“Today’s true big political picture is mostly gray shades against a purple (red mixed with blue) canvas. Conservative Republicans, beset by deep ideological divisions, are not even close to becoming the country’s permanent ruling class. Neither the post-Reagan Republican Party in general, nor the present Bush White House in particular, ever actually rode so high politically.

Just the same, neither the GOP nor the president is in any definite long-term political trouble. Conservative Republicans, even without permanent-majority clout, are still more potent politically than liberal Democrats, and likely to remain so. Centrist and neoprogressive Democrats could credibly compete for power with conservative Republicans, but they must first pry their party’s presidential nomination process and key leadership posts from the old-left hands that still primarily control them. Despite strenuous efforts to do so since the mid-1980s by various New Democrat groups, the party is still led mainly by its liberals. Not even the New Democrats have ever really reached out to the culturally conservative and anti-abortion Democrats who have been defecting to the Republican Party since the Reagan years.” — John J. DiIulio Jr., a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, who served as first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (The Chronicle)