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The South was a one party region until the 1980s. The Democrats until that time had a pro-business faction, really pro-crony capitalists, represented by politicians like John Connally of Texas, John Stennis of Mississippi, or Willis Robertson of Virginia. There was also a liberal faction, whose ideology was similar to the national party, represented by politicians like Bill Fulbright of Arkansas, Ralph Yarborough of Texas, or Claude Pepper of Florida. There was a third faction, actual Jeffersonian liberals who were staunch segregationists but otherwise resembled 1950s-1960s era Buckley/Goldwater conservatives, such as Lester Maddox of Georgia, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, or Coke Stevenson of Texas.

The conservative faction was the first to migrate to Republican ranks, epitomized by Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, who joined the GOP in the Nixon era. When the national Democrat Party migrated to the left under McGovern and Carter, the pro-business faction also migrated, more slowly than did the conservatives. However, by 2000, the pro-business faction had left the Democrats. This faction, which was more Hamiltonian, was comfortable with the establishment wing of the GOP, and vice versa. In most of the Southern states, they became the dominant faction in the local Republican machinery. Thus, you have such characters as McConnell, Corker, Rubio, Cochran, and Cornyn being the preeminent figures in Southern politics on the national stage.

Three cheers for the conservative rebellion that took down Luther Strange in Alabama and sped Corker's retirement decision.