Reply #180: The biggest reason "the South" is such a hot button issue on DU, is

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

because the core stronghold/fortress of Republican electoral votes, according to their current, successful strategy since the Nixon years, is the South!

The South continues to be instrumental in delivering the White House to Republicans.

To be sure, we may have moved past that... crooked machines may now be the key source of Republican votes now.

And I would agree that the unsuccessful campaigns of Northeasterners have largely neglected the South and given it up as lost, the "grab the blue strongholds and try to steal a win in OH or FLA" strategy.

But the fact that the Southern states are so reliably Red is a huge problem for the nation politically and belies any rosy scenario painted.

I live in a monied suburb of Dallas, not exactly the same as Mississippi or Louisiana I know, but it's "the South". It's almost monolithically for Bush, and unapologetically narrow in its worldview. There are great liberal people like BouncyBall and fudgestripecookays here, but they are less representative of the region than the W'04 sticker/ribbon magnet folks driving around here.

It's troubling to me that someone like Jimmy Carter, who is culturally as much of a son of the South as anyone you could imagine, is probably one of the most reviled Presidents around here, I guess because he's not perceived as a "winner", whereas people worship the obvious phoney baloney carpetbagging Yankee currently occupying the White House as a god.

So yes, it's hard for many to get past this since the South plays a big part in our losing national elections and it's a political board. To be sure, it plays a big part when we win them, too.