James Gould Cozzens, in The Just and The Unjust, on long-standing partisan monopolies. (Obviously, the name of the party could be switched out for another depending on a given local situation.):

"The county had been Republican for almost a generation. This mean that the Republicans were entrenched in power; they had all the jobs. Having all the jobs meant having also an increasing monopoly of the ambitious, able and experienced men. Ambitious men could see the situation; able men could not expect to get anywhere with the Democrats; and as for experience, a Democrat could never be elected, and so could never get any experience."

I normally don't include political links, but this is a culturally relevant post, with historical resonances. Ross Douthat on the PC hullabaloo:

"In a landscape in which older moral systems have been rejected, collapsed or simply been forgotten, moral clarity alone can be a pretty significant advantage. In the kingdom of the bland, the zealot has a lot of material to work with."