The following article bu Susan Milligan was posted on the U.S. News and World Report website December 8, 2017:
The Republican revolution of 1994 led onetime Democratic Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama to switch parties and become a proud member of the GOP. Next week’s election in Alabama may define the beginning of the end of the senior senator’s party as he’s known it.
When Shelby aligned with the party, Republicans were on an electoral and ideological roll. Having seized control of both the Senate and House, the GOP was on a mission to cut taxes, reform entitlement programs, slash domestic spending and shrink the federal footprint on Americans’ lives. Now, the Republican Party has been increasingly defined by what were once its fringe elements, observers in both parties bemoan, raising the question of whether the party, in its traditional model, is on its way out. Continue reading “Not Your Parents’ GOP”