That seems to have dissipated under the relentless insistence of style over substance that is typified by that best friend of conservatives in the U.S., Howard Dean. A party that had been in majority in the House for four decades seemed to deliberately choose minority because it better fit the sort of responsibility-free demagoguery that originated on college campuses in the 70's and that is now contending for the soul of the party. I do not see any particular indication that its current inhabitants really desire to be in the majority again, with all the accountability that will demand. Much better to snipe incessantly at Bush with the hope that it may eventually bring him down and the fear of what will happen should they come into an unwanted responsibility thereafter.
They aren't liberals. They are socialists, many with totalitarian impulses about what can be expressed. Political correctness is "cultural marxism."
The other day I was conversing with a liberal, and she gave me the usual heroic story about her opposing some stupid redneck southern yokel who had dared use the "n" profanity in her presence. Liberals run into these types every day you know. She stopped telling the tale as if she was expecting applause. She had just hit all the notes of the new soviet template and I didn't affirm her courage and righteousness. She was shocked.
Instead, I told her I was of southern ancestry, and that my people worked in the fields with the slaves and were too poor to do anything but harvest crops and join the service during segregation. I told her I had often ran into liberals who thought I hung sheets in my closet because of my family's deep south origins.
Then, the finish. I told her that I always tell these liberals that I have two black nieces and a Polynesian sister in law. I then ask the ethnic makeup of their family. As I left the room I (innocently) mentioned that people practicing their non-racist superiority is as bad as Bible thumpers entering a room and telling people they are going to Hell.
I don't think I've ever sen a wider pair of eyes. That's a lot for one liberal to think about.