We have a young friend who ran the Young Republicans during her college years and now works for a GOP consulting firm. She's a loyal party member, but she has a problem. She's from New York -- her father and grandfather were both New York City cops -- and she feels increasingly alienated from a party whose center of gravity has moved steadily to the South, the West and the Right.A generation ago, many conservative Southern Democrats became Republicans and explained their shift with some version of the phrase, "I didn't leave my party, my party left me."