THE MOVEMENT FROM LEFT TO RIGHT CONTINUES – AT 9:13 A.M. P.M. ET:    Just when the Dems thought it was safe to go back to politics.  It seems some of their own are leaving the family farm.  From WaPo:

ATLANTA -- Staggering Election Day losses are not the Democratic Party's final indignity this year. At least 13 state lawmakers in five states have defected to Republican ranks since the Nov. 2 election, adding to already huge GOP gains in state legislatures. And that number could grow as next year's legislative sessions draw near.

The defections underscore dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party - particularly in the South - and will give Republicans a stronger hand in everything from pushing a conservative fiscal and social agenda to redrawing political maps.

In Alabama, four Democrats announced last week they were joining the GOP, giving Republicans a supermajority in the House that allows them to pass legislation without any support from the other party. The party switch of a Democratic lawmaker from New Orleans handed control of Louisiana's House to Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction.

In Georgia, six rural Democratic state legislators - five from the House and one in the Senate - have switched allegiance to the GOP since Nov. 2. In Maine, a House Democrat flipped; in South Dakota, a Democratic state senator.

Most of the party swaps are in the South, where GOP rule is becoming more entrenched and Democrats - many of them already more conservative than their counterparts elsewhere - are facing what looks like a long exile in the minority.

COMMENT:  The name "solid South" was given to the region when it was almost entirely Democratic.  The term applies again, although the party label is different.

The support of state legislatures is critical to Republican governors enacting their programs.  That in turn makes some of these governors into presidential contenders.  So, what happens at the state and local levels can quickly have national implications.

November 29, 2010