The notion of party realignment scares a lot of people, who see terrible danger of ideological civil war between radical extremes. But those dangers are exaggerated. This is a practical country, not an ideological one, and all that the present sorting-out is accomplishing is to get more of the politicians with similar tendencies to view political issues alike into the same camp
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The gradual realignment of the parties offers whatever long-term hope exists for a more sensible, less ruinous kind of politics and government than what we have in Washington today.
-David Broder, Washington Post, March. 6, 1973.