The Elephant in the Room (book)

In the book, Sager argues that the Republican Party, after President Bush, risks a split between its Libertarian and Evangelical wings.

Those big-government conservatives — typically southern, religious, and less educated — had by 2005 come to make up roughly one-third of the Republican coalition.

Sager further argues that the emerging split will manifest itself through a geographic realignment of the two major parties, with the libertarian-oriented and once reliably Republican Interior West — the eight states between the Pacific Coast and the Midwest: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — turning into a swing region.

In order to heal the Republican Party's rift, Sager argues, the GOP should renew its fusionist bargain.

This would involve, in his view, embracing the concept of cultural federalism (allowing thorny moral issues such as gay marriage to be sorted out at the state level), backing off intrusive security measures in the War on Terror, and committing to small-government policy reforms such as school choice.