Why is there a rancorous Republican primary?

Michael Gerson wrote that Republicans are making it easy for Obama

It is increasingly difficult to argue that the GOP is benefiting from the struggle between Mitt Romney and the challenger — alternately outsider and insider, hefty and svelte, conservative and more conservative — who isn’t Romney. Internal Republican ideological debates, while interesting to Republican ideologists, have little relationship to electoral needs. The longer these controversies continue, the longer President Obama has to regain his political balance.

So why is this struggle going on? The reason is fairly simple. There is an ideological struggle going on within the Republican Party.

The Democrats settled their years ago. The Democrats have become the Party of the Left, the party of Hollywood, San Francisco, and billionaires who tell us that they want to pay more taxes to keep the pitchfork wielding mobs at bay. The so-called “moderates” – if they exist at all – live on in a totally powerless rump that is only part of the Democrat Party out of tradition.

The Democrats are the party of Barack Obama, the party of Chicago politics, the party of Jeremiah Wright, the “God dammed America” party, the Pelosi and Reed party, the America is always wrong party, the "why are we not more like Europe" party,  the Christians are dangerous nuts party, the party that believes America was conceived in sin and ravages the planet. That may not be how they campaign on the national level. Barack Obama ran as a supporter of traditional marriage: one man to one woman. But no one really believes that or that he will defend that position. He ran as a budget balancer, blaming Bush for his deficits, and has run up deficits that were literally unimaginable during the 2008 election. Glenn Beck predicted it and he has now been banished to the wilderness for daring to say it and be right. Obama is the wink and nudge president, saying the things that keep the moderates in line but his fellow Leftists know that he is lying through his teeth. They understand.

The Republicans are moving in the direction of the old Conservatives, the party of Bill Buckley in his prime and the newly energized Tea Party. But the old line Republican “establishment” that once dominated the party is not yet the toothless, powerless rump that the Democrats made their “moderates.” The Republican Establishment still dominates the big money game, giving them an edge in buying the advertising and staffing that often wins elections. They have pedigrees going back at least one generation. They have mega-millions in the bank. They have rolodexes with the private phone numbers of the old line industrialists who still give big bucks to the Republican Party. George Romney is a perfect example: son of a former governor of Michigan, wealthy, impeccably groomed and now given to wearing open necked shirts and blue jeans to appeal to the middle class. He can command the millions to roll in, but …. he cannot command the enthusiasm of the people who vote. His hope of winning both the nomination and the election is the fear of a second Obama term. There are very few votes for George Romney, many against Obama.

Conservatives like Santorum gain points from the Republican Right for being the next not-Romney. But as interest in Santorum grows, some of his beliefs that the MSM demonizes are already converting some of the Right. Genuine belief in God may seem bizarre to the media mavens, as is belief in the Devil. If they attend religious services at all, they are accustomed to homilies that fit neatly into their environmentalist and Health-Education-Welfare catechism. In case you have not been paying attention, their pews are emptying, just as they are all but abandoned in Europe. Who needs a church as a social program with a clerical collar? But tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans are actually religious with traditional belief in God. Instead of being a Santorum weakness, it is one of his strengths. Outside of traditional Christianity, Santorum can voice the issues and concerns that animate Middle America, striking a true note rather than lip-synching it as Romney does too often. And because he believes what he says, he does not make the fatal mistake of backing away when challenged. Nothing kills a candidate faster than apologizing for his past.

It remains to be seen if the Conservative faction of the Republican tent comes out victorious this time, dragging the old Establishment along because of its fear of Obama. In the Republican Party the direction is obvious. The ideological Right is going to dominate. The only question is when.