So Wilson's Child Labor laws were not leftist for that time or his support for the right of women to vote?
I suppose you can see some shifts much earlier on, the New Deal obviously being one of them. But the turns that established the status-quo of today to me for the Democrats becoming advocates for Civil Rights (and the GOP taking advantage of the Southern Democrats disenchantment) and for the GOP, they needed a new base to suck-up votes from after Watergate, and from the 1976 election on, they focused on evangelical Christians.
The ironic thing is that the establishment of the GOP never really changed, which is why they're terrified of Santorum, he represents what they've kept at bay... a genuine fire-breathing social conservative.
