You can blame GWB's speeches for the increase in liberalism. I could blame the media. The bottom line is the people are still responsible for their own actions and their own vote. To think otherwise is pure liberalism.
Abdication of the right, with calculated 'triangulations' and 'compassionate conservatism' and 'new tone' and 'bipartisanship'...were all euphemisms for a very blatant abdication of conservative advocacy. This was the equivalent of an attempt to appease the left and the democrats. But there is no appeasing them. They just, rightly, took it as a sign of weakness. And on issues, since there was no Reagan defense of conservative principles, they were correctly detecting weakness. There were no conservatives espousing conservative policy at the administration level...with the exception of Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft. And both were muzzled, or undercut by orders from HQ. This is why we had a 51 to 48% electoral split, instead of 60% to 40%.