Paul Waldman of Media Matters just put up an insightful piece that noted that it wasn't that the Democratic Party changed it's complexion much. It just grew in many areas (progressives, moderates, etc.). The real change was the loss of the Republican moderates and basically pushing the GOP into the corner of being a smaller and more extreme viewed "fringe right" party that it has earned by pushing such extreme right legislation through the last few years. Moderates have become turned off to it and is losing the center.
He makes a good point that many of these moderate seats that the Dems picked up will be VERY hard for Republicans to pick back up, as they won't have many moderates that voters can trust/like that can get back those seats in subsequent elections. I think about that, and he's so right. I think for example, it will be next to impossible for the Republicans to field a GOP candidate that will win back Iowa City's seat (my old congress critter from college days) that has been occupied by Jim Leach for so long. Maybe Jim Leach might try again if the Republican Party reforms itself more, but it will be a lot harder without him being the incumbent.
Another thing to feel good about from what I've noticed is that of the
three "classes" of Senators that cycle through each term, the one that has the most Democrat seats now by far is the one we just elected, which means most of our Democratic seats are "safe" until the year 2012 when they are up for re-election. The next two terms, the Republicans have the most to lose in terms of seats. The Republicans were actually fortunate that the Dems had most of the vulnerable seats this election cycle, or perhaps the loss in the Senate might have been that much larger too.
2006 class: 22 Democrats, 2 Democrat leaning independents, 9 Republicans
2008 class: 12 Democrats, 21 Republicans
2010 class: 15 Democrats, 19 Republicans
In short, for the next four years, 40 Republican seats are up for grabs, while only 27 Democratic seats are up for grabs. 22+2 Dem seats are safe until 2012 (barring a Lieberman defection to the Republicans). Only 9 Republican seats are safe during that time. I think this and this article present some good reasons for us to have added confidence (though we shouldn't take it for granted), that we have some added staying power and strength in the coming elections.
The Paul Waldman article:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/29/the_incredible_shrinking_gop.phpThe Incredible Shrinking GOPPaul Waldman
November 29, 2006
Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of the new book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success (John Wiley & Sons). The views expressed here are his own.There were many things Democrats did right in the months leading to the 2006 election. But one outcome of the voting—whether it occurred by accident or design—will yield dividends for years and even decades to come. On November 7, the GOP’s moderate wing, already in decline, was eviscerated.
For all the attention given to those few conservative Democrats who got elected, in fact the new Democratic caucus will look pretty much exactly like the old one—albeit a bit larger: mostly strong progressives, with a substantial group of moderates and even a few outright conservatives who represent Republican-leaning districts. The party that really changed was the GOP.
One way to look at the 2006 election is as a continuation of the evolution of the Republican Party that began in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1990s. After Lyndon Johnson made Democrats the party of civil rights, a grand exodus occurred among conservative Southerners from their traditional home in the Democratic Party to their ideological home in the GOP. As a consequence, the power center among Republicans migrated southward. It was in the 1990s that Southerners finally took over the GOP leadership, as Robert Michel of Illinois and Bob Dole of Kansas were replaced by Newt Gingrich of Georgia and Trent Lott of Mississippi. (It should surprise no one that Republican senators put aside their squeamishness about those who pine for the days of Jim Crow to bring Lott back into the leadership.)
And today, the Republican Party is firmly dominated by its Southern, socially conservative wing. Try to find a representative of the once-powerful “Rockefeller Republicans”—they’re an endangered species. Indeed, there is only one Republican Congressman left in all of New England. It was the Republican moderates who lost, not just in the Northeast, but across the country. Defeated figures like Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island and Jim Leach of Iowa will soon be fading memories of a time gone by.
One of the key benefits of this turn of events is that Democrats should have a relatively easy time defending the majority they just seized. As the
Washington Post noted this past Sunday, only a few of the House seats Republicans lost look like prime targets for 2008. For instance, President Bush won 65 percent of the vote in Tom DeLay’s old district, which went Democratic in no small part due to the combination of DeLay’s corruption and the fact that the Republican nominee was forced to run as a write-in candidate. While the newly elected Congressman, Nick Lampson, is a well-known figure, he will have to fight tooth and nail to retain that seat every two years given the nature of his district.
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