"In truth, neither party is nor can be a pure expression of ideology in the American electoral system."

Patrick Deneen with an interesting post:

"In truth, neither party is nor can be a pure expression of ideology in the American electoral system. This is actually a good thing - it is a major contributor to the American resistance to ideology - but it can sometimes be ignored or wished away during election season, when ideology becomes more evident (exacerbated by our Primary system) and reified above all in symbolic politics. It has been made worse - much worse - by the contemporary emphasis on policy-making through the Courts (liberal bear a particular responsibility here), that institution through which ideology can be most coherently advanced. Conservatives have themselves in turn concentrated on achieving victories in the Courts, and to do so have increasingly adopted their own forms of ideological reasoning in order to get a hearing within a legal system that only recognizes a such reasoning. Many of our conservatives today speak like Kantians rather than like Burkeans or Chestertonians. Certainly there are ideological tendencies and major policy differences between the parties, but what this most recent election has made possible - and what I hope will occur - is the possibility of at least modestly disassociating conservative commitments from easy identification with the Republican party."

I agree with this. Political Parties are coalitions comprised of:

1) Policies
2) Interest Groups
3) Ideologies
4) Cultural views

There's no one to one correlation between these elements. A conservative could feel comfortable with some of these elements in the GOP, and not others. Also, I don't know enough about Chesterton, but Conservatives now are not Burkeans.

"Many have become lazy, or simply habituated, into thinking that they are the same, but enough evidence can be gathered from recent political history to suggest that conservative ends are alternatively pursued and betrayed by both Parties. Those who maintain a deeper philosophical and theological allegiance to certain conservative beliefs should be wary of this close identification with one party, and even the dangerous ideological belief that one's goals can be achieved through a political program. Frankly, the truth is that the conservative view is likely to be a permanent minority voice in modernity, and thus must maintain the capacity to be poised in opposition, and to work - where possible - with the dominant forces. This means developing the difficult capacity to be somewhat apart, yet avoid complete disengagement."

I would extend this to liberals, moderates, and libertarians. No group should see their allegiance to a political party as anything more than a convenient compromise in order to get certain policies actually implemented.

"Social conservatives should understand that in American politics - and all modern politics, really - they will never have a true "party." Particularly in modernity, a time shaped to repudiate many of the basic commitments of conservatives (indeed, a time that gave rise to the peculiar beast called "conservatism") there will always be a degree of political homelessness. Conservatives should aim to achieve some political ends, but understand that those aims will always be partially or imperfectly reflected in the commitments of all modern parties, and should seek, where possible, to reinforce or extend those commitments where they can be found. There is an odd willfulness on the part of many so-called conservatives to damn every action and word of Obama even as they excuse the actions of Bush. This reflects, in my mind, the sad reality that the Will to Power has deeply infiltrated itself within some thoughtful people who ought rightly to be the greatest opponents of that Nietzschean ambition. "

As I say, this should be extended to libertarians. I disagree about Nietzsche. The Will To Power is a way of being, in my opinion. Strictly speaking, it is not, in his view, an ambition, but an explanation.

As Johnson said:
Dr. Johnson now said, a certain eminent political friend of ours [Burke] was wrong, in his maxim of sticking to a certain set of men on all occasions. "I can see that a man may do right to stick to a party," said he; "that is to say, he is a Whig, or he is a Tory, and he thinks one of those parties upon the whole the best, and that to make it prevail, it must be generally supported, though, in particulars, it may be wrong. He takes its faggot of principles, in which there are fewer rotten sticks than in the other, though some rotten sticks to be sure; and they cannot be well separated. But, to blind one's self to one man, or one set of men (who may be right to-day and wrong to-morrow), without any general preference of system, I must disapprove."
Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides