Wow! Talk about a political feeding frenzy!...

[misanthrope]

...Check out the comments below this story about GOP inner turmoil.

[Enthusiast]

1. Fun reading the comments! nt

[liberal N proud]

2. Funny, It took Voinovich is just now realizing this

Voinovich: The GOP's 'being taken over by Southerners'

[Orsino]

4. He's not "just now realizing this."

He's flailing about for someone to blame for heavy GOP losses, and--surprise!--settles for bigotry.

Presumably, Voinovich was fine with the Southern Strategy when it increased his own power.

[tanyev]

3. LOL. From Davey in Denver

The man is correct. It pains me to say it as a Republican, but we should shed the "Southern Strategy" begun by Nixon/Bush Sr. I am an unapologetic TRUE Republican….a fiscal conservative who believes in fairness and equality for all men (a la President Lincoln….remember him?)….and me and those like me are increasingly angry that my party is defined by the "least of us"…the muck-raking, small-minded, you're-with-me-or-against-me Republicans that typify the South. Not all Southerners, mind you….but a number too large to sustain any longer. Break off, start your own under-educated, simplistic, bigoted party, and let the intelligensia within the Republican party get back to running things. You're dead weight around our necks.

Let the food fight commence!

:rofl:

[Orsino]

5. I hope Davey won't be too disappointed...

...at how long it'll take to find "intelligentsia" in the Republican Party.

[misanthrope]

6. That's what I'm enjoying about it...

...watching the chickens come home to roost.

[misanthrope]

7. I heard someone rationalize Voinovich's 'tude by saying...

...it was mere jealousy at the South's currently favorable economic health as compared to the Midwest's sinking status. I reminded them that if they looked at the last century's economic history, that wasn't a good thing but a warning sign.

The South has traditionally lured jobs from other areas of the country by promoting its easily exploitable resources. "Cheap labor, cheap land, cheap jobs" has been the mantra for an area normally the last domestic stop for industries on their way out of the country. In an age of hastening globalization, those developments and shifts are happening at greater speed.

For countries and corporations whose products are on the rise, the American South is becoming the latest version of what Third World shops once were for us. When the American ability to purchase their goods declines, the jobs might leave as well. Why would it matter if Mercedes makes cars here (initially to avoid importation costs) if Americans can't afford to buy them?

Do we really want the rest of the nation to follow the South's historical model, to reduce taxes at the cost of infrastructure and education? To eradicate unions which keeps wages for all at a livable level?

What such economic trends indicate, the causes and eventual results, are something we might want to contemplate long and hard.