The average Republican...

...apparently can't tell the difference between an anti-intellectual mullah and an oligarch.  I'll take the latter every time.

That particular choice shows how bereft the Republican Party has become.  Forget William F. Buckley or Milton Friedman - there is simply no credible intellectual influence or activity remaining in the GOP.  Thoughtful conservatives like John Taylor simply have no candidates who understand them or (much less) would enact the sensible policies they advocate.

My Republican friends are shaking their heads in disbelief, like this guy and this guy.  It's not Santorum's repugnant religious bigotry that concerns them, although it does limit his electoral appeal.  But his deficiencies as a thinker and leader are really obvious, and total presidential incompetence is bad for business.  Congress can limit a President's ideological excesses, but it cannot supply executive ability.

Obama has been a competent executive and politically moderate, the exact opposite of the Republican caricature of him.  It would nice for the country - if only to maintain the pretense of choice - if a credible alternative were presented by the minority party.

I was going to stop there, but it occurs to me that an intellectually defensible conservative stance - one that places a high value on limited, simple regulation and personal responsibility - has never been represented by a modern president.  Bush had a Republican congress and used it to pursue an imperialist agenda funded with massive deficit spending, as did Reagan.  Bush Sr. increased taxes and focused on military adventures of various kinds.  All these guys were friends of a military-industrial complex that is - by design - hostile to conservative ideals of limited government and personal liberty.

At some point, the ideal is so remote and incapable of realization that it has no relevance to the political process.  Which leaves the Republicans dually committed to oligarchs and religionists, despite strong guidance to the contrary.

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.