WASHINGTON (CNN)  -- Question: How many years since the Civil War have both U.S. senators from Pennsylvania been Democrats? Sen. Arlen Specter's breed of fiscally conservative, socially progressive lawmakers is on decline in Northeast. Answer: two. The state sent Democrats Francis Myers and Joseph Guffey to the Senate between 1945 and 1947. If you knew that, you understand just how far the Republican Party has fallen in its ancestral homeland of the Northeast, a decline that was underscored by Sen. Arlen Specter's recent decision to leave the party. Specter's decision to join Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey on the Democratic side of the aisle raises a host of questions about a party that, after years in power, suddenly finds itself hemorrhaging voters and ceding vast swaths of electoral terrain.
@highlight
Liberal, moderate Northeastern Republicans once a strong part of landscape
@highlight
Specter's decision to switch parties raises a host of questions about the GOP
@highlight
There's been a slow northern backlash to GOP's "Southern strategy," Holland says
@highlight
GOP has been left for dead before, only to spring back to life
Northeast
Northeast
Conservative candidates in step with today's Southern-dominated GOP are out of step in the @placeholder.
Republican Party
GOP
GOP
GOP
But what may make the fallout from 2008 different is the clear regional nature of the @placeholder's setback.
Republican Party
GOP
GOP
GOP
The @placeholder now has to decide whether it wants to copy the Democrats' strategy in the Northeast or whether it would rather circle the ideological wagons.
Democrats
Democratic
The GOP now has to decide whether it wants to copy the @placeholder' strategy in the Northeast or whether it would rather circle the ideological wagons.