from WaPo:
This election was the first in which exit polls showed equal numbers of self-identified Republicans and Democrats -- both at 37 percent -- erasing what had been a decades-long advantage for Democrats, 4 percent in 2000. In addition to the House and Senate gains, Bush received a higher raw vote total than any candidate in history (Kerry's total was second highest) and was the first presidential candidate to break the 50 percent barrier since 1988. On a percentage basis, he improved on his 2000 performance in 48 states.then from the NYTIMES:
Most significantly, in the view of people who suspect a realignment, exit polls showed Bush cutting into Democratic advantages with some historically Democratic groups -- especially Hispanics, who gave Bush 42 percent of their votes, compared with 35 percent in 2000.
However, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) was able to stay competitive by increasing Democratic voter turnout. And exit polls showed that self -identified independents favored the Democrat -- by dramatic margins in some of the most important battleground states. In Florida and Ohio, for instance, Kerry won independents by 18 points and 19 points, respectively.
"If President Bush is re-elected, we will be close to a tipping point of fundamental change in the political system itself," Robert Kuttner wrote last winter in The American Prospect, a liberal journal. "The United States could become a nation in which the dominant party rules for a prolonged period, marginalizes a token opposition and is extremely difficult to dislodge because democracy itself is rigged."
Maybe. From the rapacious capitalism of the Gilded Age to the cronyism of Teapot Dome, from the corruption of Tammany Hall to the cultural and fiscal excesses of the Great Society, American history is replete with examples of the price of one-party rule. At the moment, Democrats on Capitol Hill lack even the power to call a committee meeting, issue a subpoena or do anything much more active than complain.
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