It's not all that complicated, although I see nothing inherently wrong with your various axes--similar to the libertarian political chart you see so often.

As Heinlein said, via Lazarus Long:

Political tags--such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and. so forth--are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.

That's pretty much the whole story. My theories come in when we ask why there are so many of the former, and so few of the latter.

Ideology always has its nose in the tent, and everybody has their way of scaring the people into giving them power. You don't see the liberal end of it as easily because, like Madge says, "you're soaking in it."

Al Gore, who is probably running for President again, is doing nothing different with the War On Global Warming than the Republicans did with the War on Terror. Each can be used as an excuse for advancing a particular policy view and gaining and keeping political power.

Ideology has a broad influence on individual policies, and Republican actions in areas like foreign policy, Social Security, taxes, and other issues are offshoots of an ideology, as they should be. What's the point of a party with no principles at all? Ideology is what politics is SUPPOSED to be about. God save us from the pure pragmatist. Remember Nixon?

Remember, most Republicans were upset with the party in the last election not because of their ideology, but because they weren't consistent in behaving according to that ideology. Issues like spending, corruption, border issues, moral hypocrisy and others were not Republicans following their ideology, but violating it. I followed the progress of a number of attempts to deal with earmarks and transparency, which a proper Republican should have supported, but they shot much of it down (so did the Democrats). That whole "bridge to nowhere" thing was just the most blatant example of a Republican saying, "yeah, it's pork spending. Wanna make something of it?"

Republican economics is more than tax cuts. Spending is critical, too. Republicans lost this last election because they forgot what "Republican" used to mean. It's been a long 12 years since the Contract With America.

In foreign policy, Republican ideology says appeasement doesn't work in the long run. Democratic ideology seems to say that you can talk anyone into not attacking you if you talk long enough. However you interpret it, there is an enormous gap between how Republicans and modern Democrats deal with foreign threats. It was clear as crystal to me through the last part of the Cold War, and nothing has really changed.

"...only a Republican Authority is strong enough to save us."

But what if that's right? I saw how Carter behaved during the Cold War (and what was probably the birth of modern Islamism), and I saw Reaqan. I might not have picked George Bush out of a lineup to be my ideal war president, but I sure as hell wouldn't have picked Al Gore or John Kerry either. To tell you the truth, I have yet to see anyone I would be eager to see win in 2008 from either party, although there are some I would settle for.

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, but as yet, I have yet to see the Democrats rally around any other solution in Iraq other than surrender. I suspect that next year this will change as reality sets in. The Baker Report was, for the most part, not reality. What will be done is anybody's guess at this point.