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Economic stagflation under Carter and American hostages held by Iran 
led to a Republican landslide in 1980. The Republican team of Ronald 
Reagan and George Bush seizing on Carter's spiritual crisis, ridiculing 
his "malaise speech", and promising to reduce federal spending, cut 
taxes, and strengthen defense, won 51 percent of the popular vote and 
489 electoral votes. The Republicans gained 12 seats in the Senate, 
giving them control of that body for the first time since 1954.  

In the 1984 presidential elections, the Reagan-Bush ticket won 
overwhelmingly, carrying all the states except Democratic candidate 
Walter Mondale's home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia, 
while amassing 59 percent of the popular vote and 523 electoral votes. 
The Republicans retained control of the Senate but did not gain a 
majority in the House. Reaganomics produced the largest budget deficit 
and highest level of national debt in history. In 1985, the Plaza Accord 
pushed the exchange value of the dollar down against the yen to stem 
the rising trade deficit. As a result, in the midterm elections of 1986, 
the Republicans lost not only control of the Senate but also more ground 
in the House. This pattern was repeated in 1988. Although Vice President 
George Bush and his running mate, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, won 
the presidential election for the Republicans with 53 percent of the 
popular vote, the party lost ground in both houses of Congress. While 
Bush took 40 states and scored a 426-to-11 win in electoral votes, the 
Republicans lost five seats in the House and one in the Senate.  

In 1992, despite victory in the first Gulf War, the election turned out 
to be a referendum on the economy, and voters expressed their concerns 
in a stunning defeat of incumbent Bush by Democrat Bill Clinton of 
Arkansas. The gradual erosion in Republican party strength in Congress 
allowed the Democrats to control both branches of government for the 
first time in 12 years. Bush received only 38 percent of the popular vote 
and 155 electoral votes. The Republicans retained the same number of 
seats in the Senate and gained nine seats in the House. It was under 
Clinton that the concept of dollar hegemony took hold, allowing a rising 
trade deficit to be financed by a capital account surplus, making 
possible the notion that a strong dollar is in the US national interest.  

The 1994 mid-term elections brought an equally dramatic reversal as 
the Republican party gained control over both houses of Congress for 
the first time since 1954. Most congressional Republican candidates had 
signed on to Representative Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America", 
a list of conservative proposals that shaped the congressional agenda 
under Republican leadership in 1995. Both parties were focused 
primarily on domestic affairs.  

Except in 1964, Republican presidential candidates since 1948 have 
taken most of the votes cast in growing middle-class suburbs. Since 
1952, Republican presidential candidates have repeatedly captured at 
least three of the 11 former Confederate states. Reagan's popularity 
among young voters was reflected in a marked increase in Republican 
ranks after 1980. This trend changed with the election of Clinton, a 
southern Democrat, who brought many young voters into the 
Democratic party.  

As with any political coalition, the Republican party has had difficulty 
finding issues that unite rather than divide its followers. In 1968, Nixon 
succeeded with appeals to the "silent majority" for "law and
order." 
Despite some success in presidential and congressional races since 
1952, the Republican party remains a minority in search of a majority. 
It was never successful in attempt to include labor and minorities.  

The Republican party originally built its political majority on state 
organizations in the northeast and midwest. The two bases of power in 
these areas were New York and Ohio. Twentieth-century GOP leaders 
have included Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes, Thomas E 
Dewey and Nelson A Rockefeller, all noted liberal governors of New 
York. Ohio produced five Republican presidents: Rutherford B Hayes, 
James A Garfield, William McKinley, William Howard Taft and Warren G 
Harding.  

After being reduced to minority status in the 1930s, the Republican 
party controlled a small number of largely rural states, such as Maine 
and Vermont in New England and North Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska 
in the West. On the local level, the strongest Republican organizations 
have been in rural and suburban areas. The GOP generally has been 
unable to elect mayors in the nation's big cities, except liberal New 
York City and conservative Los Angeles.  

The backbone of the Republican party was historically composed of 
eastern businessmen and midwestern farmers. Big business was 
attracted by the party's pro-business philosophy and farmers by 
Lincoln's successful effort to preserve the Union. Emancipation and 
congressional reconstruction also brought black voters into the party. 
By 1896, the GOP had a large following among industrial workers in the 
nation's growing urban centers. During the 1930s, Republicans lost their 
grip on urban industrial states with the rise of labor unions whose loyalty 
remained with the Democrats. The Rockefeller liberal Republicans never 
captured the midwest because of the problematic history of the 
Rockefeller oil monopoly in key states, like conservative Ohio, liberal 
Minnesota and progressive Wisconsin.  

After World War II, the Republican party found a new base of support 
in the middle class suburbs that surrounded the country's metropolitan 
areas. This has enabled the GOP to elect governors and US senators in 
states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California.  

As a result of the Second Reconstruction, which began in the 1950s, 
the Republican party has made increasing headway in the once solid 
south. Opposition to civil rights for blacks led a number of southern 
whites to bolt to the Democratic party, especially in presidential 
elections. Although Democrats still win most state and local elections 
in the south, Republicans have won a number of statewide elections in 
Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Texas. The GOP has had less 
success in the deep south, but in 1978, Mississippi elected its first 
Republican senator since Reconstruction. However, even with its new 
supporters in the south and increasing electoral victories, the GOP 
remains a minority party, trailing behind the Democratic party in its 
following until Reagan.  

Neo-conservatism, supported by its bedfellow neo-liberalism, is opposed 
in current US politics by libertarians as well as the radical left. 
Charley Reese, syndicated paleo-libertarian conservative columnist wrote 
on June 17 last year: "Where is George Bush's conservatism? He's taken 
another massive step in nationalizing the education system, he's busted 
the budget, he shows unwavering loyalty to the military-industrial 
complex, his foreign policy is imperialistic, and he is expanding 
government at the expense of liberty ... A conservative wishes to 
preserve the prosperity and health of both the land and the people, 
not squander them in unnecessary wars ... Nor does American business 
support a free economy. What it supports and what we have is 
mercantilism. In its present form it retains its old core - a strong 
centralized government that manages the economy, and a standing 
army to protect corporate assets overseas. The Taliban was overthrown 
not because it supported al-Qaeda but because it opposed an oil 
pipeline from the Caspian Sea fields." While some aspects of these 
views can be better informed, the general thrust does represent 
libertarian sentiments against neo-conservatism.  

The neo-conservative movement began to take shape long before 
September 11. Writing in the Wall Street Journal on September 15, 
1997, William Kristol and David Brooks, editors of The Weekly 
Standard, mouthpiece of US neo-conservatism, asked: "What Ails 
Conservatism?" It began: "The era of big government may be over, 
but a new era of conservative governance hasn't yet begun. Why the 
delay? Why isn't a victorious conservatism now reshaping the American 
political landscape?  

"A barrier to the success of today's conservatism is ... today's 
conservatism. What's missing from today's American conservatism is 
America. The left has always blamed America first. Conservatives once 
deplored this. They defended America. And when they sought to 
improve America, they did so by recalling Americans to their highest 
principles, and by calling them forward to a grand destiny. What is 
missing from today's conservatism is the appeal to American greatness. 

"American nationalism - the nationalism of Alexander Hamilton and 
Henry Clay and Teddy Roosevelt - has never been European blood-and-soil
nationalism. It's true that in the absence of a real appeal to national 
greatness, some conservatives are tempted, a la Pat Buchanan, to turn 
to this European tradition. But this can't and shouldn't work in America. 
Our nationalism is that of an exceptional nation founded on a universal 
principle, on what Lincoln called "an abstract truth, applicable to all men 
and all times". Our pride in settling the frontier, welcoming immigrants 
and advancing the cause of freedom around the world is related to our 
dedication to our principles.  

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