Rockefeller Republicans

[Mint]

For the future of our country, hopefully very soon.

lol

Well if the real conservatives and libertarians leave for a party that actually listens to them, it could happen.

[Mint]

Unfortunately, probably not. Tea Baggers who control the Republican Party barely tolerate the so called "Republican Establishment" for not being Conservative enough, I highly doubt the party will return to a more liberal sort of Republicanism for at least a couple decades, when the Tea Party nonsense dispels.

Us 'teabaggers' have very little influence on the leadership, if we did McConnell, Steele, Graham, McCain, and all their ilk would have been primaried out long ago.

[Mint]

Bush wasn't a conservative Einzige, not going by traditional definitions anyway. And Nixon governed like even more like a liberal than Eisenhower in terms of domestic policy.

[Mint]

They basically switched places with Dixiecrats.

That's right--almost all Dixiecrats either retired or went to the GOP, and almost all Rockefeller Republicans either retired or went to the Democrats. This, in turn, made American politics much more polarized.

Indeed. I would place the factions as such:

Rockefeller Republicans: left
Democrats: center-left
Republicans: center-right
Dixiecrats: right

So essentially, the parties became united on ideological grounds, rather than cultural, religious, ethnic, and income backgrounds.

Do you mean in terms of voting base, or leadership? Because if the latter, even under supposed 'polarization' of Bush, both parties voted the same way about 40% of the time.  I'd say the divisions are still more along the racial/'cultural' lines or background in general than substantive differences most of the time.

[Mint]

We [isorta[/i] exist in the Northeast, though, we rarely win. My Governor is pretty moderate.

Welcome to the forum!