A COUPLE of years ago a small town — where the garden gnomes look like Uncle Sam, where there are almost as many churches as shops and where the local cleaning company is called Making Miracles — could have been marked down at a glance as Republican heartland.

After last week’s midterm elections, Bush country is no longer so easy to identify. Dumfries in Virginia, on the outskirts of the Marine Corps headquarters at Quantico, has been conservative for as long as anybody can remember. It still is. What has changed is that the voters elected Jim Webb, a proud “redneck” and right-wing Democrat, as their senator.

“For me, it was the war,” said Sandy Miller, a 56-year-old nurse, explaining her switch in support. “I just don’t think we should be over there in Iraq. They should be taking care of their own business.”

Miller regrets backing President George W Bush in 2004: “I’ve got nobody to blame but myself because I voted for him. I thought it was all terrorism, terrorism, but I was misled. I’d never vote for him again.”

Bush was in Dumfries on Friday to open the marines’ new $90m museum at Quantico. With its spire reflecting the angle of the famous flag planted by the marines at Iwo Jima, it would have been the perfect place for the commander-in-chief to savour victory.

“Years from now, when America looks out on a democratic Middle East growing in freedom and prosperity, Americans will speak of the battles like Falluja with the same awe and reverence that we now give to Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima,” Bush said hopefully.

History is more likely to record that it was here that Webb, a highly decorated ex-marine and former Republican navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, delivered a crippling blow to Bush’s presidency. Webb’s 8,805 majority in Virginia tipped control of the Senate to the Democrats after they had already won a projected 33-seat majority in the House of Representatives.

Karl Rove, the architect of Bush’s second-term victory, had gambled that social conservatives would deliver another win, despite the war’s unpopularity. It had been his dream to build a permanent majority by persuading the “values voters” of middle America — Christian, anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-gun control — to turn out for the Republicans at the polling booth.

He had not reckoned with the gun-toting Webb, whose son is serving in Iraq; nor Jon Tester, the senator-elect for Montana, a farmer with a buzz cut and three missing fingers; nor Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, who is anti-abortion, and a clutch of other socially conservative, economically populist Democratic candidates. “I’ve never seen so much raw testosterone in my life. The smell of sweaty jockstraps from the ‘new Democrats’ is overwhelming,” scoffed Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator.

Last week a new category of voters burst on the scene: the “Blue Dog” Democrats, conservative independents and moderates who turned on the scandal-ridden bungling Republicans. The future political map of America depends on whether the victorious Democrats can hold on to their support in 2008.

Terry McAuliffe, former chairman of the Democratic national committee, is already preparing for Hillary Clinton’s likely presidential run. He believes the midterm results represent a potentially historic shift for his party.

“It was a ‘throw the Republicans out’ election. Some people voted for us reluctantly but we have a terrific opportunity to get back the Reagan Democrats we lost in the 1980s,” he said.

Will Clinton be able to rally the Blue Dogs to her banner or will they flock to her rival, Senator John McCain, the Republican front-runner? Could a political newcomer such as Senator Barack Obama capture their imagination? Perhaps the most important lesson of the midterms is that no party or person can take American voters for granted.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Settlers burn Koran in mosque attack
• Gorillas threatened by charcoal trade
• Israeli anger at new Palestine food labels