In the 1984 presidential campaign, despite the temporary boost of the Geraldine Ferraro first female nominee effect, saw incumbent Ronald Reagan begin his ultimately successful re-election effort by visiting the northeast, the traditional Democratic Party's bread basket stronghold.

The reason why the Republican candidate's strategists chose to commence the campaign there was due to the changed electoral college dynamics beginning with the sixties and the passage of historic civil rights legislation that put the south into the reliable camp of the Republican Party.

By the time that Bill Clinton was running in 1992 Republicans were so inured to the idea that the electoral college arithmetic favored them that they were utterly shocked when what an increasing number of mainstream media pundits were citing as continuing political inevitability that he was ever reviled to the point of abject disgust, commencing with an effort to remove him from office.

If the Arthur Schlesingers Senior and Junior along with Kevin Phillips are correct, American politics runs in cycles.  This theory is becoming increasingly popular this election cycle as it appears that the cycle of the Republican right is coming to a crushing halt.