Realignment Redux

I’m apparently not the only one who sees a reshuffling of the Republican Party’s coalitions going on.  This guy’s assessment of the factions is a little bit different than mine (I don’t see a lot of Republicans standing for the status quo out of reactionary resistance to change; I do see a lot of them motivated by immigration as a single issue).  And where this guy tries to graft each candidate into the personification of a particular wing of the party, so as to make the primary is a battle between these wings of the party for primacy, I see the candidates dancing on top of the reshuffling coalitions, trying to straddle at least two of the major factions he identifies.  All the same, it is clear that the social conservatives’ pre-eminence left over from the 1996-2004 cycles is no longer guaranteed.