I'd be very surprised if the Republican party and its voting base were made up of Patrick McKenzie - or even people who agreed with him on every issue.

The blunt fact is that both parties are, in American terms, very, very centrist. If the supporters of either party significantly resembled the outliers that supporters of the other party use as stereotypes, American politics would be wildly different from what it actually is.

The self-identified Republicans I am acquainted with are not looking to meet in the middle on these three issues. They believe in private schools, a free market for labor with no protection for unions, and a system of private and deregulated health insurance.

I don't think these are inherently bad ideas, either; I just don't agree with them.

(For what it's worth, I believe in a strong social safety net, and I don't believe we should plow money from the federal budget into the stock market, but I could go either way on the specifics of Social Security).

Think about that for a second: if roughly half of this country actually felt the same way on all those issues, how could Bush have run on spending more on public schools and placing them under greater federal control, how would we have the many thousands of labor-protection laws we have, and why would we still have things like Medicare and Medicaid, just to start with?

They don't. Your acquaintances are rather staunch outliers to hold those positions.

Because incoming administrations/Congresses (Congressii?) do not begin with a clean slate, for one thing; and also because many congressional procedures require a supermajority, particularly in the senate.

I agree that there are more moderates than fringe thinkers in both parties, but the fringe thinkers tend to make things more rather than less partisan and the moderates are not much good at telling them to go fly a kite. So this year the Republican House candidates are claiming they'll abolish the Department of Education if they win - likely an empty boast, but to me it's exasperating that the idea is even up for discussion.

Edit: Democrats' fetish for burying small businesses in paperwork is equally exasperating to me.

Republicans have no less a fetish, in practice.

Just as in practice, Republicans have no interest in the abolishing of the DoE, chest-beating silliness aside. Fringers say a lot of things and some pols might try to appeal to them, but at the end of the day, it's what the mainstream wants - in both parties - that rules. Some larger groups may have occasional influence, but only when they can convince other people (at least temporarily) that they are right.

I seriously don't care about this horse-race analysis (well, I do, in the same sense as my dad cares about the Bears season). It has nothing to do with what I said.

You're missing what I'm saying. It's not about "horse-race analysis", it's about acknowledging that the mainstreams and actual actions of both parties are not anywhere as far apart as various outliers are - or that the propaganda of each group would try to claim.