Scrabble?! CONSERVATIZED

Definitions of CONSERVATIZED in various dictionaries:

In American politics, a conservative Democrat is a member of the Democratic Party with conservative political views, or with views relatively fiscal conservative and social conservative with respect to those of the national party. While such members of the Democratic Party can be found throughout the nation, actual elected officials are disproportionately found within the Southern states, and to a lesser extent within rural regions of the United States generally, more commonly in the Midwest. 21st century conservative Democrats are similar to liberal Republican counterparts, in that both became political minorities after their respective political parties underwent a major political realignment which began to gain speed in 1964. Prior to 1964, both parties had their liberal, moderate, and conservative wings, each of them influential in both parties; President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed a realignment of the parties in the 1940s, though the trends which brought it about did not accelerate until two decades later. During this period, conservative Democrats formed the Democratic half of the conservative coalition. After 1964, the conservative wing assumed a greater presence in the Republican Party, although it did not become the mainstay of the party until the nomination of Ronald Reagan in 1980. The Democratic Party retained its conservative wing through the 1970s with the help of urban machine politics while blue-collar workers still aligned with the Democrats. This political realignment was mostly complete by 1980. After 1980, the Republicans became a mostly right-wing conservative party, with conservative leaders such as Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, and Tom DeLay, while the Democrats, while keeping their core liberal bases intact with such Senators as Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd, and Paul Sarbanes, grew a substantial moderate centrist New Democrats in the 1990s in place of their old conservative wing, with leaders such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Evan Bayh. In 2008, the Democrats nominated Barack Obama for President. He told a meeting of the New Democrat Coalition, "I am a new Democrat." In the 2010 midterm elections, many Conservative Democrats lost their seats to the Republicans.