http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2008/11/03/bookmaned_1103_3DOT.htmlAnother defeat — although of somewhat less historic significance — looms Tuesday for the modern Republican Party. In the Senate, Republicans may fall below the 40 votes needed to filibuster. In the House, they may lose 20 seats or more. And unless the polls are mistaken, the GOP’s grip on the presidency will end as well.
Slowly, voters began to realize that in the eyes of GOP leadership, government was just a useful weapon in the culture wars, not a tool to try to improve the lives of the American people. Many voters who had themselves thought of government in those terms began to question that belief, a process that quickened as the nation’s economic crisis deepened. As a result, they began to seek leaders who took a more serious approach to government, leaders to whom competence was more important than ideology.