The health care reform debacle is a good example: The national Republican Party has excercised party discipline because they can all coalesce around the “just say no” position. I doubt there would be unity if that position could not be maintained. The lack of any party discipline in the so-called national Democratic Party, along with many other dysfunctional features of our Congress, means that there is no position common to all Democrats. Watching all these outliers from the main base of the Democratic Party — be it Max Baucus, Joe Lieberman or Bill Nelson — demonstrate their individual power even though it has an overall devastating effect on the party as a whole demonstrates that a “national” Democratic Party is more myth than reality.

The populist pushback is another good example: Virtually everyone outside of Wall Street and Washington are outraged that “we” have saved the banks only to seem them return to their rapacious conduct while little is done for most of the people generally who are certainly less to blame than the Masters of the Universe and their Washington syncophants. With the outlier Democrats getting the attention, the “national” Party is only now realizing the error of their ways.