The political party system in the United States has periodically
undergone major realignments at various critical junctures in the
country's history. The Civil War boosted the Republican Party's
fortunes and catapulted it into majority status at the national
level, a status that was further solidified during the Populist
realignment in the 1890s. Starting in the 1930s, however,
Roosevelt's New Deal reversed the parties' fortunes, bringing the
Democratic Party back to national power, and this realignment was
further modified by the "culture wars" beginning in the mid-1960s.
Each of these realignments occasioned shifts in the electorate's
support for the major parties, and they were superimposed on each
other in a way that did not negate entirely the consequences of the
preceding realignments. The story of realignment is further
complicated by the variations that occurred within individual
states whose own particular political legacies, circumstances, and
personalities resulted in modulations and modifications of the
patterns playing out at the national level.
In this book, Renee Lamis investigates how Pennsylvania
experienced this series of realignments, with special attention to
the period since 1960. She uses a wealth of data from a wide
variety of sources to produce an analysis that allows her to trace
the evolution of electoral behavior in the Keystone State in a
narrative that is accessible to a broad range of readers. Her
account helps explain why Senator Arlen Specter was reelected
whereas Senator Rick Santorum was not, and why Pennsylvania
Republicans have been highly successful in major statewide
elections in an era when Democratic presidential standard-bearers
have regularly carried the state. Overall, her book constitutes a
gold mine of information and interpretation for political junkies
as well as scholars who want to know more about how national-level
politics plays out within individual states.
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