Cook is right, and the penultimate paragraph of the Times article is a good summary.
"Therein, perhaps, lies the real lesson from Ohio, and from the election as a whole. From the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and especially after the disputed election of 2000, Democrats operated on the premise that they were superior in numbers, if only because their supporters lived in such concentrated urban communities. If they could mobilize every Democratic vote in America's industrial centers -- and in its populist heartland as well -- then they would win on math alone. Not anymore. Republicans now have their own concentrated vote, and it will probably continue to swell. Turnout operations like ACT can be remarkably successful at corralling the votes that exist, but turnout alone is no longer enough to win a national election for Democrats. The next Democrat who wins will be the one who changes enough minds."
Will that last sentence be a significant requirement three years from now as the field of Democrats for President head into the primaries?
You all realize that this means something. The Deomcrats admit that, according to their turn-out models, they should have won easily. The fact that the high turn-out no longer means a win for the Democrats means that, after 20 years of dealignment, we finally have a new, Republican realignment. The majority of the American people now identify with the Republican Party.
All hail the new Republican Age!
I won't share your optimism until the first Tuesday of November 2008.
But if Rasmussen's theory is correct (the GOP wins multiple elections by small majorities; the Democrats win by large pluralities only when the GOP fractures), then we may well be entering a new GOP era.
