Can anyone concieve of a metric by which we could measure Republican division? That is, one where we can tell if the party is more or less divided now than it was 10 years ago, or 20, or 30?
The first and most obvious metric would be how consistently the party votes as a bloc in Congress; if there are more dissenting votes now than there were in 1990, or less, on every Republican-backed bill.
But that doesn't measure or give credence to the popular sentiment; some major Republican figures who are very popular with people but who are not necessarily in Congress. Of the Republicans who have led the polls for the nomination this year, for example (Bachmann, Trump, Cain, Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, Perry), only two of those are actual members of Congress (And only three are in government right now at all). Surely there must be a way to gauge if consensus among Republican voters is more or less divided than it was 30 years ago? Because a driving force of the Republican part since Reagan has been a consolidated but very active and very unified base.
