Loyalty thing not working

NYT political writer Matt Bai says it makes little sense to expect voters to permanently realign themselves from one party to another in the way that they did for Roosevelt or Reagan.

In an accelerated culture, our loyalties toward just about everything -- laundry detergents, celebrities, even churches and spouses -- transfer more readily than our grandparents could have imagined. Now we dispose of phone carriers and cash-back credit cards from one month to the next, forever in search of some better deal. Forget the staying power of an institution like Johnny Carson; when Jay Leno starts to feels a little stale, he is shifted to prime time, then shifted back to late night. It was probably never very realistic for modern political thinkers of either party to dream of a 50-year reign. This century's tectonic realignment is more likely to last 50 months or maybe 50 weeks, depending on how long it takes voters to seek out the latest offer or the newest best deal.