Born of GOP's 'Southern Strategy'

In the 40 years between 1966 and 2006, the Republican Party rose from a marginalized minority party into a national governing majority. Though the GOP made significant gains among white Catholics, suburban women and other slivers of the population, it was the conversion of white Southerners and the somewhat-overlapping mobilization of evangelicals that propelled what Karl Rove has called the Republicans' "rolling realignment."