Jonathan, Every Republican President from Lincoln through Eisenhower was elected without carrying any or many Southern states. Prior to the 1960s, the South was known as the "solid South" because Southern states voted consistently for the Democratic Party. The solid South crumbled slowly -- there was a break in 1948 with Strom Thurmond's States Rights Party and there was a break in 1964, when Barry Goldwater carried the deep South states and Arizona. But prior to the 1970s the Republican Party was simply not competative in the South. Some Southerners claimed not even to know a Republican. I don't claim that the South is more important than California or New York (though collectively it is, simply because it is larger). I think that if you read my comments you'd see that I'm making an argument against writing off geographical sections of the nation. Barry Goldwater in a moment of candor once said that he would be willing for New England to break off and float off into the Atlantic. A President who thinks that way doesn't have a national mandate.
by Ralph E. Luker on January 29, 2004 at 4:54 PM