conservatives more than creedal conservatives. They care about order, prudence and balanced budgets more than transformational
leadership and perpetual tax cuts. It is among these groups that G.O.P. support
is collapsing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/opinion/05brooks.html?ex=1349323200&en=18d87f2dabf769af&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

From the WSJ:

Some of the most compelling evidence suggesting a redefinition of the
Republican Party comes from prominent Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. Earlier
this year, he surveyed 2,000 Republican voters, updating his similarly
exhaustive poll of 10 years ago. In 1997, about half of Republicans said they
were motivated mainly by economic issues, and about half by social and moral
issues. This year, the culturally conservative wing was roughly the same size,
but economic conservatives accounted for just one in six Republicans. In the
wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the ranks of Republicans whose main concern
is defense have grown after subsiding with the end of the Cold War.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119127620102645595.html