Last month's California recall vote blew away not only Gov. Gray Davis but also a great many givens about American voting habits. The Republican candidates for Governor (Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock) captured 62% of the vote in a state that Al Gore carried by 11 percentage points. Fifty-seven percent of white women voted for a Republican governor to replace Davis , and so did 40% of Hispanics and a quarter of blacks.

So was it just screwy California politics, or a real change in voter behavior? In the introduction to his 2004 Almanac of American Politics scholar Michael Barone suggests these voting shifts not only are real, but may be only the beginning.

Mr. Barone believes current American political behavior is explained by 17th-century British philosopher John Locke's (and later Thomas Jefferson's) belief that all free people have the right to life, liberty and property.

Life is once again focused, as in World War II and the Cold War, on individual and national security. When our safety is at risk, we demand that our leaders confront our enemies, secure our nation from attack, and protect us.

So from Pearl Harbor until the fall of the Berlin Wall we elected presidents of both parties with a strong commitment to national defense. When the Democrats took an isolationist turn by nominating George McGovern in 1972, the Republicans gained an almost insurmountable advantage in presidential elections. But in the decade that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union , national security seemed less important, so leaders with little or no foreign-policy experience--Bill Clinton and George W. Bush--seemed acceptable.

The terror of 9/11 refocused us on our vulnerability and thus on national security, which is now the single most important policy matter influencing American politics. President Bush responded quickly and forcefully to the terrorist threat, while the Democratic Party and its candidates seem ambivalent if not McGovern-like. "A party divided when the nation is in peril," Mr. Barone concludes, "has grave difficulty getting its citizens' votes."

As for liberty, since the 1960s there has been an increasing passion on both sides of the political spectrum for litmus-test issues. Do we have the right to consume drugs, have an abortion, bear arms, pray in public schools--even to say "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Such divisive issues dominated political debate in a great many campaigns for a great many years. But they seem to have been eclipsed by security and economic issues, for, in Mr. Barone's words, "the issues that had so bitterly divided us [are now] less important than what we shared in common." If economic and security issues are trumping litmus-test beliefs, American politics have indeed changed.

Regarding property, for the first time in history a majority of Americans own stock--outright or in IRAs or 401(k)s. By nature the investor class is optimistic, believing individual choices in markets bring opportunity and a brighter future. Here there is a growing political divide, for Democrats tend to believe that government programs serve society better than individual decisions. So taxes should be higher, or as one Democrat told Mr. Barone: "I want the government to have the money."

We see it in the Medicare drug-benefit legislation being debated in Congress. Democratic lawmakers believe the government must set drug prices and write regulations; Republicans that people should be able to choose their benefits and their provider (just as members of Congress and other federal employees can do under their health-benefit program). The Democratic view is more that of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 1930s than that of the current individualistic investor class.

We see it in the Social Security debate, where polls show that market retirement accounts, owned and managed by individuals, have the support of 57% of the people. Democrats insist that Social Security be kept as it is, essentially arguing that the FDR program of 1935 cannot be improved upon. The information age generation thinks that absurd, and with the coming shortfall in government revenues needed to pay Social Security benefits, that generation has a real economic interest in the outcome of the argument.

Some Democratic presidential candidates are now arguing that protectionism is better than free trade. Dick Gephardt, Howard Dean and John Kerry argue strongly against the North American Free Trade Agreement--never mind that President Clinton signed it into law or that it increased commerce, lowered the cost of goods, and doubled the number of jobs in businesses linked to trade with Mexico and Canada . It is another example of Democrats being for government regulation rather than individual market choices.

Mr. Barone concludes that for the first two-thirds of the 20th century America was a growing industrial nation moving towards standardization and centralization, so Democratic positions on economic issues may have made sense. But the dawning of the information age began moving us away from centralization and towards individual choice. And the Republican Party's advocacy of tax cuts, individually owned Social Security accounts, parental choice of schools, and free trade are much more appealing than Democratic loyalty to '30s centralism. The Democrats appear--especially to young people--to be the party of yesterday, out of step with "post-industrial, information age America ."

What makes Mr. Barone's analysis even more relevant is that it comes on top of a steady shift in the electorate's political preferences. According to the Harris poll, that 20 years ago 40% of people polled identified themselves as Democrats and just 26% as Republicans. Ten years later that 14-point advantage had dropped to six, and last year the same poll found Democrats had but a three-point advantage.

Ten years ago there were 176 Republican congressmen; today the GOP controls the House with 229 members. Democrats then controlled the Senate; now Republicans do. Ten years ago Democrats held 59% of state legislative seats; now Republicans have a majority. Republicans then controlled eight state legislatures; today it's 21 (the remainder are split). Then there were 18 Republican governors; next year--with last Tuesday's wins in Kentucky and Mississippi added to California and possibly Louisiana --there will be 28 or 29.