Why Is Bush So Dominant Over the Republican Party?

They should have revolted in May 2001--rather than follow along as Cheney established his dominance and cut the moorings connecting the White House to reality. But they didn't. Various voices discuss why:

I have puzzled for years on why Bush seems to exercise such control over the conservative movement and its institutions. Ronald Reagan didn't have anything close to the degree of support Bush has. I wish I could figure it out...

I blame 1994, and the message learned that division within a party carries the risk that 1/4 of your incumbents will lose their jobs. Like today--the most centrist 30 Democratic representatives think that they have a better chance of keeping their jobs in 2008 if Pelosi is perceived to be a success than if they cross the aisle and strike a deal to join a ruling House coalition led by Boehner and company, a ruling coalition with which they might well be in more ideological sympathy...

That's a factor, but there's a lot more to it. I'll figure it out someday.

The assessment in Ron Suskind’s 2004 article holds up pretty well, although it was mistaken about the civil war in the Republican Party...

If such a civil war had broken out, the Republican Party might still have a chance next year. I am truly baffled as to why so many Republicans seem determined to go down with the sinking ship. I can only conclude that there are Democratic candidates that are within the range of acceptability to those Republicans fed up with Bush—they would rather switch than fight...

These poll data are revealing: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18491981/site/newsweek...

Perhaps another factor I have written about is that the rise of talk radio, Fox News, and the Internet means that many Republicans need not ever be confronted by inconvenient facts or will always have a plausible explanation from Fred Barnes to explain them away. I really saw this last year when many Republicans were absolutely convinced that they were going to keep control of Congress, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Every single night I heard Barnes explain why the polls were wrong, but in fact they were spot-on accurate. To my knowledge, Fred has never explained why he was wrong about the polls being wrong. Yet now I am hearing the same thing—the polls showing a huge Democratic advantage next year are simply dismissed as biased or inaccurate or something...