“They owe the African-American community,” argues one black activist. Meanwhile, a female columnist contends, “As unfairly as the U.S. has treated African Americans, black men got the right to vote 50 years before women.”

For all the slings and arrows heaved at each other thus far, compared to what the Democratic candidates are doing to each other and their party, Republicans should be very happy with the way their primary contest is shaping up. Instead of dwelling on what identity groups their candidates represent, the top GOP candidate are actually arguing about ideas.

Consider the contest on the Democratic side: The candidates–at least the top two–are indistinguishable from each other. Don’t take my word for it; so says the DLC and even one of Obama’s netizens who says that “The goals that Barack Obama has do not have to be different.” It is Democratic distinction without a difference except for DNA. Pick the black guy or the white girl. That’s your choice. (Oh, and the white guy, who actually does have different ideas—albeit the wrong ones—but few seem to be listening to him anyway, apparently since, as a white male in the party of identity politics, he finds himself surrounded by few DNA identicals.)

Having spent forty years advancing the belief that victimhood confers special status, the Democratic Party is now stuck with the problem of determine which “special” group is more special than the others. It is a grudge match between the two groups who claim to have had grudges held against them the longest. But if longevity of group suffering was all there was to it, then Joe Lieberman would have been the 2004 Democratic nominee–and probably President today. Apparently his identity group wasn’t special enough. Nor was Bill Richardson’s whose departure from the primary fight went almost without notice.

By contrast, Republicans have spent the last four decades building a party not defined by color or genitalia, but shaped by ideas. The overarching issue today being a reassessment of Reaganism: Should the coalition of social, fiscal, and military conservatism be resurrected, redefined, or removed from the GOP platform. Each of the five candidates offer a different ideological option? There is the traditional Reagan conservative, the guy who claims to be a traditional Reagan conservative but didn’t govern like one ever before, the law-and-order type who is socially moderate, the social conservative who isn’t very law-and-order, and the strong military candidate of bipartisan cooperation. Each brings a distinct vision of what the federal government should be and do.

At this date, there’s no telling which idea is going to reign supreme at the end of the primary contest. Perhaps it will be a combination of ideas. That also works in the GOP’s favor since ideas, unlike identities, can reach a compromise.

There is, however, no compromise in identity politics. Barack Obama, for example, can not wear a dress to show that “he is woman.”

There is also the Venn Diagram problem of appealing to identity groups instead of idea groups. While there is plenty of overlap between pro-lifers, pro-gun enthusiasts, small government believers, strong military supporters, and supply siders, there just isn’t a huge number of disabled Jewish Hispanic women of African ancestry from which to choose a candidate. The Democratic Party’s Venn Diagram consists of too many mutually exclusive groups.

The one example that runs counter to my argument is Evangelicals. Or at least that’s how Democrats and the media, through their prism of identity politics, portray Evangelicals. They, however, aren’t a monolithic voting bloc. If they were, they would have supported the Southern Baptist Jimmy Carter over the infrequent church-going Ronald Reagan, and today there would be near unanimity of support by Evangelical leaders for the Evangelical candidate. I suspect that in South Carolina we’ll find Republican Evangelicals far less reluctant to vote outside “their own kind” than are Democratic women and blacks.

So instead of spending the primary season arguing over ideas and reshaping a forward looking vision for their party, Democrats turn back to the past in a substanceless effort to reward the group more wronged. While blacks and women both argue that they are “owed” something from the Democratic Party, the party has apparently forgotten what it now owes all Americans: the best candidate and the best ideas, regardless of color or genitalia.

RELATED:

The New York Times has three items today:

David Brooks: “The Bonfire of the Multicultural Vanities”

Bob Herbert throws the charge of misogyny on the bonfire.

Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Steinhauer toss a third fuel into the blaze: the “uneasy and competitive relations between blacks and Hispanics”

ALSO:

Yuval Levin

Blue Crab Boulevard

Ann Althouse: “Are you deeply troubled that such serious matters should be so rudely politicized, or are you laughing at the farce?”

Take this quiz at BrothersJudd: “What are three policy changes Senator Obama has said he will pursue if elected?” (ht:ED)

UPDATE:

Michigan proved my point that, contrary to how Democrats and the media think about and portray them, Evangelicals are not a monolithic voting bloc; they think for themselves. Nor are they reflexively anti-Mormon. The evidence?

Romney was also aided by winning a strong share of evangelical voters. As predicted, evangelical turnout was up this cycle — they constituted 38 percent of GOP primary voters. Mike Huckabee was banking on winning this bloc as overwhelmingly as he had in Iowa, but the exit polls indicate that he and Romney were essentially tied among those voters, with Romney getting the votes of 33 percent to Huckabee’s 31 percent.

While Michigan didn’t turn out exactly how I had hoped, boy do I love being part of a party of people who think for themselves!

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