I disagree with this. Teamsters have little in common with college faculty voters. Homosexual activists have little in common with West Virginia coal miners. AFSCME and NEA voters have little in common with welfare recipients.
The blue-collar Democrat voters and the idlers and the media-professional classes...have NOTHING in common, except PURE HATRED for conservatives. The blue-collar joes don't even hate America, the way the reporters and faculty members and sodomites do. But they march in lockstep...united by dreams of power, money, and Free Excrement...delighted to stick it to those Christers with their guns and Bibles.
Not much of a base...until you get down to the nub. They're SHEEPLE. Elite or indigent, they all want GOVERNMENT as their MASTER.
That's not a principle. That's craven helplessness and raw hatred for the independently-successful.
Actually, if you boil it down far enough they all have one thing in common. They want government to guarantee their particular ticket on the government gravy train. Whether that ticket is government upholding the union so their wages/strike fund/retirement fund/employment opportunities keep rolling in, or whether their seat on the train is someone else paying for their abortion/food/rent/schooling/research/protected buggery/AIDS medicine/condoms/whatever gimmie they want, they all want a seat, whether they are going to work or not. They want the government to guarantee their seat, and pay for it.
The seminal difference is that Conservatives aren't looking for anything but the freedom to make the most of their own opportunities and to have the government get off their back. Have it go defend the border, uphold the law, get the mail through, keep the roads passable, and get out of the way.
"Moderates" are a blend of those two basic philosophies.
Like a bell curve, the two endpoints, the true totalitarian nanny-staters vs the absolute (real, not Marxists in disguise) anarchists are the rarity. the fat part of the curve was the middle, a balance between the conservative's government and the giveaway government, but that has been slumping toward the side of those who want more free stuff. Without reversing that trend and weaning the population of free stuff, it isn't going to get better.