Actually, it can be said that there are four broad categories of Republicans these days. The categories overlap to some degree, and some individuals feel free to mix the ideologies

1) The corporatist elite. These are the people who really run the party, and the closest ideological cousins to Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and the Republicans of the early 1900s. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush are the political progeny of this mind-set. These people have one over-riding goal: to assist Big Business and the wealthy. Originally that meant keeping government at bay and allowing business to operate unregulated and unrestricted. Now, however, their tactics include using government as a tool of Big Business and the wealthy by providing huge subsidies (corporate welfare) to favored industries, particularly the "military industrial complex." These individuals have never been very large in number, but because of their inherited or acquired positions of wealth and power, they have enjoyed an incredibly disproportionate influence in American politics, continuing today with the Bush family legacy. They keenly realize that their primary objectives must be kept largely hidden, and that to win elections they must draw support (votes) from other constituencies, with which they may have little or nothing in common. Thus their eager willingness to exploit "social issues" -- segregation, abortion, gun-control, homosexuality, etc. -- to stir up

2) The Christian right. These are individuals and groups that seek to address social issues by imposing 3) The Christian right. These are individuals and groups that seek to address social issues by imposing 4) The true conservative.