The South just isn't what it was (Tampa Bay Times)

[struggle4progress]

By Diane Roberts, Special to the Times
In Print: Sunday, January 25, 2009

... The dissed, deflated and diminished South is fast becoming conventional wisdom. The Southernization of American politics is "absolutely over," according to Thomas Schaller, author of the 2006 Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South. Obama may have triumphed in three states of the Old Confederacy, but Schaller calls that "a decided New South victory" and "not a NASCAR victory."

True, most working-class white Southerners are not progressive Democrats. So should Democrats write off the South? In an editorial for Texas Observer on Dec. 12, 2008, Bob Moser thinks not: "A growing number of Anglos in Dixie are willing and able to punch their ballots for not only a Democrat but a Democrat of color."

Moser's new book Blue Dixie: Awakening the South's Democratic Majority, is a kind of rejoinder to Schaller, arguing that far from being a rump Republican backwater, the South is emerging as an engine of national change. Chris Kromm, director of North Carolina's Institute of Southern Studies, agrees. "The South's political clout is growing."

Kromm .... points out that 10 of the 13 Southern states boosted voter turnout in 2008 — Virginia and North Carolina by 7 to 8 percent — and Southern blacks and Latinos participated in the process as never before. Moreover, he says, Obama's "biggest losses with white voters were not in the South but in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming" ...

http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/article969751.ece

[GTurck]

1. Evereyone in the....

"South" is not a southerner by birth. As more and more Yankees move for the climate and cheaper cost of living there will more change. Do not assume that geograph equals politics.

[struggle4progress]

2. THanks for that: I'm a born Yankee who's lived in the South for decades.

[tsuki]

4. Most of the Yankees I know in my area are redder than red. They

sold their family home up north to move into a gated community so that they don't have to put up with the grandkids more than 2 weeks a year. They continually bitch, bitch, bitch about taxes, taxes, taxes, socialism and unions while they cling to their company pensions and social security.

They have ruined my area. But they have made northern areas more blue.

[GTurck]

15. Sorry....

We are very blue. Husband was active in his local for over 20 years before he retired. Do at times feel lonely but have found Texans who stayed Democratic after many others switched to the Repubs. Now we are a very diverse group and truly reflect the 21st century.

[QC]

17. Wow! You are only about 40 miles from me,

and my experience of the local transplants is much like yours.

[QC]

16. Most of the yankees in my area are damned freepers.

So much for the notion that northern transplants are going to save us poor rubes from ourselves.

[peace frog]

3. Count me firmly as

one of the "Anglos in Dixie willing and able to punch" my ballot "for not only a Democrat but a Democrat of color." And there are plenty more just like me down here in the sunny South. Get used to it, Repukes: you lost, we won and will continue winning, get over it.

[rurallib]

5. And the Democratic party wants to abandon Dean's 50-state strategy?

[dbt]

6. It never was,

most likely never will be. Anybody figures out The South, please let me know.

:smoke:

dbt
Southern by the grace of the Goddess

[supernova]

7. Thanks for the article; I see us returning

to the progressive movements that were really getting going in the 1920s and 1930s when we had some really hellacious union fights in cotton mills and other factories. This was something that was raging all across the nation too.

As to why we turned away from that path during the 1940s to now... hard to say. Perhaps the viciousness of the violence scared us. Racism was certainly there; I won't deny it and it played it's part. A lot of white folks were scared of change. Now it is their children and grandchildren, and the people who are still with us who remember the old progressive movement (Andy Griffith and Ralph Stanley for two) who are picking up the thread of progressivism again and that's who voted for Barack Obama.

I think P.B.O might just be the one to bring progressivism back front and center like it should be.

[struggle4progress]

8. I hope so!

:bounce:

[supernova]

9. Me too!

:hi: :hug:

:bounce:

[morningglory]

10. As with any "group", you can't lump us together. I am a progressive

very liberal dem from a dem family, father was in a union. The old folks remember the great depression. However, I have a childhood friend from a swampy area near here, where people believed Clinton was going to take away their hunting guns. They believed the NRA letter that Gore would take away the guns, etc. They need the deer/squirrel/wild hog meat to live, in addition to hunting being the only fun to be had besides fishing. My friend is liberal but not educated. Her husband is dem, but was for Hillary. Her grandson, spawn of republic mother popped up and said his frient Dantree (don't know how he spells it) said or did such and such. My uneducated friend asked what kind of name that is: "Is he black?" she asked. The grandchild said "No, Meemaw, he's brown, and it's okay." I had been hearing from my older dem acquaintances that Obama could not win. Too many racists around in the old dixiecrat party. Then our two grown boys declared for Obama. Jimmy Carter's kids declared for BHO. The Kennedy young people did the same, and then I knew we would have a "landslide". The South is changing. Thank Gawd for the young people!! My 2yo grandson, when shown a photo of Obama punches his little arm in the air and shouts "Go-bama!" I just wanted to know if he knew who BHO is. There you go... my view from the swamps of Florida.

[enuegii]

11. I'm not so sure...

my county (Morgan, AL) went 70/30% for McCain.
Religion, abortion, guns, gays and an ingrained hatred of all things Democratic trump common sense and self-interest here.
Doesn't stop them from running to Washington with their hands out for money when they need it rather than raising taxes locally, though.

[Still Sensible]

12. Add my state Oklahoma to the South, its the same thing

It seems to me that there is no place in America where the combination of the conservative cocktail has been consumed as fully as our fair state.

The conservative cocktail:

1 part Reagan's government is the problem dogma;
2 parts the only Republicans can be patriots wave the flag meme;
3 parts Rush Limbaugh can be heard on at least three stations from anywhere in the state;
4 parts all taxes are bad and all tax cuts are good;
5 parts there are 2-3 Baptist churches for every one of any other;

And this in a state that to this day has more registered democrats than republicans. I really believe the influence of the churches and Limbaugh, which reinforce the other parts, are probably the most significant.

I believe this is generally true throughout the South. I think, as a result of migration Texas and Florida are changing, and North Carolina was surprising in Obama's win. Louisiana is different in that the Southern Baptist influence is only solid in the northern part of the state.

But by and large, I think the South is still the South... and I would put SC, GA, TN, KY, AL, MS, AR, and OK in that relatively unchanging group.

[Libertyfirst]

13. We are going to keep the three Southern states we won this time and

are going to add at least Georgia. Frankly, I hate guns, but if leaving them alone is the price I have to pay for a Democratic President and Congress, I'll even buy a few rifles for folks. (That would be cheaper that what it cost me to help elect Obama.)

And, Yes, the young are wonderful. Even the very young. My eight year old grandson called me from across the country before the election (first time ever) to urge me to vote for Obama. He is very upset that Prop. 8 passed. As he said to me, "It's not fair that everybody can't marry who they love."

Hope lives.

[Doctor_J]

14. The West is the new South

I won't buy into this though until the South isn't represented in the Senate by stereotypical old, white obstructionists like Sessions, Shelby, Chambliss, etc. When they kick these fools to the curb - Welcome!

[vinylsolution]

18. Idaho, Utah and Wyoming....

... we should call this the new Confederacy.

[provis99]

19. more like neo-nazi survivalist stomping grounds

[classysassy]

20. The Maddox/Wallace

type have outlived their time.The old order of bigots are gone with the southern wind,and not too soon,good riddence.