2008: A Realignment in the making

[classical liberal]

As much as one might try to read into the shift in party control, said shift has not been through a shift in ideological predominance.  In fact, I would argue that the only reason it occurred was by the relaxation of ideological orthodoxy on the part of the Democrats (e.g. Heath Schuler, Brad Henry, and Bob Casey, Jr.).  As such, I can not see the basis upon which an ideological shift would occur, unless shift were just a move to reunite the Christian Humanists (i.e. Evangelicals, the few remaining neo-Cons, Compassionate Conservatives, etc.) with the Secular Humanists under the Democratic Party and allow the Classical Liberals (i.e. Paleo-Conservatives, Economic Conservatives, Libertarians, etc.) to regain dominance over the Republican Party, such a shift might actually be a welcome change for me.  Especially since it would, albeit with some (~2-3 cycles) time lag, push a good number of the Coastal Suburbanites who vote Democratic for social issues (despite their economic interests) back to the GOP and end the cognitive dissonance pervasive throughout the modern political landscape whereby the big government vs. small government on the social scale is allied with its opposite on the economic scale; i.e. it would fix what's the matter with Kansas, while at the same time fixing what's the matter with California.