The first election in which the D was left-wing and the R was right-wing

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By today's standards the earliest I can see is 1932.

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1896.

Are you meaning rightwing and leftwing as we know the terms today? Also, do you switch avatars a lot? I feel like sometimes you're a Democrat from Minnesota.

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Left and right are not applicable terms to American political development at least until 1896.

Present day moderate republican was the Lincoln GOP which Arlen Specter defended very well in his support and party switch for Obama. Dixiecrats were Jeffersonian democrats.

I think another good comparison to Jeffersonian philosophy would be Ron Paul and Barry Goldwater. Actually I'd put George W. Bush close to Lincoln's ideology based on their fundamental belief in liberation. Issues change as times change.

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I might say as recent as 1980 thinking about it again. Ronald Reagan was the very first true  conservative to ever be in the White House.

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I might say as recent as 1980 thinking about it again. Ronald Reagan was the very first true  conservative to ever be in the White House.

If you think that, then you have a very odd definition of conservative.

I meant conservative as it's defined today.

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I might say as recent as 1980 thinking about it again. Ronald Reagan was the very first true  conservative to ever be in the White House.

If you think that, then you have a very odd definition of conservative.

I meant conservative as it's defined today.

How pray tell, by any modern definition of conservative, would Grover Cleveland fall short of that standard?  Well other than the fact he wasn't a warmonger who wanted America intervening outside its borders.

Right that isn't something I would consider to be true conservatism. The issues are so different today from over a century ago that I wouldn't compare things.