Second, the South is the most religious and evangelized region of the country, making it the most fertile ground for a socially conservative message. It is also (third reason) the nation's most rural region, which only reinforces its social conservatism.
Fourth, the gender gap in voting that prevails nationally is smallest in the South. Even the women in the South are Republican. In 2004, there were only five states in the entire country where there was either no gender gap or an inverse gap -- Bush doing worse among men than women -- and three of those states were in the South.
All of which brings us to the fifth and last reason: The South is the least unionized region. The one group of white, working-class Americans among whom Democratic loyalty still remains strong is union members and union households, and they are scarce in the South. In the 2006 midterms, non-union household members split their congressional votes evenly between the parties, whereas union members, retirees and family members broke Democratic by a 30-point margin. Forty years ago, Richard Nixon began the process of turning the South Republican by appropriating George Wallace's appeal to disaffected working-class whites. Race, often encased in such coded phrases as "law and order," was the basis of much of the GOP's appeal. Over four decades, by fits and starts, the Republicans captured the South. With the ballast and votes that capture provided, the GOP emerged as the national majority party from the top of the ballot to the bottom by 2000. Democrats did not want to write off the region that had been their historic heartland. It had always held the key to political power, since the party that controlled the region had typically dominated national politics. The importance of the South seemed accentuated by the shift of population and House seats and electoral votes to the region at the expense of the Northeast and the Rust Belt. Democrats felt they had to run to the right, à la Harold Ford, in order to compete in the region, and they felt they had to compete in the region to run the country.
Yet the GOP's majorities were thin. Bush won in 2000 despite losing the popular vote. The Senate majority that was just voted out of office represented fewer Americans than did the Democratic minority. Gerrymandering has exaggerated Republican shares in the national and state legislatures beyond their underlying support.
In short, Republicans have squeezed every last vote out of their mostly white, largely Southern, highly divisive, screw-the-coasts national strategy. First the South turned Republicans; now the Republicans have turned Southern. Their identity is becoming more and more bound to a philosophy and a region. Last week was the first sign that the electoral accountants are knocking on the door, asking to see the GOP's receipts.
Democrats, meanwhile, now have a great opportunity to build a national majority. They need to continue consolidating their control over the coasts, turn the purple Midwest blue, and pick off selected seats in the West. The 2006 midterms were a big step in that direction. Democrats flipped about 30 percent of the GOP-held House seats in the Northeast, about 15 percent in the Midwest, and 10 percent in the Far West. In the South, their "flip rate" was just 6 percent. After last week, Connecticut's Chris Shays is the only Republican among New England's 22 seats.
As for the South, there are still opportunities, particularly where non-Southerners are staging a second Reconstruction. This is happening in places like North Carolina's Research Triangle Park, with its three major universities and high-tech corridor. Most notably, it's happening in Northern Virginia, the growth of which, as Hotline editor Chuck Todd aptly puts it, led the Commonwealth in seceding from the Confederacy, as evidenced by the casting aside of George Allen in favor of Sen.-elect James Webb.
If Democrats can build on their 2006 victories, the changes to come will be brought from the three-quarters of America found either north of the Mason-Dixon Line or west of the Mississippi River. That part of America asserted itself on Tuesday, and that part of America is actually the majority of the country. Having captured the attention of the majority, the Democrats don't need Carville or Ford telling them how to fight for the favors of an encircled, and no longer triumphant, Southern minority.
About the writer
Thomas F. Schaller is assistant professor of political science at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County and the author of "Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South."
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