The politics of non-politics.

Despite our interconnectedness via modern technological advances such as television, radio and the Internet, regional bias still exists. After all, each portion of the country is dealing with varying economic, racial, and geographical influences that greatly shape the way they think. In this sense, the decentralization of political parties would seem to be quite detrimental to the overall cohesion of the party on a national level, but its not. Parties have grown, not in a matter of size, but in the broadness of the issues they represent and voter turnout has reached unprecedented numbers. Virtually any voter can now chime with either party on issues affecting them. Rather then remaining one static body, the parties have "assumed a coalition form (Heatherington & Keefe, 36)."
As a result, the parties change shape over years as some coalitions leave while others join (the text gives a great example on pg. 36 concerning the voting patterns of Catholics versus Protestants). The point is that political parties are not static institutions. They are constantly changing and evolving as their constituencies change. Most recently we elected a new President- Barak Obama. The election was called a "landslide", not necessarily because Mr. Obama beat Mr. McCain that badly, but because the Democrats effectively seized the reigns of the executive as well as the legislative branches of our government.
My contetion regarding this lopsided victory does not revlove so much around a cleverly contrived political argument -it is much more simple than that: The anti-Bush vote. Most people don't know allot about the innerworkings of the American political machine, but they do understand changes in their daily lives. How much money can I spend? Do I have a job? When will this stupid war end? The democrats effectively siezed on these issues rather than politicizing their differences with the republican party. As a result, the election was not based on conservative or liberal issues. It was based on quality of life, both now and in the near future.