Generation Dem

The dramatic turnover of both the House and the Senate should not obscure the profound transformations going on in the states, where 10 state legislative chambers switched to the Democrats, and, as political analyst Charlie Cook points out in the National Journal, "the Democratic advantage over Republicans in state legislatures went from 15 seats (3,650 versus 3,635) to 662 seats (3,985 versus 3,323), with gains in every region." Democrats control both chambers in 24 states, compared with 16 for Republicans. Democrats also gained six governorships, giving them a majority of 28. These political conditions, assuming they are stable or augmented through 2008, set up the Democrats to dominate the redistricting that will follow the 2010 census -- and thus potentially the patterns of power in the House for the next decade.

The Southern strategy of the Republican Party, accelerated and radicalized under Bush, has finally created a more than equal reaction in the North. Ten years ago, 10 moderate Republican senators, all from the Northeast, met weekly for lunch. After the 2006 election, only three remain, in Pennsylvania and Maine. When they retire they are likely to be replaced by Democrats.

New England was once the bastion of rock-ribbed Republicanism, personified by Sen. Prescott Bush of Connecticut, grandfather of the current president. But now, from six New England states, there is only one Republican left standing in the entire House, Christopher Shays, who barely scraped by in a previously safe Republican district. (Republicans won eight other House seats across the country by less than one point, and 34 by less than five points. Many of these may be at risk in two years.)

The fatal environment for Republicans in New England is exemplified by New Hampshire, by far the most conservative of the New England states. There Democratic Gov. John Lynch won reelection with 74 percent. As Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote: "The Executive Council, which has the power to confirm appointees and approve state contracts, switched from 4-1 Republican to 3-2 Democratic. The state Senate, which Republicans controlled 16-8, is now Democratic by a 14-10 margin. The state House of Representatives, which is dwarfed in size only by the British House of Commons and the U.S. House of Representatives, went from 242-150 Republican, with eight vacancies, to 239-161 Democratic." Both U.S. House seats in New Hampshire fell to the Democrats. In 2008, the Senate seat held by a Republican is suddenly exposed.

In Rhode Island, which has a long history of working-class deference to patrician politicians, Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate, even liberal figure, whose father had been a popular U.S. senator and whose own popularity was above 60 percent on Election Day, was defeated by 6 points. His Republican label alone condemned him.

In states that will be crucial in the 2008 presidential race, Democrats made extraordinary gains. Bush won Iowa by 0.67 percentage points in 2004. This year the Democratic candidate for governor, Chet Culver, swept the race by a 10-point margin, both houses of the Iowa Legislature flipped Democratic, and respected, longtime moderate Republican Rep. Jim Leach was ousted. In Colorado, which Bush won by less than 5 points, the Democrat, Bill Ritter, won by 15 points, and a House seat previously held by a Republican went Democratic by 13 points. In Arkansas, which Bush won by 10 points, the Democratic candidate for governor, Mike Beebe, won by 15. Of all the Southern states, Arkansas is the most progressive and Democratic -- the only Confederate Southern state with two Democratic senators. Were a Democratic candidate for president in 2008 to win these states, along with the rest of the states won by Kerry, he or she would comfortably win the White House. This equation does not include Ohio, which Bush won by 2 points, but which saw a Democratic sweep this year of every statewide office, the governorship and a Senate seat.

African-Americans, meanwhile, were unmoved by any and all Republican overtures. Though the Republicans slated African-Americans as candidates for the governorships of Pennsylvania and Ohio, as well as for the Senate in Maryland, not one of the Democrats running against them received less than 75 percent of the African-American vote. The campaign speeches of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made not the slightest impression. African-Americans remained the most discerning voters.

The strongest race run by any Republican did more than prove the rule of 2006. Arnold Schwarzenegger won reelection as governor of California by 17 percentage points by openly attacking President Bush, firing his Republican chief of staff and hiring a lesbian activist who had worked for his Democratic predecessor as a replacement, and adopting liberal positions across the board. As major figures from California often demonstrate, Schwarzenegger may represent the future of American politics but not the future of the Republican Party. Any Republican attempting this trick in another state would almost certainly be destroyed by the party's right wing. The sui generis character of an overwhelmingly popular Republican governor of California suggests how deviant the national party has become, even since Ronald Reagan.

Next page: Reagan's grin replaced Nixon's scowl, but the strategy was basically unaltered