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ATLANTA - Republicans took the reins of the state House on Monday for the first time in 135 years, completing a state sweep that began two years ago when the GOP won the governor's office and state Senate. Amid whoops and a few tears, Republicans elected Rep. Glenn Richardson as House Speaker, a vote many saw as the culmination of decades of hard work by Republicans. Richardson became the first member of the GOP to hold the gavel since Reconstruction. "The gravity of this moment is overwhelming to me," said Richardson, who choked up for a moment while giving his...

Southern Heritage Political Action Committee Press Release November 5, 2004 Primary and General Elections Results. The Southern Heritage Political Action Committee (SHPAC) is proud to announce that a total of Eighteen anti-Southern Politicians on Georgia’s “Deck of Shame” have been removed during the 2004 election cycle. Eleven before and after the primary elections and seven after the general elections. The majority of the Eighteen removed was the direct result of the SHPAC efforts. Of the five Major political targets the SHPAC selected four were defeated, a ratio of 80%. Major SHPAC Political Targets: 1. Ginger Collins, State Senator (R), District...

Craig McCort, a former Democratic candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, is switching parties. "It was just a personal decision," McCort, 54, said Wednesday of his shift to the Republican Party. "I was always more of a conservative Democrat. Now I'm going to be a moderate Republican." Mc Cort was criticized for negative tactics in his unsuccessful 2002 campaign for the District 46 House seat against the then-incumbent, Republican Heather Fiorentino. Fiorentino was elected Pasco school superintendent in 2004. "The Democratic Party moved away from me," said McCort, executive director of the Sertoma Speech and Hearing Foundation of Florida....

Welcome to a new era in the Georgia Legislature where the focus will turn to strengthening traditional families, increasing personal responsibility, reducing government, and cutting taxes. If it sounds like a Republican agenda, there's a reason. Republicans have taken over the statehouse after 130 years of Democratic domination. When the new legislative session opens Jan. 10, Republicans will be running the show.

"I, along with so many other conservative Democrats in Kentucky, have found it virtually impossible to wholeheartedly support candidates whose policies do not reflect what I grew up with and learned at a young age," [County Attorney] Hickman said. Then he quoted President Ronald Reagan's line explaining why he abandoned the Democratic Party in the 1960s. "I did not leave my party, it left me." Hickman said he disagrees with the national party on its support of abortion - especially partial birth abortion - its support of gun control legislation and its opposition to extending President George W. Bush's tax...

MURRIETA, Calif. — As four vintage military planes soared above the second annual Veterans Day parade here last month, all eyes turned skyward. Suddenly, one plane veered west, alone. The empty space where the plane had flown was a tribute to those who've died in defense of freedom. Eyes misted over. Young parents snapped pictures. Old men saluted. Mayor Jack van Haaster commemorated the somber fly-by: "We give tribute to those whose lives were lost in service to their country." Then he clambered into a shiny convertible to lead high school bands and candy-tossing Marines, car clubs and Scout troops...

REPUBLICANS: OVER ONE MILLION AND GROWING GOP eclipses one million voter mark for first time in history (Frankfort, KY) Republican Party of Kentucky Chairman John McCarthy announced today that there are now more than one million Republicans on state voter rolls, according to statistics published by the Secretary of State. As of December 15, 2004, there were 1,002,915 registered Republicans in Kentucky, compared to just 944,197 on Election Day 2003. “Our party continues to grow at a remarkable pace,” said McCarthy. “The reasons are clear—the Republican Party represents the values of most Kentuckians, and the voter registration numbers you are...

Link Dang copyright laws.

Bob Bird/Associated Press Betty Ireland, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, defeated Kenneth Hechler, right, a surprise for West Virginia Democrats. CHARLESTON, W. Va., Nov. 12 - On the eve of the presidential election, Democrats here could practically taste victory for Senator John Kerry. Senator Robert C. Byrd, the party's revered elder statesman, headlined boisterous rallies that seemed to augur a huge Democratic turnout. Coal miners and steel workers pounded on doors urging loyalists to vote. All that remained was for Democrats, who outnumber Republicans in this state by two to one, to do what they have done...

Jack and the Beanstalk and Party Realignment  Every since Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1980, along with Republican control of the Senate and a 33-seat pickup in the House of Representatives, students of American politics have investigated, debated and debunked the theory of party realignment in that case. But the 1994 GOP takeover of Congress, and the gains in both houses of Congress that accompanied George W. Bush's election and re-election in 2000 and 2004, have raised the question again. I believe the trend is pretty obvious, but these elections are at best watersheds, which becomes apparent once we...

Was Nov. 2 Realignment -- Or a Tilt? Political Parties Look for Answers By John F. Harris Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, November 28, 2004; Page A01 By any measure, President Bush and his fellow Republicans had a good night on Nov. 2. The question now is whether the election results set the GOP up for a good decade -- or more. As some partisan operatives and political scientists see it, Bush's reelection victory and simultaneous Republican gains in the House and Senate suggest that an era of divided government and approximate parity between the major parties is giving way...

By any measure, President Bush and his fellow Republicans had a good night on Nov. 2. The question now is whether the election results set the GOP up for a good decade -- or more. As some partisan operatives and political scientists see it, Bush's reelection victory and simultaneous Republican gains in the House and Senate suggest that an era of divided government and approximate parity between the major parties is giving way to an era of GOP dominance. By this light, the Republican advantage on the most important issues of the day -- the fight against terrorism, most of...

'04 Voting: Realignment -- Or a Tilt?Political Parties Look for Answers By any measure, President Bush and his fellow Republicans had a good night on Nov. 2. The question now is whether the election results set the GOP up for a good decade or more. As some partisan operatives and political scientists see it, Bush's reelection victory and simultaneous Republican gains in the House and Senate suggest that an era of divided government and approximate parity between the major parties is giving way to an era of GOP dominance. By this light, the Republican advantage on the most important issues...

A western Ohio Democrat who garnered national attention in 2000 when he became the youngest House member in state history at age 18 says he is joining the Republican caucus. Rep. Derrick Seaver of Minster in Auglaize County, now 22, said he plans to make the switch official at a news conference today with Ohio GOP leaders. Seaver declined to discuss his reasons until then. It is the first time in recent memory that a state representative has switched caucuses. Seaver, who was unopposed for re-election as a Democrat two weeks ago, campaigned for President Bush and said he "felt...

KARL ROVE SAID LAST YEAR that the question of realignment--whether Republicans have at last become the majority party--would be decided by the election of 2004. And it has. Even by the cautious reckoning of Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, Republicans now have both an operational majority in Washington (control of the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives) and an ideological majority in the country (51 percent popular vote for a center-right president). They also control a majority of governorships, a plurality of state legislatures, and are at rough parity with Democrats in the number of state legislators....

IT WAS EITHER history's closest landslide or profoundest squeaker. Arriving right on schedule, in the 36th year after the post-New Deal realignment of 1968, and culminating in Ohio, home base of the McKinley realignment dear to the heart of Bush strategist Karl Rove, the 3-percentage point reelection of George W. Bush dwarfs in potential importance the 49-state "lonely landslides" achieved by Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984.In part, of course, that is because the 2004 election profoundly alters the Senate, the chief obstructer of the Bush agenda. Because of Bush's red-state coattails, Republicans won all five Democratic...

If Tuesday's election returns were a bitter pill for Democrats nationally, they were pure poison for Democrats in the South. Five formerly Democratic U.S. Senate seats were up for grabs. Republicans swept them all. Superficially, the results simply continued the region's long-running shift into the embrace of the GOP. In a fractured nation, however, the aftershocks may be felt for years to come. On Capitol Hill, Republicans have fattened their Senate majority to at least 55 with a batch of young conservatives likely to be deeply loyal to President Bush and his agenda. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, already plans...

Elated by the Republican majorities elected to both the state Senate and House for the first time in 130 years, a jubilant Gov. Sonny Perdue announced, "The people of Georgia gave us the ball tonight." Now, the governor has to be careful not to fumble it. A surefire way to squander his historic opportunity would be to permit social conservatives, rather than fiscal conservatives, to set the GOP agenda. Perdue would be wise to quickly establish that his focus will be on safeguarding the state's solvency and not its soul. And he must show that he remains committed to directing...

TO: INTERESTED PARTIESFR: MATTHEW DOWDCHIEF STRATEGISTRE: INITIAL STRATEGIC ANALYSISPresident Bush won a historic victory yesterday by defeating John Kerry by more than 3.5 million votes,58.6 million to 55.1 million (51% to 48%) and winning the Electoral College 286 to 252. In doing so, President Bush:• Becomes the first presidential candidate to win more than 50% of the popular vote since 1988.• Received the most votes by any presidential candidate in history - over 58 million, even breaking President Reagan’s 1984 mark of 54.5 million votes.• Becomes the first President re-elected while gaining seats in the House and the Senate since 1936,...

US Senate seat went to Johnny Isakson (RINO), gives us both Senate seats. Gov went to Perdue (R) in last election. "Completing an electoral revolution that began two years ago, Georgia Republicans on Tuesday won the majority in the state House for the first time since Reconstruction. The win gave the party control of both chambers of the Legislature. Picking up newly created districts in north and south Georgia and bumping off a handful of incumbent Democrats, the GOP increased its hold on the Senate majority while taking enough seats in the House to complete its statehouse takeover. Republicans had...