On Thu, 5 Mar 2009, Doug Henwood wrote:
> The political scientists say there was little difference in the parties'
> voting records in Congress in the 1950s and 1960s. That started changing
> in the 1980s, as the Reps moved further to the right and the Southern
> Dems finally left the party. (Phil Gramm switched in 1983.)
Exactly. It was all about the switch of the super conservative southern bloc from one party to another. They didn't change their views, but their parties.
What masked this is that it took 30 years because of seniority (which meant a lot more then) and the fanatical one-party loyalty that was (and is) the norm in the South, where to be for the other side was treason that would hurt your business. The Repugs took ever presidential contest starting with Goldwater. But at the end of the 90s, the Senate caucus of the 11 states of the confederacy was still 14-8 Democratic. Big changes took place in party loyalty during the 80s; Reagan was a major cause of it: people trusted him -- and it all finally reached the tipping point in the 1992 elections.
(FWIW, by far my favorite book on this is _The Rise of the Southern Republicans_ by Earle and Merle Black.)
So it was a long hard slog that took decades to complete. But IMHO that tectonic movement beneath the surface is the major factor that changed the party system. It caused ideological changes rather than the other way around.
Michael