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While the liberal media has always criticized the late Pope John Paul II’s "conservative" views on abortion, contraception, gay marriage, and other pressing moral issues of our time, analysts are now pointing to the Pope’s moral influence in American politics. Trends indicate that millions of Catholics have changed their party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, largely influenced by the Pope's teaching on the "Culture of Life." "Pope John Paul had a very important indirect effect in moving traditional Catholics who regularly attend Mass toward the Republicans over the years of his papacy," John Green, a political scientist at the University...

A treasure trove of data on the meaning of the 2004 presidential election has just been released, and you can bet that if reporters don't look at it carefully, strategists for potential candidates will. The 2004 election numbers may explain why Hillary Clinton is taking care to present herself as a centrist. While we vote for president in local precincts and then see the election results reported by state and county, the way to get a feeling for the underlying trends of an election is to wait for the results to be broken down into the nation's 435 congressional districts....

Since February, three Wise County officials have left the Democratic Party to join the Republicans. County Republican Party Chairman D.A. Sharpe said County Clerk Sherry Parker-Lemon, County Treasurer Katherine Canova and 271st District Judge John Fostel joined the party's membership rolls at a meeting Monday night. "All three of them are not saying they've changed their philosophy," Sharpe said. "They've been conservative Democrats, and the Democratic Party has left them, is how they describe it." Parker-Lemon said she believes that the Republican Party more closely represents her political beliefs. She said she has many good Democratic friends and wanted to...

NAHA, Okinawa — Gov. Keiichi Inamine said Sunday he doesn’t buy the idea that the “burden” Okinawa bears by hosting the bulk of U.S. forces in Japan would be relieved by having the Japanese military take over some of the bases. “If the U.S. military is replaced by the self-defense forces, I would not consider it as reduction,” he said. “I do not mean only the U.S. military when I talk about reduction in the military presence.” About 75 percent of the land in Japan used solely by the U.S. military is on Okinawa. More than half the U.S. troops...

PRESIDENT BUSH DID NOT INITIATE the political realignment that made Republicans a majority party. But he has helped create the current moment of opportunity for Republicans to enact a far-reaching conservative agenda. Absent Bush, Republicans might not have 55 senators--which they also had in 1997, but otherwise their greatest number since 1930--which was enough to approve oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge last week and to enact bankruptcy reform the week before. Both measures had failed repeatedly in recent years.Five factors have come together to give Republicans their best chance for major legislative and foreign policy achievements in nearly...

City Councilor David Pfeffer, a Democrat who angered members of his party and delighted local Republicans by endorsing and campaigning for President Bush in last year’s election, will complete his break with his party today. Pfeffer, who represents the northside District 1, said Thursday that he will change his party registration today at the Santa Fe County Courthouse . “The Democratic Party used to be the party of the people, the party of minorities, the party of people like myself,” Pfeffer told a reporter. David Pfeffer City councilor says the Democratic Party used to be the party of the people,...

A friend notes that March 4, 2005, the day on which this is written, is exactly 72 years to the day later than the day on which Franklin Roosevelt took office as president and assured Americans that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Exactly 72 years before that, Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office and appealed to "the mystic chords of memory." Seventy-two years before that, George Washington took the oath of office as the new nation's first president. Lincoln began his address at Gettysburg with the words, "Four score and seven years ago" --...

They're called partisan realignments, periods of seismic shifts in U.S. politics like the one that began in 1936 with the re-election of Franklin Roosevelt and ushered in six decades of liberal Democratic dominance. Many political observers believe a new realignment started with the Republican Revolution of 1994 and is accelerating under the Bush presidency. One of the more recent ruminations on this subject came in a USA Today op-ed by Ross K. Baker. Noting President Bush's three rounds of tax cuts and his re-election, as well as the success of the Iraqi elections, Professor Baker postulated that continued GOP control...

With the stroke of a pen, City Councilor David Pfeffer switched sides Friday, leaving his Democratic Party colleagues behind and joining the GOP. "People tell me that, after about 30 years in Santa Fe, I must have seen a lot of changes. Well, I have," Pfeffer, reading from a prepared statement, said Friday during a press conference outside the Santa Fe County office building where he officially switched parties. "I've seen good folks go from acceptance of one's differences to intolerance; from respect to disdain; from peacefully getting along to outright hatred; from multicultural coexistence to profound elitism; from civilized...

Other possible candidates include ex-Lt. Gov. Walter Bradley, ex-state Rep. John Sanchez, and state Rep. Dan Finley.

On a recent rainy Sunday night, I added my umbrella to the stack outside the door of a Woodland Hills home and crept into the parlor to witness one small step in a revolution. Larry Greenfield, director of the 3,000-member strong Republican Jewish Coalition of Southern California, canvassed the Southland before the last presidential election, speaking to audiences and participating in debates -- including single-handedly taking on Zev Yaroslavsky and Rep. Brad Sherman at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino. But after President Bush kept the White House, Greenfield wasn't ready to rest. Feeding off momentum from a jump in the...

WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) -- Citing his dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party and its liberalism, Tippah County, Miss., Sheriff Brandon Vance switched parties Tuesday. "Howard Dean taking the chairmanship of the Democratic Party brought home to me that I was no longer comfortable in the Democratic Party. Dean's and the Democratic National Committee's values and beliefs are too far on the fringe for me," Vance said. Vance's decision to join the GOP continues a trend that picked up steam after Mississippi Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck switched parties prior to her successful bid for re-election. State Republican officials said four state...

Annapolis Alderman George O. Kelley Sr. switched to the Republican Party yesterday, much to the delight of GOP officials eager to prove their inclusiveness. The Ward 4 alderman, frequently mentioned as a possible challenger to Mayor Ellen O. Moyer next fall, received several warm embraces from Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele during an afternoon news conference at Maryland Republican Party headquarters on West Street. Mr. Kelley, a 48-year-old retired police officer, wouldn't commit to running against Ms. Moyer, saying only that he has "options." He said he switched parties because the Republicans more closely match his priorities, including promoting economic...

2 county officials make shift to GOP By Kurt Allen/Assistant Managing Editor When Robyn Flowers and Barbara Hale were trying to find their place in the world of politics, it was almost a given it would be the Democratic Party. Growing up in the South, Democrats ruled the region, and there was little thought given to being Republican. "I think probably, like most people my age, if you were born and raised in Texas, you've been a Democrat because that's what your family did," said Hale, Walker County's court-at-law judge. How the times do change. Now the South, and Texas...

When Walter R. Cates tells people what he’s become, incredulously they respond, "You’re a what!" From the moment he took his first breath 63 years ago, Cates has been three things: "I’ve always told people I was born black, Baptist and Democrat." Now he’s a Republican. He recently switched parties, officially announcing it Thursday during a Buckeye Republican Club luncheon. Cates is one of the most recognizable and influential leaders in Columbus. As former president of the local NAACP chapter in 1973, he sued the Columbus school district, police and fire divisions for discrimination and forced them to change. Cates,...

While they fight it out, a long-time Democratic commissioner in Hamilton County, Tennessee announced Monday that he's switching parties. A release from the State Republican Party pegged Curtis Adams' move to Dean, but a spokesman for the state party tells us that "local party officials have left the option open for Commissioner Adams to join the Republican Party for some time, and I think he has been watching the direction that his party has been taking and decided that now was the right time." Said Adams yesterday: "For almost 18 years in office as a Democrat I believed in what...

JACKSON, Miss., Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Mayor Rusty Quave of D'Iberville, Miss., switched his party affiliation Monday to Republican. With Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour at his side, Quave said he was honored to have found a proper home for his views. "I have served the citizens of D'Iberville as mayor for the past 12 years with a conservative attitude and strong emphasis on economic development and quality of life," Quave said. Quave's decision comes just days after members of the Democratic National Committee elected former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean to be the party's national chairman. The number of Mississippi's Republican...

For information call Brian Craig 1-877-275-2326 or visit www.stevekaneshow.com Deacon Face Excommunication Over Switch To Republican Party POMPANO BEACH- Steve Kane a South Florida radio host featured a local deacon who says he faces excommunication from his church after considering a switch to the Republican Party. Owen Blackwell, who is a member of Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church, based in Pompano Beach, Florida, expressed frustration with the Democratic Party during a call-in to the Steve Kane Show several weeks ago. During the show, Blackwell, who is African-American, told listeners he was considering switching his voter registration from the Democrat to the...

George W. Bush is a transformative president. Bill Clinton skillfully adapted to circumstances. George W. Bush -- clumsily in the view of his critics, but with confidence self-evident to those who watched his State of the Union with clear eyes -- sets out to transform America and the world. And is succeeding. Consider Social Security, the centerpiece of Bush's domestic policy this year. The conventional wisdom is that change is impossible. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid says he has 45 votes lined up to filibuster any change. But Bush is working to change public opinion. The first polls taken after...

President Bush's agenda for the next four years, much of which he will highlight in his State of the Union address tonight, includes many proposals that would not only change public policy but, the GOP hopes, achieve an ambitious political goal: Stripping money and voters from the Democratic Party and cementing Republican dominance for years after he leaves office.... On issue after issue, the White House is staking out positions that achieve a policy goal while expanding the GOP's appeal to new voters or undermining the Democrats' ability to compete. Interviews with Bush advisors, a recent memo drafted by a...