ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author discusses how parties choose their coalitions and the coalitions that define the parties in the 2012 election. Ideologies differ from mere coalitions, because they bind together different groups. Today, ideology is not tearing the parties apart; it is holding them together. Ideology is why potentially divergent factions don't actually diverge. As of the 2012 election, these ideologies largely match the party coalitions. Democratic constituencies have policy goals and both Obama and the Democratic Party had delivered in the last four years and could be expected to deliver more in the next four years. After every election, the losing party must take stock of its loss and try to decide how to correct it in the future. It looks back at the election of 2012 and sees it as a turning point in the development of party coalitions.
