U.S. House Is the Most Conservative It's Been in More Than 60 Years

[tpfkaw]

I'm assuming that's using DW-Nominate?  That doesn't say anything about ideology, it just tracks how often congressmen vote with the other party.

Obviously, if you transported today's politicians back "more than 60 years" and they were all very principled and professed to believe the exact same things, the Republicans would get circa 85% of the vote (probably an underestimate).

[tpfkaw]

60 years ago would be 1953. Nobody back then would consider a party whose core principle is keeping the top tax rate at 35%.

Cool story bro.  http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre1947040900#.UedSSxaTM20

Anyway, rightly or wrongly, people in the year 1953 are not exactly going to cotton to a party with the modern-day Democrats' views on gay rights, abortion, school prayer, racial issues, etc., and propensity for denouncing anyone who disagrees with those views as a bigot.