responding to the symbolism in what she was saying, too. I would take this as a demonstration of how issues are really defining and dividing people today, and that the partisanship that has been defining American politics in the past ten or fifteen years is definitely not going away.
This was also pretty much true of the Democrat and the Green members I interviewed. They definitely did not like the conservative Republicans, and the Green even went way back in history to show how he thinks the party has been perverted because it has been taken over by southern conservatives. I think that it is true that the Republican party has been taken over by southern conservatives, and that they are generating a backlash among the rest of the country because they are so aggressive.
Mr. Carlyle was an interesting person to interview because he had a historical perspective on the Democratic party that the others did not have about their parties. He remembered personally how the Democratic party had changed his family's life with the policies of the New Deal. This kind of loyalty to the party is going to soon be a thing of the past as older voters like Mr. Carlyle who can remember these days first hand become fewer and fewer.
Mr. Carlyle spoke of the bread-and-butter domestic issues which have traditionally been the concerns of the Democrats prior to Bill Clinton's changing things to the "new Democrat." As the baby boom generation ages - regardless of whether they want to or not - these kinds of issues will become more and more important, and it may well be that the Democrats will need to re-emphasize their old values. This is definitely something they must consider after the election this year, when the Nader voters denied Al Gore the electoral votes to become President. It would be interesting to consider whether they gained more votes by taking the more conservative positions they did, or lost more votes by so doing. It may becom...