I agree. I think even the crappiest Republican administrations seemed to have a pretty strong respect for the election process and term limits and "following the rules". Progressives are much more liable to want to bend the rules or use legal tricks to get what they want. Example, when they all wanted to kill the electoral process because of Gore. Had things gone the other way, they would have been staunchly defending the Electoral process.
They *WERE* defending the electoral process, right up until it stopped going for them and went against them. Leading up to PE2K, I remember report after report, article after article, quoting or talking to leftist after leftist droning on and on about how, "Even if the POPULAR vote goes for George W. Bush, as long as the ELECTORAL vote goes for Al Gore as we expect it to, Mr. Gore will be the President of the United States." They were absolutely ready to run roughshod over the "clearly expressed will of the people," (as determined by the popular vote) when they thought the rules were going to work FOR them. Once it became clear that the situation was the other way 'round, respecting the "clearly expressed will of the people" became FAR more critical to them.
That was one particular reason I so enjoyed all those Sore Loserman signs that kept popping up during the extended selected recounts that still couldn't put Gore over the top.