The Republican is basically a conservative and this is what he cares about, where his passions lie. The Republican party is nothing more than a means of making it work, although it hasn't really served him all that well. A Democrat, on the other hand, sees his party as something of a religion. He sees himself as a Democrat rather than as a liberal. He will deny being a liberal even though he has just voted for a candidate who is somewhere to the left of Leon Trotsky.
Democrats are good at looking the other way.
Big city political machines have invariably been Democratic. The political bosses have ruled over their fiefdoms with the full knowledge and consent of the Democratic voters who put them in office and kept them there. Throughout this century, and even before, these corrupt, larcenous individuals have had the full approval of the peasants in the field, people who honestly believed that they were better off because these old pirates were enriching themselves. Republicans resented the obscenity, but Democrats applauded. This attitude has spilled over into modern times and has given the Clinton administration a free ride.