Posted on 11/07/2004 10:53:35 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's election victory reflected a marked shift to the right which Republicans hope will usher in a generation of conservative rule by the party, analysts said.
The biggest voter turnout since 1968, which defeated Democrat John Kerry and expanded Republican majorities in Congress, is being seen by some as another milestone for the conservative movement that put Ronald Reagan in the White House in 1980 and gave Republicans control of Congress in 1994.
"Reagan defined the new majority. The Contract with America in the 1994 election won the new majority, and Bush in 2004 has reaffirmed and strengthened the new majority," said Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
With Republicans holding a majority of state governorships and influencing the shape of the federal judiciary, many in the party are hoping for a return to the dominance the party enjoyed from President William McKinley's election in 1896 to the 1930s.
Chief Bush adviser Karl Rove said Republicans could become the governing party for decades. "The country is still close but it has moved in a Republican direction," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
"The Republicans are quite well-placed -- even if they don't win every election -- to shape American domestic politics into the next generation," said New York University professor Tony Judt, a Bush critic.
A striking feature of the Bush victory is the ascendant role of Christian evangelicals in key states including Ohio, where Republicans parlayed opposition to gay marriage and other so-called moral issues into record voter turnout.
"It's unprecedented," said historian Joan Hoff, who fears the United States could be heading for a period of regressive policies similar to the 1920s, a decade marked by Prohibition and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
Others disagree. Kevin Phillips, a former Republican official and political analyst who has become an outspoken critic of Bush, sees no evidence that Bush's 51-48 percent win over Kerry will lead to a significant new chapter in American politics.
"A man who would have lost in 2004 if 9/11 hadn't come along, was lucky 9/11 came along," said Phillips, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. "It gave his whole brand of simplistic politics a hook."
Gingrich, who engineered the 1994 Republican victory in Congress, said party gains could be short-lived unless steps are taken to build on Tuesday's winning coalition. "The Republicans will determine whether this is a high-water mark or a launching pad," he told Reuters in an interview.
Despite his strong win, Bush faces obstacles in putting his policies into practice -- including a U.S. Senate in which the minority Democrats have the ability to block important legislation by filibustering.
"If you want to pass something legislatively you've got to get 60 votes in the senate that means you have to reach out to Democrats," Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania told CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday.
Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?: How the Conservatives Won the Heart of America," said the election demonstrated a Republican ability to shape popular opinion through a strategy he calls "conservative populism."
Frank said the strategy wins elections by using hot-button issues such as gay marriage to stir anger among rank-and-file voters. But after election day, little is ultimately done about those issues, which must be preserved unresolved for future election victories.
What succeeds instead are tax cuts, deregulation and other policies backed by the party's business constituents.
"Overturning Roe vs. Wade won't happen," Frank said referring to the Supreme Court ruling endorsing the right to abortion. "What's the first thing Bush said he's going to do? Privatize Social Security. That's been a dream of business since 1936," he said. (Additional reporting by Donna Smith)
This article title is one more example of the liftist idiology trumping their calls for the right to be uniters. The 2004 presidential campaign by the left, was an amazing thing to watch, now realizing they are now calling for unification from the right, and trashing Bush for not doing so before this. LOL, the left is just plain looney!
Lets see..... an era is a period in history of considerable duration.
It is reasonable to assert that the 2004 election occured during the current era, the Conservative Era, that began in 1980 and was pubescent by 1994. The Conservative Era is nearly a quarter century old in 2004.
Goldwater was "moving toward.
--Boris
The only way that won't happen is if the Republican party lets the Arlen Specter's of the world prevent conservative judges from being appointed. Another David Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor or Anthony Kennedy and the morale and enthusiasm of the base will reach the lowest point since before the Reagan era.
Specter has to dealt with.
Another pre-Reagan era loser that doesn't have a clue. In case Mr. Phillips missed it, the shift to a permanent Republican majority in the Senate occurred in this election. There are still nine more Senate seats in red states that could easily go Republican in the future IF the Republican's don't make a major era (like failing to appoint conservative judges to the court system)
ah, a bitter man's way of spinning the truth more accurately stated as "right man in the right place and time when the world dropped into the toilet"
Bingo!!
The MSM loves people like Kevin Phillips, David Brock, Ron Reagan and Ariana Huffington -- even Pat Buchanan --because they can be characterized as former Republicans who have seen the light.
The fact that these people have virtually no following among the public means little.
BTTT!!!!!
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