“I don’t know when it happened,...”
It may have happened after Lee Atwater left us in 1991, .... but really blossomed in 1998 during the Clinton impeachment when the party of jack*sses slandered and libeled Ken Starr while the stoopid party stood by not counter attacking the jack*sses... seeing some honorable, decent House members carry forward on the bill of impeachment even if it cost them their political careers and the stoopid senators left them out to dry.
Two words... and he was my senator... trent lott.