Did the GOP slide begin in the 1990s?

[12th Doctor]

1994 was the last time people had "a reason" to vote Republican.  What I mean is that there was a clearly expressed Republican platform of national ideas that were well communicated to the public at large.  The decline began when, for various reasons, Republicans failed to deliver.  If you look at 1998, really that should have been the Republican's year, and yet they just barely held ground.

Republicans actually did quite well in 1998 considering how many Democratic leaning seats that they held and the fact that they lost almost no ground in 1996, when they should have probably lost the House. 

Not really.  They won most of those seats in 1994 against moderate Democrats.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Of course, the second chance the Republicans got because of the terrible Democrat reaction to the early 2000's pretty much jumped the shark in with the Federal Marriage Amendment.  That is when the GOP successfully proved that they were, in fact, more hostile to the values of most Americans.

Fareed Zakaria said it best. After the Schiavo circus and the Bridge to Nowhere the american public, and especially the suburbanites, became aware that their money aren't less safe with the Democrats but their values ARE less safe with the Republicans.

[12th Doctor]

I mean, in the Senate, they lost three seats, and the three they picked-up were Ohio, which was only because John Glenn retired, Kentucky, and defeated a weak incumbent in Carol Moseley-Braun.  Two of the three winners are now out of office, and one is Jim Bunning.  In the meantime we lost one really good Senator in Al D'Amato.

[Mr.Phips]

I mean, in the Senate, they lost three seats, and the three they picked-up were Ohio, which was only because John Glenn retired, Kentucky, and defeated a weak incumbent in Carol Moseley-Braun's Illinois seat.  Two of the three winners are now out of office, and one is Jim Bunning.  In the meantime we lost one really good Senator in Al D'Amato.

Al D'Amato was on borrowed time in a state like New York. 

[Smash255]

It's very worrisome though because you had people like Santorum (gone thank god), DeMint, Cornyn and Brownback running the show.  These people have no clue that they are the definition of the problem and not the solution.

It's very concerning because to a lot of northerners, the party is seen as blatantly intolerant and ignorant.  Whether true or not, the perception, which is always reality is that the party is run by religious fascists and when you have people like DeMint, Delay and others that consistently make ignorant remarks about human nature, etc, it looks very bad and unfortunately, having gone to college down south, you have some very ignorant people and uneducated human beings that revere the GOP nowadays.  How to reverse that, I have no idea, but it's a big problem.

For every DeMint or Palin you have a McCain, a Romney, or a Collins.

No you don't.  Collins is really the only true moderate out of those three.  McCain is more of a moderate-conservative but his campaign tacked quite a bit to the right.  Who knows what the hell Romney is.  The guy that ran for Gov was a moderate, the one that ran for President was a staunch conservative.

[Scam of God]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

[Mechaman]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

[pbrower2a]

The GOP established a marriage of convenience between corporate power and religious fundamentalists during the 1990s, a coalition sure to shrink with respect to the rest of America over time. It expected to offer prosperity through tax cuts and the supposed miracles of the right people getting the wealth necessary to power unprecedented growth. The GOP would enforce ideological rigidity to keep people in it on the program -- that is, ideologically pure.With that the GOP would convince enough of the rest to win in enough places.

That's how things seemed to work in 2000, 2002, and 2004 even with razor-thin margins because democracy all but died within the GOP. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

[Mr.Phips]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

I don't need to learn anything in that regard, I already know. Its just that the idea of the Democrats shirking off Wilson, FDR, JFK, and LBJ to once again become the party of Jefferson and Jackson sounds highly unlikely, especially with recent events.

[Vepres]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It's crazy to believe that populists will take over the Republican party. The major voices of the party at the moment are fiscal conservatives who barely even mention social issues. Think McCain, Paul Ryan, Romney (after the campaign), and the majority of the GOP congressmen. If anything, the fiscal conservative side of the party is having a comeback after 8 years of silence.

Besides, the top three Democrats in the primaries were progressives, so to say they're headed towards quasi-libertarianism is a baseless analysis.

[Vepres]

It's very worrisome though because you had people like Santorum (gone thank god), DeMint, Cornyn and Brownback running the show.  These people have no clue that they are the definition of the problem and not the solution.

It's very concerning because to a lot of northerners, the party is seen as blatantly intolerant and ignorant.  Whether true or not, the perception, which is always reality is that the party is run by religious fascists and when you have people like DeMint, Delay and others that consistently make ignorant remarks about human nature, etc, it looks very bad and unfortunately, having gone to college down south, you have some very ignorant people and uneducated human beings that revere the GOP nowadays.  How to reverse that, I have no idea, but it's a big problem.

For every DeMint or Palin you have a McCain, a Romney, or a Collins.

No you don't.  Collins is really the only true moderate out of those three.  McCain is more of a moderate-conservative but his campaign tacked quite a bit to the right.  Who knows what the hell Romney is.  The guy that ran for Gov was a moderate, the one that ran for President was a staunch conservative.

But they don't go around trumpeting their social conservatism with a holier than thou attitude.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It's crazy to believe that populists will take over the Republican party. The major voices of the party at the moment are fiscal conservatives who barely even mention social issues. Think McCain, Paul Ryan, Romney (after the campaign), and the majority of the GOP congressmen. If anything, the fiscal conservative side of the party is having a comeback after 8 years of silence.

Besides, the top three Democrats in the primaries were progressives, so to say they're headed towards quasi-libertarianism is a baseless analysis.

Gov't actually grew under Reagan due to a compromise he struck with Dems where he could beef up the Military in exchange the Dems would get some more domestic spending then Reagan had intended. If Reagan had a Republican Congress things might have been different.

[Mr.Phips]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It also happened in the 1990's after Republicans took over.  They realized that they needed earmarks and pork-barrel projects to get their members reelected. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It also happened in the 1990's after Republicans took over.  They realized that they needed earmarks and pork-barrel projects to get their members reelected. 

Yes I have commented on that. But generally the period from 1995-1999 was the first era of fiscally conservative Gov't since the 1920's. From 1995-1999 earmarks went down, welfare was reformed and the annual growth of Gov't spending was reduced. It wasn't untill 1999 that the Republicans completely abandoned fiscal conservativism, and it generally coincides with the rise of two Texans George Bush and Tom Delay. After 1999 we saw the growth of earmarks like never before; the creation of unfounded mandates, Medicare Part D; and Government Agencies, Homeland Security. What I am hopefull of is the return to the ideals and core beliefs, no matter what those beliefs may be, and have that determine the strength or weakness of our candidates not how much they can bribe there constituents.

My hope is for the Republicans to be in there mid 1990's form when they retake congress and not some corrupt, pseudo-populist socially conservative hybrid whose only existence is to further the interests of the incumbents and achieve no real reforms except those that beef up the poll numbers for next election. Its amazing that 30 years into the modern Conservative movement we have only squeezed out four years of reasonable fiscal conservativism.

[hcallega]

The reality is that the GOP has abandoned the ideology of it's fore bearers. The fundamental success of the GOP beginning with Nixon, peeking with Reagan, and crashing with Bush, was a combination of the "old" Republican base of suburban whites and westerners with the disgruntled old Democrats: blue-collar whites and southerners. However beginning in the 1990s the "new" Republicans began to take over the party. These voters joined the Republicans because they were disgruntled with the Democratic views on social/moral values issues, their foreign policy, and to a lesser extent taxes. When the "Dixiecrats" and "Reagan Democrats" took over the focus shifted to these issues, rather than the issues that were the base of the old GOP: balanced budgets, support of business and enterprise, and a non-confrontational yet tough foreign policy.

In many ways the old GOP was popular because they were "clean": They were the suburban alternative to the dirty, corrupt, urban and back-country Democrats. Honestly you just have to look at my home-state, Maryland. For generations the Democrats relied on the Baltimore urban machine and the rural, tobacco and fishing-reliant voters on the Eastern Shore and Southern peninsula. The Republicans won the farmers and the D.C. suburbs. However today the Democrats have become the suburban and urban party in Maryland, with the GOP becoming the rural party. Nationally this has occurred as well, with the GOP becoming dirty party: spending that goes to no where, corruption issues, and a President who people viewed as secretive and dirty.

[Vepres]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It also happened in the 1990's after Republicans took over.  They realized that they needed earmarks and pork-barrel projects to get their members reelected. 

Yes I have commented on that. But generally the period from 1995-1999 was the first era of fiscally conservative Gov't since the 1920's. From 1995-1999 earmarks went down, welfare was reformed and the annual growth of Gov't spending was reduced. It wasn't untill 1999 that the Republicans completely abandoned fiscal conservativism, and it generally coincides with the rise of two Texans George Bush and Tom Delay. After 1999 we saw the growth of earmarks like never before; the creation of unfounded mandates, Medicare Part D; and Government Agencies, Homeland Security. What I am hopefull of is the return to the ideals and core beliefs, no matter what those beliefs may be, and have that determine the strength or weakness of our candidates not how much they can bribe there constituents.

My hope is for the Republicans to be in there mid 1990's form when they retake congress and not some corrupt, pseudo-populist socially conservative hybrid whose only existence is to further the interests of the incumbents and achieve no real reforms except those that beef up the poll numbers for next election. Its amazing that 30 years into the modern Conservative movement we have only squeezed out four years of reasonable fiscal conservativism.

I'm sure they will. It is in their electoral interests. After all, last time they abandoned their promises of fiscal responsibility and small government, they were slaughtered (2008).

[Mr.Phips]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It also happened in the 1990's after Republicans took over.  They realized that they needed earmarks and pork-barrel projects to get their members reelected. 

Yes I have commented on that. But generally the period from 1995-1999 was the first era of fiscally conservative Gov't since the 1920's. From 1995-1999 earmarks went down, welfare was reformed and the annual growth of Gov't spending was reduced. It wasn't untill 1999 that the Republicans completely abandoned fiscal conservativism, and it generally coincides with the rise of two Texans George Bush and Tom Delay. After 1999 we saw the growth of earmarks like never before; the creation of unfounded mandates, Medicare Part D; and Government Agencies, Homeland Security. What I am hopefull of is the return to the ideals and core beliefs, no matter what those beliefs may be, and have that determine the strength or weakness of our candidates not how much they can bribe there constituents.

My hope is for the Republicans to be in there mid 1990's form when they retake congress and not some corrupt, pseudo-populist socially conservative hybrid whose only existence is to further the interests of the incumbents and achieve no real reforms except those that beef up the poll numbers for next election. Its amazing that 30 years into the modern Conservative movement we have only squeezed out four years of reasonable fiscal conservativism.

I'm sure they will. It is in their electoral interests. After all, last time they abandoned their promises of fiscal responsibility and small government, they were slaughtered (2008).

They abandoned those promises in 2002 and 2004 and did fine those years. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It also happened in the 1990's after Republicans took over.  They realized that they needed earmarks and pork-barrel projects to get their members reelected. 

Yes I have commented on that. But generally the period from 1995-1999 was the first era of fiscally conservative Gov't since the 1920's. From 1995-1999 earmarks went down, welfare was reformed and the annual growth of Gov't spending was reduced. It wasn't untill 1999 that the Republicans completely abandoned fiscal conservativism, and it generally coincides with the rise of two Texans George Bush and Tom Delay. After 1999 we saw the growth of earmarks like never before; the creation of unfounded mandates, Medicare Part D; and Government Agencies, Homeland Security. What I am hopefull of is the return to the ideals and core beliefs, no matter what those beliefs may be, and have that determine the strength or weakness of our candidates not how much they can bribe there constituents.

My hope is for the Republicans to be in there mid 1990's form when they retake congress and not some corrupt, pseudo-populist socially conservative hybrid whose only existence is to further the interests of the incumbents and achieve no real reforms except those that beef up the poll numbers for next election. Its amazing that 30 years into the modern Conservative movement we have only squeezed out four years of reasonable fiscal conservativism.

I'm sure they will. It is in their electoral interests. After all, last time they abandoned their promises of fiscal responsibility and small government, they were slaughtered (2008).

They abandoned those promises in 2002 and 2004 and did fine those years. 

Thats what I have been trying to tell you. The reason they did fine those years is
A. Earmarks do help reelection bids
B. People cared more about physical then Finacial security.

The whole idea of abandoning fiscal conservatisim was for short-term electoral gain but thinking short term only comes back to bight you in the end. Out of control spending was one issue in 2006 that the GOP could have avoided, corruption was another big one that could easily have been avoided. But they didn't, they chose short term gain in return for long term consequences.

[??????????]

having gone to college down south, you have some very ignorant people and uneducated human beings

Oh, I forgot, the enlightened north, free of ignorance!

[Landslide Lyndon]

The reality is that the GOP has abandoned the ideology of it's fore bearers. The fundamental success of the GOP beginning with Nixon, peeking with Reagan, and crashing with Bush, was a combination of the "old" Republican base of suburban whites and westerners with the disgruntled old Democrats: blue-collar whites and southerners. However beginning in the 1990s the "new" Republicans began to take over the party. These voters joined the Republicans because they were disgruntled with the Democratic views on social/moral values issues, their foreign policy, and to a lesser extent taxes. When the "Dixiecrats" and "Reagan Democrats" took over the focus shifted to these issues, rather than the issues that were the base of the old GOP: balanced budgets, support of business and enterprise, and a non-confrontational yet tough foreign policy.

In many ways the old GOP was popular because they were "clean": They were the suburban alternative to the dirty, corrupt, urban and back-country Democrats. Honestly you just have to look at my home-state, Maryland. For generations the Democrats relied on the Baltimore urban machine and the rural, tobacco and fishing-reliant voters on the Eastern Shore and Southern peninsula. The Republicans won the farmers and the D.C. suburbs. However today the Democrats have become the suburban and urban party in Maryland, with the GOP becoming the rural party. Nationally this has occurred as well, with the GOP becoming dirty party: spending that goes to no where, corruption issues, and a President who people viewed as secretive and dirty.

I can't disagree with any of your points. Just a little nitpick: the Republican foreign policy WAS confrontational. The big difference with the Democrats was it's non-interventionism.

That principle remained in place till W.'s election, when the neo-cons (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kristol, etc. )  hijacked the party.

[Scam of God]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It also happened in the 1990's after Republicans took over.  They realized that they needed earmarks and pork-barrel projects to get their members reelected. 

Yes I have commented on that. But generally the period from 1995-1999 was the first era of fiscally conservative Gov't since the 1920's. From 1995-1999 earmarks went down, welfare was reformed and the annual growth of Gov't spending was reduced. It wasn't untill 1999 that the Republicans completely abandoned fiscal conservativism, and it generally coincides with the rise of two Texans George Bush and Tom Delay. After 1999 we saw the growth of earmarks like never before; the creation of unfounded mandates, Medicare Part D; and Government Agencies, Homeland Security. What I am hopefull of is the return to the ideals and core beliefs, no matter what those beliefs may be, and have that determine the strength or weakness of our candidates not how much they can bribe there constituents.

My hope is for the Republicans to be in there mid 1990's form when they retake congress and not some corrupt, pseudo-populist socially conservative hybrid whose only existence is to further the interests of the incumbents and achieve no real reforms except those that beef up the poll numbers for next election. Its amazing that 30 years into the modern Conservative movement we have only squeezed out four years of reasonable fiscal conservativism.

I'm sure they will. It is in their electoral interests. After all, last time they abandoned their promises of fiscal responsibility and small government, they were slaughtered (2008).

They abandoned those promises in 2002 and 2004 and did fine those years. 

Thats what I have been trying to tell you. The reason they did fine those years is
A. Earmarks do help reelection bids
B. People cared more about physical then Finacial security.

The whole idea of abandoning fiscal conservatisim was for short-term electoral gain but thinking short term only comes back to bight you in the end. Out of control spending was one issue in 2006 that the GOP could have avoided, corruption was another big one that could easily have been avoided. But they didn't, they chose short term gain in return for long term consequences.

You're interpreted the realignment I speak of totally wrong. The Republican Party won't abandon fiscal conservatism for short-term gain; rather, it will be a long-term, structural reshaping of the Party, designed to shore themselves up in the rural south while attempting to make an in-road in the urban North -- as much as I disagree with it, populism is the only foreseeable way for them to begin to re-entrench themselves as an electoral coalition, the old Reaganist one having frayed irreparably earlier this decade.

Mike Huckabee is the future of your Party, your God help us all. In him and others like him will the Republicans find a coalition that can win more often than not, though at the expense of the nation. 

[Mechaman]

In twenty years, when the history of the Great Realignment is being written - that is to say, when political historians look back to try to find the precise moment in history when an opening was made that allowed economically liberal populists like Huckabee to capture the Republican Party - they will say that Bill Clinton made it happen.

More to the point, it was Bill Clinton - a southerner (but not a Southerner) - who solidified the cultural South for the Republicans, and forced into the Republican camp a political base wholly alien to it previously: those whose political lineage could be traced to the theocratic populism of William Jennings Bryan, ignoramuses whose sole political desire is to see Augustine's socialistic City of God made manifest in the United States. By cutting these people loose from the Democratic coalition, the New Democrats traded them with a still-small, but growing, civil libertarian bloc that is waiting for a Democratic candidate to come along and speak their language.

At the same time, the populists have infested the Republican Party to the core, and the first President to be elected out of this newly-grafted wing was George W. Bush. He appealed, like no Republican before him, to those groups who are defined chiefly by their alienation from modern society: the heritors of the agrarian yeoman, whose socialism is a socialism of the fields and a socialism of the spirit.

In the future, we will consider 1996 to be the underlying cause of a political reversal that will eventually end up in a repeat of 1896.

First off, Einzige your analysis of the American political cycle is more indepth than a vast majority of people in this nation. Barack Obama is not the future of the Democratic party, he's the past. He is the last harrah of progressivism for the Democratic party. I will go as far as to say that the rise of the New Democrat wing was born as a result of the election of Ronald Reagan. As much credit as Reagan got for helping bastardize the Republican party with his enormous deficit spending, he would inevitably be given credit for the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, a wing that would swear to fight for the civil liberties the Religious Right swore to defeat. The fate of the Democratic party was sealed with the election of William Jefferson Clinton in 1992, the year that the New Democratic wing of the party took control. The widespread public outrage at incidents like Waco, the assault weapons ban, the failure of HillaryCare, among other things, were the beginning of the end of the progressive wing. The election of Barack Obama will not bring forth the resurgence of the progressive wing, rather it will be the death knell of it. The economic nationalism of this administration (Buy Murican), the draconian gun laws it will try or will enact, the even more draconian drug laws it will enforce, the continuation of the Patriot Act, and other things can only inevitably result in the rise of the civil libertarian wing of the Democratic party, led by people like Russ Feingold and Kristen Gillibrand, who will guarantee undisputable civil liberties for the American people. These will be the freedom fighters of the new era in American politics, idealistic warriors who fought tooth and nail for the defense of all civil liberties and not just some. They will swear off the decades of blind allegiance to the power of big government that their predecessors bowed down to.

The GOP, being obsessed with the preservation of state, would ulitmately become the statist oppressor to the libertarianism of the Democratic Party. The hatred of individual rights brought on by George Bush, the disregard for spending brought on by Ronald Reagan, and outright condemnation of individuality brought on by Mike Huckabee, would help in the rise of the batsh**t insane socially conservative economically populist wing of the GOP. Seig Heil!

This may sound batsh**t insane, but we'll see who is laughing (or crying) in twenty years.

What happens if the growth of Gov't under Obama drives the Libertarians from the Democratic party? I don't see this happening especially now with the backlash against Obama's spending giving a new birth to fiscal Conservativism with the GOP and with upcoming leaders like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan I don't see how a Populist Republican party is feasible. The only way that would have succeeded was if George Bush's Compassionate Conservatisim had succeeded and it clearly didn't. The Republicans are now freely attacking the lose spending under Bush which they wouldn't do until now that he is out of office.

You will likely learn that Republicans are fiscally Conservative........when they are out of power.  As soon as they get into power, they spend like drunken sailors. 

This only happened once, under Bush Jr. when they became arrogant after 10 years of controlling both houses of congress. Reagan shrunk government and Bush Sr. tried to trim the deficit (though he had to raise taxes to do so).

It also happened in the 1990's after Republicans took over.  They realized that they needed earmarks and pork-barrel projects to get their members reelected. 

Yes I have commented on that. But generally the period from 1995-1999 was the first era of fiscally conservative Gov't since the 1920's. From 1995-1999 earmarks went down, welfare was reformed and the annual growth of Gov't spending was reduced. It wasn't untill 1999 that the Republicans completely abandoned fiscal conservativism, and it generally coincides with the rise of two Texans George Bush and Tom Delay. After 1999 we saw the growth of earmarks like never before; the creation of unfounded mandates, Medicare Part D; and Government Agencies, Homeland Security. What I am hopefull of is the return to the ideals and core beliefs, no matter what those beliefs may be, and have that determine the strength or weakness of our candidates not how much they can bribe there constituents.

My hope is for the Republicans to be in there mid 1990's form when they retake congress and not some corrupt, pseudo-populist socially conservative hybrid whose only existence is to further the interests of the incumbents and achieve no real reforms except those that beef up the poll numbers for next election. Its amazing that 30 years into the modern Conservative movement we have only squeezed out four years of reasonable fiscal conservativism.

I'm sure they will. It is in their electoral interests. After all, last time they abandoned their promises of fiscal responsibility and small government, they were slaughtered (2008).

They abandoned those promises in 2002 and 2004 and did fine those years. 

Thats what I have been trying to tell you. The reason they did fine those years is
A. Earmarks do help reelection bids
B. People cared more about physical then Finacial security.

The whole idea of abandoning fiscal conservatisim was for short-term electoral gain but thinking short term only comes back to bight you in the end. Out of control spending was one issue in 2006 that the GOP could have avoided, corruption was another big one that could easily have been avoided. But they didn't, they chose short term gain in return for long term consequences.

You're interpreted the realignment I speak of totally wrong. The Republican Party won't abandon fiscal conservatism for short-term gain; rather, it will be a long-term, structural reshaping of the Party, designed to shore themselves up in the rural south while attempting to make an in-road in the urban North -- as much as I disagree with it, populism is the only foreseeable way for them to begin to re-entrench themselves as an electoral coalition, the old Reaganist one having frayed irreparably earlier this decade.

Mike Huckabee is the future of your Party, your God help us all. In him and others like him will the Republicans find a coalition that can win more often than not, though at the expense of the nation. 

That's the problem with most people who analyze political trends, they only see the short term. People all too often forget that just a hundred years ago the Democrats were the conservative populists and the Repubicans were the classically liberal leaning progressive party.

[DS0816]

Great opinions by many!

When it comes to describing today's GOP, one can sum it up in seven words:

The Republican Party is out of touch!