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Richard Nixon is one of America’s most infamous presidents, people find it hard to forget Checkers, trade with China, Vietnam, and of course Watergate. Yet, not many recall that Richard Nixon was the first Republican candidate to successfully exploit the southern Christian vote. Nearly forty years after Nixon it seems that the powerful Southern and general Christian Conservative voting block is loosing strength in the Republican Party.

Southerners joined the Democratic Party after the civil war in order to oppose Lincoln’s new dominant Republican party. Yet, a dramatic shift occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. There are two key reasons why there was a dramatic demographic shift between the two parties; both of which were linked to a common cause. During the two decades of the Vietnam War and Civil Rights movement one group of people stood on the front of the protest lines; white, upper-middle class, college students. Yet the most important characteristic of these people of change was their political denomination, they were self-declared liberal democrats. While non college educated southerners fought in Vietnam, northern white college students protested the war, demeaned the soldiers, and then told the citizens of the south that they had to change their ways and let the black man have equal rights.

Of course I am not suggesting that only southerners fought in the war, and I know many men who went to northern colleges and patriotically volunteered for the war as officers. In addition, we should be blessed at the steadfast nature of those college kids who fought intolerance and violence in places like Montgomery so that people they did not even know could have access to the rights they deserved. What I am trying to convey is that white liberals were opposing the fundamentals of the lives of many southerners during the 60s and 70s. It would not be possible for these two ideologies to coexist in one party, and Nixon exploited those fundamental differences.

As Kevin Phillips, Nixon’s Republican strategist put it, “The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.” While Phillips did not create this southern strategy, it was not until his work for Nixon that the Republicans began to carry the south. After forty years of Republican dominance in the South, is it possible that the 2008 election will mark the beginning of the end of the Southern and overall Christian Vote?

The Southern vote has been a bastion of Republican support for years, and along with the southern vote came the massive nationwide voter block of Christian conservatives. They rally to cries of the right to life and outlawing Gay marriage, and while presidents from Reagan to Bush have relied on this voter block for support, it is becoming apparent that they are beginning to loose faith in the people they have elected. Perhaps they are beginning to realize that the Bush clan and other political elites use them to garner votes and do not actually share their values, perhaps they are just tired of spending time in caucus; whatever the reason, the traditional base of the Republican party is decreasing in size and reliability.

Will this decade mark the first major shift in voting demographics for the last forty years?

More than nine thousand people voted for president George W. Bush in the Iowa straw poll in 2000, yet seven years later the first, second, and third place candidates had barely ten thousand votes between them.

Every true Democrats’ piñata, Karl Rove recently retired from the Bush administration to spend “more time with his family.” Yet, despite Rove’s brilliant utilization of the Christian vote to keep Bush in office, his boss may cause a major backlash from the base as he failed to follow through on many of his promises. The Christian conservative and southern base is furious at their former poster child. The man they once all wanted to have a beer with is now the man they feel stole a beer from them.

Bush failed to stop illegal immigration which his Evangelical and southern (different groups) base both thought he would do, he did not keep “liberal” states from legalizing gay marriage or adopting civil union laws, and he failed to change the status quo regarding Rowe v. Wade. To add insult to injury, many of the sons, husbands, and fathers from these two voter blocks are fighting an unpopular war and spending longer tours away from their families.

Many of these once diehard Republican voters are now asking themselves an important question, “why should we keep voting for members of this party if they are never going to serve our interests?”

While some of the new Republican candidates seem to represent the middle classes’, “traditional” values voters on certain issues, they falter at others. Rudy Giuliani appeals to their patriotic instinct, yet he like Mitt Romney has been ousted for his liberal stances on abortion, gay marriage, and gun control. To make matters worse, Giuliani has been torn apart recently regarding the level of illegal immigration he permitted in New York City while he was mayor. Even John McCain, once thought to be the Messiah of the conservative movement betrayed his base by co-authoring an atrocious illegal immigration bill.

While many on the right are hoping that Hillary receives the Democratic nomination in the hope that it will energize the base, I have to raise the question, will they care? I believe that 2008 could indeed turn out to be a year of unprecedented voter apathy from the “family values” voters of the Republican Party. Many of them may be asking themselves what the Republican nominee can offer them over the Democratic challenger. More importantly, perhaps many of the people in this demographic feel that none of the candidates in 2008 will serve their interests once elected.

They raise a valid question, because even I am starting to wonder what the differences between the parties’ front-runners are.

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