by Matthew Brady

Created on: November 24, 2009   Last Updated: November 26, 2009

Our current healthcare debate illustrates the ideological cohesion of our political parties, something for which we should be thankful, not dismiss as petty partisanship.

As the current healthcare debate in America heats up, it becomes clearer and clearer each day that no Republican (other than Cao from New Orleans whose election resulted from a Democratic scandal) intends to vote for the bill.

In the recent procedural vote in the Senate, not a single Democrat or Republican broke rank. This kind of party unity would have been a rarity 30 years ago. However, today its just business as usual on Capitol Hill.

Many observers are turned off by this intense partisanship. However, they are mistaking blind party loyalty for ideological conviction. The political parties of today are weaker than ever. Campaign finance laws and candidate centered campaigns have substantially reduced the formal role of parties in our democracy.

Parties have no way to enforce discipline among their Congressional and Senatorial members because candidates receive most of their campaign funds from special interests rather than their political party. The parties used to be able to withhold funds or support from one of their members who broke rank. With new campaign finance laws and candidate centered campaigns (the result of the primary process), those days are long gone.

Yet despite these facts, the parties are more unified today than they have been since before the Great Depression. How is this possible? It is because the parties are much more ideologically cohesive now than in any other previous time. Starting in 1968 (following the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act), a regional party realignment took place in the South and in the Northeast.

In 1968, the South was a Democratic stronghold. Many of these Democrats, however, were conservatives. The Democratic coalition, at this time, was made up of these conservatives from the South and liberals from the Northeast and Midwest, not a recipe for party unity.

Likewise, the Republicans were comprised of liberal Republicans in the Northeast and conservative Republicans in the West. From 1968 through the 1990s, the South gradually became a Republican stronghold as conservative Democrats were replaced by conservative Republicans.

The Northeast became a Democratic bastion as liberal Republicans were replaced by liberal Democrats. As a result, today almost all Democrats are liberal (granted there are a few southern moderate to conservative

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