(Note: these learning modules encompass the actual class lectures, and are designed for those students who have to miss class through no fault of their own, and also as a refresher for all students. Bold print in the notes are what the professor writes on the board.)

LEARNING MODULE: WEEKS 1-2, The South in a National Context

Well, first of all, the South is defined as the 11 states of the old Civil War Confederacy- the 11 states that seceded from the nation. Southern politics scholars divide the South into the Deep South and the Rim South states. The Deep South states had the largest number of slaves, were the most agricultural, had the most oppressive forms of racial segregation and disfranchisement, and today still have the highest percentage of African Americans in their populations. The Deep South states are Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina. The Rim South states are less agricultural, have more industry, and have fewer African Americans. They are Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, and Florida. There are also differences within each of these two sub-regions. Georgia and South Carolina, for example, are more modernized states with more industry. Florida and Texas have more Hispanics than other southern states. Florida has more residents who have moved there from other states. Virginia has a lot of federal employees. The Bullock and Rozell textbooks says that today the South should be divided into new sub-regions: the Growth States and the Stagnant States. Growth states have higher education levels, a greater share of the population born in other states, and are less Republican; they are the Rim South states of Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas, and the Deep South states of Georgia and South Carolina. The more Republican stagnant states are the Deep South states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and the Rim South states of Tennessee and Arkansas.

Those of you who took my Political Parties class learned about how our nation’s history can be divided into six different political eras with different political party systems. The South was actually a part of the majority party during the first two party eras. From 1796-1828, it supported the old Republican Party (no relation to current GOP) of Thomas Jefferson, who favored states’ rights and a weaker federal government, as he favored a more agricultural republic. From 1828-1860, the South backed the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson, the party that was more pro-agriculture (compared to the Whigs), and supported territorial expansion (the Mexican-American war where the U.S. gained the southwest territory). The Democrats were such a majority party that they even had some strength in the North, as northern big city Democratic Party machines welcomed Catholic immigrants into their party. Jackson was a great believer in the “common man,” so popular democracy expanded, and states provided for the popular election of presidential electors and of the popular election of many state officials. Mississippi, for example, elects all eight of its statewide officers. (So, while the latest Presidents have been accused of politicizing the justice department by appointing cronies as Attorney General, we in Mississippi don’t have that problem, as the people elect our Attorney General and our Governor separately.) Historians pointed out that this era of Jacksonian Democracy, while expanding democracy in America, was nevertheless a white man’s democracy. Today, most historians are even more negative towards Jackson, condemning his anti-native American policies (Indian removal). Yet I can remember growing up when the current Democratic Party held fundraising dinners called the Jefferson-Jackson day dinners, honoring these two philosophical forebearers of their modern party.

The Democratic Party of the 1850s was so dominated by the South that a majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices were white southerners. In the Dred Scott decision, they completely upheld the southern white slaveowner’s position by holding that slaves were property, that the federal constitution protected one’s property, and that the Congress could not outlaw slavery in the western territories. Anti-slavery northerners were enraged, and promptly created a new political party, the Republican Party, devoted to reversing this Supreme Court decision and to outlawing slavery in the western territories (some Republicans even wanted to abolish slavery in the South). When Republican Lincoln won the 1860 election, the 11 southern states promptly withdrew from the union and called themselves a separate nation- the Confederacy. In the 1864 presidential election during the Civil War, these 11 states were the only states that did not take part in this election. Lincoln attempted to unify the nation by picking as his Vice President a southern Democrat, Andrew Johnson, from Tennessee, a poor farmer sympathetic to southern white leaders, who had been the only southern Senator who refused to leave the Senate after his state seceded.

Class discussion, so what do you think about the national move to get rid of Confederate statues and even some Presidential statues and paintings? Presidents like Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, Wilson was accused of racism or racial insensitivity, some even found a statue of Lincoln freeing a slave offensive. Mississippi used to have a state flag that had the symbol of the old Confederate flag, which our MSU students played a role in getting changed to our current inclusive flag. What do you all think about this controversy over national symbols, and how should we cope with this conflict over inclusiveness and our heritage?

Well, the Civil War finally ended and by 1876 southern white segregationists (who dominated the Democratic Party in southern states) using fraud and violence had seized control of southern state governments, displacing the biracial Republicans. This Third Party system lasted from 1860 thru 1896, and the South beginning in 1880 was solidly Democratic. Every southern state voted for the Democratic presidential candidate from 1880 thru 1916. Every U.S. Senator from the South was a Democrat during this period, and nearly every U.S. House member (except for mountainous Appalachian regions whose residents had opposed slavery). Southern whites controlled southern state politics through intimidation tactics and discriminatory voting procedures, which we will get into the week after next. Yet the Republican Party won all except two presidential elections, since they won most states outside of the South. The Republicans were also a party of northern industrialists who opposed government regulation of business practices and working conditions. By 1876 northern whites had grown weary of the aftermath of the bloody Civil War (the most costly war in our history in lives lost), so the Republican Party pursued its pro-business policies and pretty much abandoned the plight of African Americans in the South. During this 1860-1896 era, neither party was a true majority party, since Democrats usually had a majority in the U.S. House, and the popular vote for president was very close.

The 1896-1932 Fourth Party era saw the more pro-agriculture Democratic Party absorb the very agricultural Populist third party, thinking that that would make them the majority party. However, the nomination of Populist William Jennings Bryan for the presidency three times just made the party look too extreme and completely out of touch with our industrializing nation. Even most blue-collar workers in the big cities up north refused to vote for him. Therefore, the Republican Party became the majority party in America, winning all except two presidential elections (Democrat Wilson won in 1912 only because two Republicans ran against each other and split the GOP vote) and usually controlling Congress. The South continued to be solidly Democratic, as white segregationist Democrats in the 1890s enacted even more oppressive voting devices that kept the great majority of African Americans from voting. White Democrats had feared that African Americans might join with Republicans or with the Populists to take power away from them. You might ask, how could the white southerners get away with such obviously illegal actions against their African American brothers and sisters? Well, once again, the Republicans were based in the North, and they cared about promoting industry in their states; their party got little support in the South, so why should they care? Why didn’t the national Democrats do anything? Well, the Democrats were the minority party, so the South was real important within that party. Indeed, up until 1936 the national Democratic Party had a two-thirds rule- its presidential nominee needed a two-thirds vote of the delegates to win, so the South had a veto power over presidential nominees. Also, the South kept reelecting its congress members forever, so they rose to seniority in the Congress. Indeed, as late as the 1950s, two southerners (from Texas) held the top two congressional leadership positions (House Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson).

The 1932-1968 Fifth Party era begins the more complex modern era of American southern politics, so I now move to double spacing, since the remainder of this material is likely to be a question on the midterm exam.

Eerie historic memories- the stock market plunged in 1929, the Great Depression started, 25% of Americans were unemployed. Republicans held the presidency (Herbert Hoover) and the Congress, they were the more conservative party who didn’t want to use the federal government much to help people hurt by the Depression, so they got kicked out of office by voters in 1932. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) became President, and Democrats gained control of Congress by wide margins. Roosevelt enacted a New Deal program, which was basically liberal domestic economic issues which helped most Americans. The New Deal included Social Security, protection of labor unions (Wagner Act), public jobs for the unemployed (public works, conservation jobs in the park system), the minimum wage, federal welfare program (AFDC- Aid to Families with Dependent Children). These liberal economic programs were very popular, so the Democratic Party’s base of southern whites and of Catholics (from Jacksonian era) expanded to include the low income, blue-collar workers, a majority of African Americans (for economic reasons), Jews (victims of historic oppression, they favored the underdog), intellectuals (fascinated with the possibilities of big government helping people), and most middle class Americans. White southerners liked the economic liberalism of the New Deal, and benefitted from federal crop price supports, a federally-subsidized TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) providing low cost electricity, and various federal social welfare programs. Therefore, the South voted overwhelmingly for FDR. Indeed, every southern state voted for FDR in every one of his four elections from 1932 through 1944. For example, in 1944 Mississippi voted 94% for the Democrat Roosevelt. Focusing solely on a liberal posture on domestic economic issues made the Democratic Party the majority party in America.

Well, you can see a little contradiction in the governing New Deal Democratic coalition. How can the party include white southerners and African Americans? No problem when the Democrats care only about liberal economic programs, since both groups supported that. But what happens when the Democrats start supporting federal civil rights measures? White southerners start to drop out. The Democratic Party has now become the majority party in America- it is winning not just southern states but also most northern and western states. The Democrats are now electing congress members, mayors, and governors from northern states. And those Democrats have African Americans in their states and districts. Those Democratic officeholders are now looking down at the South and thinking- how can we permit officeholders of our party in the South to keep our African American brothers and sisters from the fundamental human right of voting? Consequently, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert Humphrey introduced a pro-civil rights platform plank at the 1948 Democratic national convention which would abolish the poll tax, outlaw lynching, and guarantee equal opportunity in employment. The Mississippi delegation and half of the Alabama delegation promptly walked out of the convention, held meetings in southern states, and created a States’ Rights Party dedicated to the “segregation of the races” and opposing any federal actions that interfered with the rights of states (10^th amendment of federal constitution). This party’s presidential candidate was Democratic governor of South Carolina Strom Thurmond, and its vice-presidential nominee was Mississippi Democratic governor Fielding Wright. They carried only four Deep South states, which included Mississippi. Meanwhile, Democrat Harry Truman (who became president after FDR finally died in 1945) ran a come-from-behind whistle stop campaign, as he stressed the popular liberal New Deal economic programs of FDR like Social Security, talked about how Democrats cared about the little man, the worker, and blasted Republicans as only caring about the rich and big business. Truman ended up winning the election, and winning the other seven southern states. While Truman as President desegregated our military, he wasn’t able to enact his other civil rights programs. (As an aside, you can see why our former U.S. Senator Trent Lott got into hot water for his joking comment at Republican U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond’s 100^th birthday party at the turn of the century: “Strom, Mississippi voted for you when you ran for President. And if you had won, we wouldn’t have had all of these problems (paraphrased).”)

Well, now the old Solid Democratic South is beginning to crumble, as the national Democratic Party becomes a more liberal party across a greater range of issues, not just on domestic economic issues. White Southerners are a more conservative group in our country, so they begin to move away from their Democratic Party heritage. This movement continues in the 1952, 1956, and 1960 presidential elections- the Eisenhower and Kennedy-Nixon elections. Republican Eisenhower won the 1952 election because of voter dissatisfaction with the Korean War stalemate, the communist takeover of mainland China, and alleged communism and corruption in the Truman administration. Eisenhower was a popular and non-partisan war hero, leader of allied forces in Europe during World War 2. His Vice President Nixon was a communist fighter who as congressman had proven that liberal Alger Hiss (an FDR aide) was a Soviet Union agent. This combination of dissatisfaction plus national Republican conservatism played well in the Rim South, permitting the GOP to win 4 of the 6 Rim South states in both of Eisenhower’s elections. The Deep South generally stuck with Democratic nominee and Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson (a southerner was the VP pick both years). The 1960 election saw another regionally-balanced moderate liberal Democratic ticket (Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy with Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas as VP) facing a moderate conservative Republican ticket (Eisenhower’s VP Nixon), so a similar pattern emerged. Republican Nixon won 3 of the 6 Rim South states, but lost the Deep South (2 states cast electoral votes for a southern Democrat instead of Kennedy, however). So, what is the moral in these 1952-1960 elections? A majority of southern votes were cast for the Democratic presidential candidate, but Republicans made historic gains in southern votes, and even won a few Rim South states. This brings us to the earthquake of 1964.

The 1964 presidential election saw the Republicans nominate an outright conservative who was ideologically pure on all issues, so the GOP (Republicans) made big gains in the most conservative subregion, the Deep South. Indeed, Republicans carried all 5 of the Deep South states for the first time since Reconstruction. Unfortunately, Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (a Senator from Arizona) was so conservative that he lost the rest of the nation (except for his home state). Goldwater at the 1960 GOP convention had urged conservatives to grow up and seize control of a party that had not nominated a “real” conservative since Hoover. Conservatives flooded the GOP caucuses and conventions and handed him the nomination in 1964, but Goldwater was so conservative that more liberal and moderate Republicans refused to support him (like New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Michigan Governor George Romney, Mitt’s daddy). Goldwater was so consistently conservative that he even wanted to repeal the New Deal, such as by making Social Security voluntary, selling the TVA to private industry, and ending farm price supports. He called for victory over Communism, victory in Vietnam, and possible use of our nuclear weapons (issuing them to our regional military commanders around the world). Democratic President Johnson ran an explosive campaign ad with a little girl in a field, picking the petals off of a daisy, and then you hear a mechanical voice counting down from ten to zero, and her smiling upraised face is replaced by an atomic bomb explosion, and on the dark screen you hear Johnson’s voice, “We must learn to love one another, and get along with one another, or we shall certainly perish.” The screen then reads: Vote Johnson, Humphrey, in November. In other words, Goldwater is such an extreme conservative that he is going to blow up the world! Goldwater was such a strong conservative that he was one of the few Senators outside of the South who had voted against the 1964 Civil Rights, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations and in employment. His “principled” support for states’ rights (he wasn’t a racist; indeed, he favored gay rights because he opposed big government) caused joy among white southerners. Indeed, in 1964 now Senator Strom Thurmond switched to the Republican Party, becoming only the second GOP southern Senator (John Tower of Texas was the first) since Reconstruction. Another nail in the coffin for Democrats was Johnson’s Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, the author of the 1948 civil rights platform. One big plus for Democrats in Dixie was that African Americans were now voting 90% Democratic, a big Democratic gain among blacks compared to their bare majority in the three previous elections (especially important after the 1965 voting act that fully enfranchised blacks in the South).

Well, Johnson won so easily that he carried in a heavily Democratic Congress, which proceeded to pass his Great Society, which included Medicare, Medicaid, anti-poverty programs, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act (a much-expanded New Deal, in short). But Johnson got us into the Vietnam War in a big way, sending half a million young men (drafted) there and eventually (after Nixon kept it going for four years) resulted in 58,000 dead young Americans. The late 1960s saw campus protests against the war, urban riots against police brutality and continued poverty, a rising crime rate, and a counter-culture movement of Hippies and Black Panthers. Riots and burning especially picked up after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King (and New York Senator Bobby Kennedy, who had been a civil rights fighter as his brother’s Attorney General). One protest was so bad that they had to park city buses bumper-to-bumper around the White House to protect it. Sounds familiar? Well, obviously with all of this dissatisfaction, the other political party is going to be helped, so Republicans elected Nixon as President in 1968. But some voters were so unhappy with the television scenes of violent protesters (including young anti-war protesters who would burn the American flag) that they ended up supporting a third-party candidate- segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace. Wallace was famous for saying things like: “If one of them VietNAM protesters, lays down in front of my motorcade… that will be the last motorcade, that VietNAM protester, ever LAYS DOWN IN FRONT OF!” (He had the face of a snarling bulldog.) As Wallace won most of the Deep South states and moderate conservative Nixon won most of the Rim South states, poor liberal Hubert Humphrey won only one southern state- President Johnson’s home state of Texas. Yet, Democrats kept control of the Congress, as southerners split their tickets and often voted for Democratic congress members, who continued to vote in a conservative manner, such as Mississippi’s senators John Stennis and James Eastland (powerful committee chairs also).

The 1972 election completed the Democratic humiliation in the South, as Democrats nominated a very liberal South Dakota Senator George McGovern, and proceeded to lose every southern state (and every other state in the nation except for liberal Massachusetts). McGovern wanted to give everyone a welfare payment, supported national health insurance, wanted to slash our defense budget, and stop our support of authoritarian governments (including NATO allies like Greece and Turkey). He wanted to pull all of our remaining troops out of Vietnam, and when asked how we would get our POWs out, he said if necessary, “I would crawl to Hanoi (capital of communist North Vietnam).” Nixon dubbed him the Triple A candidate- in favor of Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion. Acid in the sense that his supporters favored decriminalizing marijuana; amnesty for those who had fled to Canada to avoid the draft; and pro-choice the year before Roe v. Wade when only California and New York had legalized abortion. Historically, it was shocking to not only see the Solid South now become a solid Republican South, at least in terms of presidential elections, but to vote Republican by such landslide margins. Nixon got 78% of the vote in Mississippi, for example. He won nationally on a campaign of peace and prosperity and being a moderate conservative. Yet once again, Democrats kept control of the Congress, though the numbers of Republicans from the South were inching up.

But how quickly things change in America- Nixon resigns before being impeached by the House, Vice President Gerald Ford (a former Michigan Congressman and House GOP Leader) becomes President, and he picks that “traitor” Nelson Rockefeller (a good public servant) as Vice President. Two-term California governor and conservative actor Ronald Reagan promptly announces his challenge to President Ford’s renomination in 1976, and there is a bloody nomination battle that isn’t resolved until Mississippi ends its unit rule (a winner-take-all system) and gives Ford the nomination. Fighting for his life, Ford had dumped the unpopular Rockefeller, prompting Rocky to campaign in southern GOP delegations to the tune of: “Well, you SOBs, you got me off the ticket. What more do you want?” Democrats meanwhile had reunited their party with a more moderate liberal Born Again Southern Baptist, former one-term governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. Carter played on public dissatisfaction with Ford’s pardon of Nixon, as Carter said that he wanted a government “that is as good, and honest, and decent, and truthful, and fair, and competent, and idealistic, and compassionate, and as filled with love as are the American people” (Witcover, 1977, Marathon book, p. 198). Carter straddled divisive issues like abortion, saying he personally opposed it but would not support a constitutional amendment to end it. As a Born-Again Southern Baptist, who as governor had great relations with the African American community, Carter won every southern state except for Virginia, and with running mate Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota he won the presidency. Yet the seeds of future Democratic failure in the South were evident in that a bare majority of whites in the South had actually voted in ideological terms- for a northern Republican who was a moderate conservative, over a southern Democrat who was a moderate liberal. Only the overwhelming African American support for Carter carried the day for Democrats in the South.

Well, the see-saw continues in 1980. Poor President Carter faces high inflation (due to a Mideast oil crisis), so he puts the brakes on the economy and we also end up with a recession and high unemployment. (Sound familiar??) Carter pushes a more liberal foreign policy that protects human rights abroad, so our pro-American ally and dictator, the Shah of Iran, gets overthrown by Islamic militants. They proceed to take over the American embassy in Tehran and hold 52 Americans as hostages, demanding that we send the Shah back to Iran so that they can try him for his crimes against the Iranian people (and execute him). The very next month, the communist Soviet Union invades the Asian country of Afghanistan to prop up a communist leader unpopular with his own people. In the one debate that was held, a coldly calculating ice-man Carter kept trying to paint Reagan as a conservative extremist, someone who would destroy Social Security and blow up the world. And the poised, good-natured Reagan would gently respond, “There you go again, Mr. President,” and explain how he supported alternative programs that would protect our senior citizens and strive to eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the earth. The closing summary statement was devastating for Carter, as Reagan simply asked, “Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Can your dollar buy as much as you could then? If so, vote for my opponent. If not, vote for me, vote for change, give my program a chance.” Then, the day before the election was the one-year anniversary of the hostage taking, with the nightly news commemorating it with headlines: “Day 365, America Held Hostage!” Needless to say, Carter was toast. Reagan won in a landslide, he won every southern state except for Carter’s home state of Georgia, and he even carried in a Republican controlled Senate (for the first time since 1954). The South went for a conservative Republican over a moderate liberal Democrat, but perhaps most important was that the South like the nation voted for a change, as they were dissatisfied and viewed Carter as a failed leader.

Well, now we switch to the Solid Republican South in terms of presidential elections, as Reagan wins re-election in 1984 and his Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush wins in 1988, with every southern state voting Republican in both elections. Both elections saw moderate conservative Republicans defeat pretty liberal Democrats. Reagan in 1984 ran on peace and prosperity with a campaign slogan of, “It’s Morning in America.” Reagan had a great film about how the economy was booming, as Lee Greenwood sang “I’m Proud to be an American, Where at Least I Know I’m Free.” Democrat Walter Mondale promised “I will raise your taxes” (to cope with a rising budget deficit) and nominated a woman for Vice President, New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro. When a reporter during a debate asked the 73-year-old Reagan if he thought he was too old to be reelected, Reagan quipped, “I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I will not make an issue of my opponent’s relative youth and inexperience.” Even Mondale laughed. In 1988 Vice President Bush blasted Massachusetts governor, Democrat Michael Dukakis as an extreme liberal, who opposed the death penalty, had a furlough program that released dangerous criminals, was a card-carrying member of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), and who had vetoed a Pledge of Allegiance bill for the public schools. Dukakis didn’t help his cause when he was asked by a reporter at a debate: “If your wife Kitty were raped and murdered, would you still oppose the death penalty,” he kind of smirked and said, “Yes I would still oppose it. I don’t think the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. We’ve done other things that were more effective in Massachusetts.(paraphrased)” Yet Southerners were still splitting their tickets, as about two-thirds of their U.S. House and Senate members were Democrats (including Mississippi’s Senator John Stennis, Chair of the Armed Services Committee and ultimately President Pro Tempore of the Senate, next in line for the presidency after the House Speaker, who left office in 1989 though).

The Bill Clinton elections of 1992 and 1996 continued the seesaw battle, as Democrats were able to win four southern states in each election, as Clinton won both elections. Arkansas governor and moderate liberal Clinton (leader of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council) picked Tennessee Senator Al Gore as his running mate, and ended up winning both of these southern states, as well as two other southern states in each election. Clinton was smart in moving to the center of the electorate, as he called for abortion to be safe, legal, but rare, and as he supported the death penalty (I have to fly back to my home state of Arkansas to sign a death warrant). He was also tough on crime, criticizing riot-sympathizer Sister Souljah at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition convention. Clinton also played on voter dissatisfaction with the Bush recession with a campaign slogan, “It’s the economy, Stupid!” Bush seemed out of touch with average Americans, glancing at his watch at one debate where a distraught woman asked him about the recession, while Clinton walked right up to the woman and said, “I feel your pain. I’m from a small town in Arkansas, Hope Arkansas.” Clinton then won re-election in 1996 over Republican Bob Dole. The economy was booming with even some Republicans asking why they should vote for a change (I have money in my pocket.). Dole looked old, he had a mean and sarcastic image (In the 1976 Vice Presidential debate he had blamed Democrats for every war in this century!), and at one campaign event he even fell off the podium after a railing broke while he was shaking hands with people in the street.

In the face of these Democratic presidential victories, Republicans were making historic gains in Congress, however. After Clinton raised taxes, tried to admit gays into the military (he ended up with the compromise policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell), and failed to get a national health care plan passed, Republicans in his first midterm election of 1994 gained control of both chambers of Congress, for the first time in 40 years. This Republican congressional victory was made possible by the Republicans winning a majority of U.S. House and Senate seats in the South, for the first time since Reconstruction. Republicans also held a majority of southern governorships. It seemed that as southern Democrats retired from office, their party nominated more liberal candidates, and so Republicans (who were conservative) won more and more general elections. Since 1994, Democrats have never held a majority of southern seats in the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, or the governorships. The Chair of the Republican National Committee during this great 1994 GOP landslide was our own Haley Barbour from Yazoo City, Mississippi, who was a great talker in promoting the Republican agenda on TV.

Well, another transition, this time back to the Solid Republican South for the two George Walker Bush elections of 2000 and 2004, as Bush won every southern state both times. Bush was a two-term governor of Texas, who had knocked off a Democratic powerhouse governor Ann Richards, and then won a landslide re-election with prominent Democratic support. Bush had supported an education plan as governor that benefitted African Americans and Hispanics by imposing an indirect quota on college admissions by individual high schools, and he called himself a Compassionate Conservative. The Democrats nominated Clinton’s Vice President, Al Gore, who had been a moderate liberal Senator but who had shifted further to the left. The personable Bush projected an image of a frat boy whom you’d like to have a beer with. Gore projected more of an image of arrogance, as he sighed during the debates while Bush was talking, showing his impatience, and acting as if he wanted to hog the stage. In 2004 Democrats nominated liberal Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who had joined the anti-war movement after serving in Vietnam. After the 9-11 terrorist attacks, most Americans went with the terrorist fighter Bush, who had invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq and toppled their anti-American governments. Rejecting UN calls for a longer waiting period in Iraq, Bush went in alone, showing that he put American security first. In both elections, the South seemed to be affected by the same issues as was the nation as a whole, but the South voted even more Republican because that party offered the more conservative candidate. These elections suggested that the Democrats were increasing their image in the South as a consistently liberal party, and as they did this they lost white conservative support. From the economic liberal party of FDR (popular issue) to a pro-civil rights party (acceptable for moral reasons, indeed Democrats kept control of Congress after the 1965 Voting Rights Act) to a party now blasted as being anti-defense, pro-abortion, pro-gay rights. This expansion of Democratic liberalism to foreign and defense policy (Iranian human rights) and civil liberty and lifestyle (anti-religious right issues) issues may explain this continued loss of Democratic support in Dixie.

But then comes Barack Obama, and we see Democrats being able to pick off two or three southern states in 2008 and 2012. Obama was bright, articulate, thoughtful, organized, and charismatic. He was smart in out-organizing Hillary Clinton in order to gain the 2008 party nomination (he even had delegate slates for small western states that she ignored), and then keeping in touch with Bush’s Treasury Secretary during the financial meltdown (while Republican John McCain showed little knowledge of economics). This financial meltdown that prompted two trillion-dollar bailout packages caused voter dissatisfaction with the Republican presidential administration, so Democrat Obama won the presidency (his party had regained control of Congress two years previously because of voter disillusionment with the endless Iraqi war). Obama then won re-election in 2012 with his empathy for the average voter and his middle-class programs, defeating rich businessman and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Romney’s gaffe to rich donors that they should support him because “47% of Americans don’t even pay taxes, so they won’t support me,” suggested a certain contempt for these “freeloaders.” In both elections, while Republicans won most southern states, Obama was able to win both Florida and Virginia (two rim South states with many non-southern origin residents), and in his first election he also carried North Carolina. Once again, in most southern states voters went for the more moderate conservative candidate, the Republican.

And so finally we come to Trump. Trump in 2016 won every southern state except Virginia, and won a majority of the electoral college to become President. Again, he was a more moderate conservative compared to the moderate liberal Hillary Clinton. At a time of voter dissatisfaction with politicians, Trump was the Outsider, having never held public office. He played on this outsider theme by mocking his opponents as “little Marco,” “low energy Jeb,” “lyin’ Ted,” and “crooked Hillary.” He also took on a Democratic theme of fair trade and even trade wars, campaigned a lot in the Rust Belt, and won normally Democratic states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Many conservatives liked his obvious contempt for political correctness. While Trump campaigned among blue-collar types, Hillary showed her contempt for many of them, as she called some of Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables… racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic” at an LGBTQ rally. In 2020, Trump again was strong in the South, winning every southern state except Virginia and Georgia. Again, Trump was the moderate conservative candidate compared to the moderate liberal Democrat Joe Biden. This time, though, the dissatisfaction issue hurt Trump and cost him the election, as the incumbent was blamed by many voters for the national Covid pandemic. Trump’s response to the pandemic was viewed as fairly slow while Biden emphasized the disease’s seriousness with his mask-wearing and his socially distanced car rallies.

So what is going to happen in the next presidential election both nationally and in Dixie? The Senate and gubernatorial races in this midterm federal election year should give us some insight. On the one hand, the Jimmy Carter-like Biden presidency (high inflation, weak economy, foreign crises) leaves Biden with a low job approval rating, but the House January 6 Insurrection Committee (chaired by Mississippi’s own Congressman Bennie Thompson) has highlighted Trump’s role in trying to overturn the results of the last election by whipping up a crowd that invaded the nation’s Capitol building. Thus, a rerun election with these same two candidates at this point would be a real tossup with Trump holding a very thin edge today. Since both of these candidates are pushing 80, maybe we’ll even have one or two new names as presidential nominees. What do you think will happen this year and two years from now?

Summary (for one question on midterm exam) of key presidential elections in the South:

1) 1932-1944 New Deal Democratic era- solid Democratic South due to liberal domestic economic issues

2) 1948- Democrats add a liberal civil rights platform, lose 4 Deep South states to the Dixiecrat States’ Rights Party

3) 1952-1960, the Eisenhower-Kennedy-Nixon elections, where the moderate conservative Republicans win a few Rim South states

4) 1964, conservative Republican Goldwater wins all 5 Deep South states, loses all Rim South states

5) 1968, region is split, with moderate conservative Nixon winning most of the Rim South, third party conservative and segregationist Wallace winning most of the Deep South

6) 1972, moderate conservative Republican Nixon sweeps the South over liberal McGovern

7) 1976, born again southern Baptist Democrat Carter wins all except Virginia with a biracial coalition

8) 1980, dissatisfaction with President Carter causes Republican Reagan to win all southern states except Georgia

9) 1984-1988, moderate conservatives Reagan and Bush beat liberal Democrats in all southern states

10) 1992-1996, moderate liberal southerners Clinton-Gore win their two home states plus two other southern states, but moderate conservative Republicans win most of the region

11) 2000-2004, moderate conservative Bush wins every southern state

12) 2008-2012, moderate conservative Republicans win most southern states, but liberal Obama wins Florida and Virginia both times (and North Carolina in first election)

13) 2016-2020, moderate conservative Trump wins all except Virginia in both years (and Georgia the second election)