One Sunday this past November, President Bush’s chief strategist Karl Rove went on the talk show circuit to discuss the possibility that 2004 would be depicted by historians as being a realigning election. A little over three months later, with the nation fixated on Social Security reform, his opinions seem remarkably prescient. According to Wikipedia: “[A realigning election is one] in which geographic bases of power for each of the two parties [are] significantly altered, resulting in a new political power structure and status quo. It is generally believed that a realigning election happens only after a shift in partisan...