became more polarized along ideology. Over the coming decades the blurred ideological character of American political party coalitions—where Democrats had a number of important elected office holders (mostly in the South) who were considerably more conservative than many important Republican senators and governors (for example Nelson Rockefeller)—dissipated. In time, not only did conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans retire, switch parties, or lose elections, so did centrists (Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki, Richard Riordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger). Civil Rights legislation—the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965—driven by Democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson, along with Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign and president Richard M. Nixon's "Southern strategy"—began the breaking away of white segregationist Solid South from Democrats and over time created a solidly Republican south. Southern white voters started voting for Republican presidential candidates in the 1950s, and Republican state and local candidates in the 1990s. Anti-Vietnam War protests alienated conservative Democrats from the protesters. The "religious right" emerged as a wing of the Republican Party—made up of Catholics and Evangelical Protestants (previously having nothing to do with each other but now) united in opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Also increasing political polarization was the trend towards replacing county caucuses and state conventions with political primaries, where the party core/base could "primary", (defeat in primary elections) moderate candidates who general election voters liked but the base did not. Eventually a large majority of rural and working class whites nationwide became the base of the Republican Party; while the Democratic Party was increasingly made up of a coalition of African Americans, Latinos, and white urban progressives. Whereas for decades the college-educated voters skewed heavily towards the Republican party, eventually high educational attainment was a marker of Democratic support. This formed the political system in the Reagan Era of the 1980s and beyond. In 1980 conservative Republican Ronald Reagan defeated an incumbent Democratic president (Jimmy Carter) on a theme of smaller government, sunny optimism that free trade and tax cuts would stimulate economic growth which would then "trickle down" to the middle and lower classes (who might not benefit initially from these policies). The Republican party was now said to rest on "three legs" of Christian right/Social conservatism (particularly the anti-abortion movement), fiscal conservatism/small government (particularly supporters of tax cuts), and strong anti-communist military policy (with increased willingness to intervene abroad). Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove In 1995, after 40