Chapters 1-2

Chapter 1: Studying Southern Politics

The American South has always held a special fascination in the minds of Americans and people around the world. The world’s sole remaining superpower does not have a King or strict class or caste divisions as in some nations, but the antebellum southern mansion and lifestyle has fulfilled a similar role for many citizens of the world. How else to account for the popularity of such Hollywood films as Gone with the Wind and its protagonist Scarlett O’Hara? Yet public enthrallment with the antebellum South, reflected even today in the public tours of plantation homes during “pilgrimage” weeks and the reenactment of civil war battles, typically ignores a major blot on the soul of the South and nation. The antebellum South was built upon the institution of slavery, whose soulless cruelty was vividly depicted in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, provoking a Civil War that was the bloodiest conflict in American history. Even a century after that devastating conflict, southern states preserved a system of “apartheid” directed against its African American citizens, while the country that the states were forced at bayonet-point to remain a part of, preached democracy and human rights to third world countries emerging from the shadow of European colonialism. Courageous struggles by African American civil rights leaders in the South, such as NAACP leaders Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers, ultimately shamed enough Americans to force the federal government to enforce a “Second Reconstruction” on the South that liberated the region’s African Americans (Evers 1996; Bartley and Graham 1975). Today, the South is a vibrant society with a biracial political leadership and a social setting that is more integrated than in many other areas of the nation (Menifield and Shaffer 2005).

The dawn of the 21^st century witnessed a renewed popular fascination with the American South. Not only had the “Second Reconstruction” in the 1950s and 1960s forced the South to “rejoin the Union,” but also subsequent political developments had catapulted the chastened region to the role of kingmaker and even “king” in the politics of the world’s sole hyperpower. Only by nominating southerners (Johnson, Carter, Clinton) was the Democratic party, politically dominant since the Great Depression, able to win the presidency in the last thirty-six years of the 20^th century. The South had also become “vital” to the electoral hopes of the Republican party, which in the 1994 midterm “tsunami” seized control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in forty years, after winning a majority of congressional seats in the South for the first time since Reconstruction. As expertly analyzed and forecasted by Earl and Merle Black (1992), the region had indeed become The Vital South in the politics of the world’s hyperpower.

The academic study of the South has benefited from classic studies by scholarly giants. V.O. Key’s (1949) classic Southern Politics in State and Nation vividly depicted a white-ruled, segregated region and thoroughly analyzed political competition within the dominant Democratic party. William Havard’s (1972) edited book, The Changing Politics of the South, analyzed and documented the emergence of a viable Republican party, particularly in “Rim South” states, and the persistence of racism in some “Deep South” states. Bass and DeVries’ (1977) The Transformation of Southern Politics recounts the rise of a “New South,” where an empowered African American electorate exerts a dramatic impact on the fates of both political parties. Alexander P. Lamis (1990, 1999) employs vivid writing and characterizations to illustrate how the region has become a true Two-Party South, and how in Southern Politics in the 1990s the GOP launched a bid to rise to majority party status. Edited works such as Swansbrough and Brodsky’s (1988) The South’s New Politics: Realignment and Dealignment and Bullock and Rozell’s (2003, 2007a) The New Politics of the Old South further update V.O. Key’s seminal work by analyzing change in the electorate’s basic partisan identifications and the most recent partisan developments in each state. Invaluable to the study of southern politics has been the biennial Symposiums on Southern Politics sponsored by The Citadel under the leadership of Robert P. Steed, Laurence W. Moreland, and Tod A. Baker, which has produced countless scholarly papers, journal articles, and books, including the fascinating accounts of presidential election campaigns in each southern state since 1984 (Moreland, Steed, and Baker 1991a; Steed and Moreland 2002).

In this book, I hope to provide an indispensable and updated study of two party politics in the modern South that arose from the region’s history of one-party Democratic dominance. Chapter 2 examines the important role that the South has played throughout American political history over the course of different political party “eras,” and how the ideological transformations of the national parties, reflected in the campaigns of their presidential nominees and the policies of their Presidents has fueled GOP gains in Dixie. Chapter 3 focuses specifically on how the South can be classified into two sub-regions characterized by somewhat different patterns of partisan electoral gains, and how presidential election contests have shaped Republican gains in congressional and state elections in recent decades. Chapters 4-14 separately examine political developments in each of the eleven states of the old Confederacy with states grouped together into Deep South and Rim South sub-regions, beginning with the most “southern” of the states where whites were historically most adamant in maintaining their “peculiar” institution of racial apartheid. Chapter 15 concludes this study by examining some commonalities across the states that explain why GOP gains have occurred, and by speculating over the future of two party politics in Dixie.

This book seeks to unite the study of southern politics with a more national focus drawn from studies of partisan realignment and American national elections. I am indebted to the authors of the classic, The American Voter (Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes 1964) for their model of long-term and short-term forces affecting the presidential vote, which I extend to state elections in the individual state chapters. My brief historical account of party eras and realignment in chapter 2 draws on the classics American Political Parties: Social Change and Political Response (Ladd 1970), Dynamics of the Party System (Sundquist 1973), and Transformations of the American Party System (Ladd and Hadley 1978). Alexander Lamis’ (1990: 32) highly informative visual aids inspired me to emulate his efforts to educate readers by providing in Chapter 3 similar tabular aids depicting Republicans gains at all levels of elective offices. Finally, landmark articles focusing on the importance of the ideological realignment of the southern parties inspired me to provide tables in each state chapter seeking to identify party differences in the public policy initiatives of elected officials (Carmines and Stanley 1990; Abramowitz 1994). I hope that the result is a book that provides a comprehensive and readable analysis of contemporary southern politics that incorporates the best ideas of the brightest minds in our field.

Chapter 2

The South in a National Context

Political Party Eras and the South throughout History

American political parties first arose because of two major figures in George Washington’s administration- Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who desired a stronger federal government to protect infant American industries that would create a diversified economy, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson from Virginia who preferred the ideals of a nation of small farmers where these landowners would have a stake in society and government. The Federalist Party embodied Hamilton’s ideas, which in addition to a pro-business orientation popular in the more commercial New England states, also embraced an elitist philosophy that only the “well bred” should serve in government and were consequently sympathetic for monarchical Britain. The Republican Party (no relationship to the modern GOP) embraced Jeffersonian ideals of an agrarian republic popular in the more agricultural South, as well as a less elitist governing philosophy and a sympathy for the French revolution. The Federalists briefly controlled the Congress and Presidency (John Adams), but its enactment of politically repressive Alien, Sedition, and Naturalization Acts helped to elect Thomas Jefferson and a Republican Congress in 1800. Coupled with their less elitist philosophy and support of an agricultural economy that employed most Americans, Republicans became the majority party in America in this “First Party System,” electing three Presidents to two terms each (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe). The Federalists withered into virtual nonexistence by the 1820s (Table 2-1).

A one-party system is politically unstable in a nation with diverse interests. Four presidential candidates competed in the 1824 election, and the nation’s diverse political interests quickly coalesced into two factions- the National Republicans of President John Quincy Adams, who embodied the pro-business ideals of the old Federalists, and the Democratic-Republicans of Andrew Jackson. An ardent believer in the political wisdom of the “common man,” Jackson began the first of two terms as President after the 1828 election, and his party shortened its name to Democrats. The Democratic Party was a true national party, gaining support from Catholic immigrants in northeastern cities who were welcomed into the party organization, and having much support in the South because of its pro-agriculture policies and its backing of an aggressive foreign policy of territorial expansion into the southwest. Anti-Jackson elements coalesced into the Whig Party, strongest in the more commercial New England states but also attracting support from wealthier businessmen and plantation owners in the South (see Table 2-1). Nonetheless, most Americans were employed in agricultural occupations, making the Democrats the majority party during this Second Party System. Democrats generally controlled Congress and won every presidential election until 1860 except for two, when the Whigs ran non-ideological “war heroes” (Harrison and Taylor).

By the 1850s the nation became bitterly divided over the issue of slavery, as Democrats became associated with sympathy for the slave-owning South. During that decade, Democrats elected two presidents (Pierce, Buchanan) generally viewed as “northern men of southern principles,” and boasted a southern Democratic-dominated U.S. Supreme Court which delivered the Dred Scott decision that held that slaves were “property” and that Congress therefore could not prohibit slavery in the western territories. Other northern Democrats with presidential ambitions, such as Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, courted southern support by enacting the Kansas-Nebraska Act that permitted slavery in Kansas. The Republican Party first arose as a third party created by northern industrialists and those who were opposed to the extension of slavery in the western territories, and quickly supplanted the Whigs in the northern states. As the party of compromise on the slavery issue, the Whigs were further torn apart when its southern supporters joined the Democrats. As Republican strength grew and the Whigs lost support, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency in 1860 in a nation divided between four presidential candidates.

Fearing the nomination of anti-slavery Republicans to the U.S. Supreme Court and the growing population and power of northern states in the Congress, the South seceded from the Union. The Third Party System from 1860-1996 witnessed two major parties with national support replaced by two parties split by geographic region. After Reconstruction ended, white southerners were so embittered against the northern Republicans who had prosecuted the Civil War and “radical” Reconstruction “against them” that every one of the eleven states of the old Confederacy voted Democratic in presidential elections from 1880 up through 1916. Though Republicans won every presidential election in the last four decades of the 19^th century except for two, the Solid Democratic South helped produce a Congress generally controlled by Democrats, therefore neither party should be regarded as the “majority party” nationally.

A worldwide agricultural depression in the 1890s produced a 3^rd party in America, the Populists, dedicated to the free coinage of silver (that would produce inflation, making it easier for debtor farmers to repay their debts) and the outlawing of business practices that hurt farmers. Seeking to become the majority party, the more pro-agriculture Democratic Party in 1896 nominated populist William Jennings Bryan as its presidential nominee. Claiming that Bryan’s backing for free coinage of silver would cause rampant inflation that would destroy the economy, northern businessmen warned their workers that, “If Bryan is elected, don’t come back to work.” By the turn of the century most Americans were now employed in the industrial sector, and the Democratic Party, by absorbing the populist movement and nominating Byran for three losing presidential bids, became viewed as too oriented towards an agricultural republic and was therefore unable to attract many blue-collar workers. Republicans, the new majority party in this Fourth Party System that extended from 1896 until 1932, won every presidential election except for the two-term presidency of Woodrow Wilson, and generally controlled Congress. The minority Democratic party had become such a regional party based in the South that in the three presidential elections of the 1920s, Democrats carried a total of 27 southern states, 2 border states (Kentucky in 1920 and Oklahoma in 1924), and only 2 northern states (Massachusetts, Rhode Island in 1928). The South’s stranglehold on the national Democratic Party did have two payoffs for white southerners who politically controlled the region- all Democratic presidential nominees refrained from attacking racial segregation in the region, and southerners gained seniority and congressional leadership positions in the Democratic Party.

The Great Depression began in 1929 during Republican President Herbert Hoover’s administration, and Democrats in Congress and the newly elected Democratic President, Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), enacted a New Deal for the American people that promised “relief, recovery, and reform.” With one-fourth of American workers unemployed, the Democratic party enacted federal welfare (AFDC), Social Security, a federal minimum wage, protection of labor unions (Wagner Act), and public jobs programs. Its liberal posture on such economic issues helped Democrats add the support of blue-collar workers, the lower income, African Americans, and people of the Jewish faith to its existing Catholic and white southern support (Table 2-1). With Republican support generally confined to high-income earners and business leaders, Democrats became the new majority party. During this Fifth Party System, the party of FDR won every presidential election from 1932 until 1968 except for two and controlled Congress in every year except for four. However, now that Democrats had become the “majority” party with electoral support from across the nation, “southern” Democrats lost their stranglehold over the party and began to defect from their party in presidential elections.

By the 1950s the “scientific” study of American presidential elections had seized the discipline of political science, and researchers at the University of Michigan proposed a social psychological model of presidential voting that centered on voters’ political attitudes (Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes, 1964). The key concept was party identification, defined as a person’s psychological attachment to a political party, an identification obtained in childhood from one’s parents, influencing one’s positions on issues and one’s evaluations of candidates, and serving as a “long-term” force that tended to remain stable throughout one’s lifetime. With the Democrats being the majority party nationally in the 1950s, most Americans held Democratic party identifications. Only by gaining some advantage on “short-term” forces such as by nominating a popular candidate or by exploiting a popular issue that outweighed the majority party’s advantage on this key long-term force could Republicans win the presidency (Figure 2-1). Minority parties in previous political eras had overcome the majority party’s advantage by nominating popular war heroes (Whigs Harrison and Taylor), or benefiting from a split within the majority party (Democrat Wilson won a three-way race in 1912 over Republican incumbent Taft and former Republican president and now Progressive nominee Teddy Roosevelt). As we seek to understand whatever happened to the Fifth Party System of New Deal Democratic dominance, and what type of political era the nation enjoys today, let us first apply this voting behavior model to presidential elections over the past fifty years that have led us to this point in history.

Presidential Election Politics in a Time of Regional Turmoil

Even as late as Roosevelt’s third successful reelection bid in 1944, the Solid South was delivering all of its electoral votes to the Democratic presidential candidate, providing percentages of the state popular vote ranging from a low of 61% in Tennessee to a high of 94% in Mississippi. The unity of the Democratic Party and the South was threatened at the 1948 national Democratic convention, which adopted a pro-civil rights platform plank backed by northern Democrats. This prompted a walkout by the Mississippi delegation and half of the Alabama delegation, and the entry of 3^rd party presidential candidate Strom Thurmond representing the States’ Rights Party. Harry Truman, who became president after Roosevelt’s death in 1945, was also beset by significant post-World War 2 economic problems and the fall of Eastern European countries to communist governments. Democrats were also split by a fourth party, the left-wing challenge by Progressive Henry Wallace, who repudiated Truman’s forceful reaction to Soviet communism.

Lagging in the polls to popular New York governor, Republican Thomas Dewey, Truman took the offense, conducting an old-style whistle stop campaign. From the back of a train at numerous stops across the heartland, the Democrat reminded voters that the party of FDR had fought for the average worker and had enacted such popular New Deal programs as Social Security, while blasting Republicans as the party of the “rich” and “big business.” Truman’s concentration on popular economic issues helped to reunite most of the majority Democratic party’s coalition and won his party the election, though with the most significant southern defection since the Democrats’ nomination of Catholic Al Smith in 1928. The Deep South states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina cast their electoral votes for Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. These were the only four states whose Democratic state party executive committees had listed Thurmond on the state ballot as the “official” presidential nominee of the Democratic party.

The minority Republican party in the 1950s was finally able to capitalize on short term forces, as it elected and then reelected the popular leader of Allied military forces in Europe during World War 2, Dwight Eisenhower (“Ike”). The prolonged and bloody Korean War, the fall of mainland China to communist insurgents, and corruption in the Truman administration led a dissatisfied American public in 1952 to endorse a change in parties instead of continuing with the Democratic party’s candidate, Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson. Eisenhower ended the Korean War and kept the U.S. out of Vietnam, and with a booming economy and a balanced budget was able to gain reelection on the issues of peace and prosperity (see Table 2-2). The absence of divisive issues during the 1956 campaign led many voters to focus on their affection for the Republican’s grandfatherly-like appearance, reflected in the campaign slogan, “I Like Ike.” Eisenhower was even able to carry the four Rim South states of Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia in both campaigns, and to add Louisiana in his reelection bid. Democrats nevertheless remained the majority party nationally and in the South, regaining control of Congress in the 1954 midterm election that they had narrowly lost two years earlier.

The 1960 presidential election was characterized by potent short-term forces related to both parties’ candidates, as Democrat John Kennedy was only 43 years old and had great charisma and speaking skills, while Republican Richard Nixon as Vice President was viewed as a foreign affairs leader who was very knowledgeable about government. Kennedy’s Catholic religion may have hurt him in Protestant areas such as the South, though Nixon’s shifty-eyed image in the first televised debate hurt the Republican even more. Kennedy’s pledge to get “America started moving again” after the tranquil and conservative decade of the 1950s, plus his leadership of the majority party, carried him to victory (White 1961: 326). The Solid Democratic South was breached yet again, however, as the Rim South states of Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia backed Republican Nixon, while in the Deep South all of the electors for Mississippi and about half from Alabama voted for Democratic Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia instead of for the racially liberal Kennedy.

The 1964 election posed short-term forces that actually helped the majority Democratic party, as Republicans nominated a man who was too conservative even for some Republicans. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater had been the only non-southern senator to vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, had suggested issuing tactical nuclear weapons to American military commanders abroad, had called for victory in Vietnam, and had suggested terminating federal farm payments and privatizing the TVA. The Johnson campaign capitalized on their opponent’s image of extremism with a television ad showing a little girl in a field, picking the petals off of a daisy, as a voice counted down from ten and a mushroom cloud then obliterated the screen. Johnson, who had become president after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, was elected in a landslide that also brought in a heavily Democratic controlled Congress, though the Republicans for the first time ever carried all five Deep South states.

President Johnson’s Great Society was a bold expansion of the New Deal to encompass civil rights, anti-poverty measures, federal health insurance for the elderly and the poor (Medicare and Medicaid), and federal education aid. Yet rising crime and urban riots beset the nation, and Johnson’s commitment of half a million American troops to southeast Asia to prevent the communist takeover of South Vietnam sparked campus riots. Anti-war protesters marched on the Democratic national convention in Chicago in 1968, while liberal delegates denounced the Vietnam War from within the convention halls. Despite these bitter intra-party divisions, delegates nominated as president Johnson’s Vice President, Hubert Humphrey. These short-term forces of public dissatisfaction with problems like urban and campus unrest produced a victory for Republican Richard Nixon, who had remained a leader of his party by campaigning for numerous GOP congressional candidates in the 1966 midterm election (Table 2-2). Third party candidate and segregationist former Alabama governor George C. Wallace also capitalized on the urban unrest issue, claiming that, “If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car, it'll be the last car he'll ever lay down in front of” (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_c_wallace.html, accessed January 17, 2007). The South abandoned Democratic presidential candidate Humphrey with only President Johnson’s home state of Texas backing him. Nixon carried four Rim South states plus the Deep South state of South Carolina, where he had the backing of Democrat-turned-Republican Senator Strom Thurmond. Wallace carried the four other Deep South states, plus the Rim South state of Arkansas.

In 1972 short-term forces benefited the minority Republican party once again. Nixon was benefited by an economic upswing after the 1970 recession, and his image of a world leader was bolstered by his election-year trips to mainland China and the USSR. Democrats nominated a liberal, anti-Vietnam war Senator from South Dakota, George McGovern, who trumpeted his call for an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam with a convention speech chant of “Come Home, America” (White 1973: 248). The Nixon campaign exploited his pledge to slash the defense budget and to cut military support to allied nations with a television ad depicting toy American soldiers and tanks with a big hand grabbing them away. McGovern’s support for an amnesty for those who went to Canada to evade the Vietnam war draft, his backing for legalizing abortion (a year before Roe V. Wade), and allegations that he favored decriminalizing marijuana led Republicans to jokingly label him the Triple A candidate- in favor of Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion. Not only did Nixon win in a national landslide, but also for the first time in history every southern state voted Republican for president, thereby politically unifying the more racially obsessed Deep South states with the more moderately conservative Rim South states.

Presidential Election Politics After the South Reunifies

After wandering in the presidential wilderness for eight years during the Nixon and Ford administrations (Gerald Ford assumed the presidency after Nixon’s resignation during the Watergate scandal), Democrats unified their party under a “Born Again” southern Baptist, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. President Ford, former House Minority Leader from Michigan, had angered GOP conservatives by choosing “liberal” former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller as Vice President, and by pursuing “détente” or peaceful coexistence with the communist Soviet Union. After Ford won a bitterly divisive struggle with conservative former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, for the presidential nomination, he started 30 points behind Carter in the polls. Handicapped by his pardon of the unpopular Nixon and by a stagnant economy, Ford closed in on the frontrunner by painting his Democratic foe as a big spending liberal. Ford’s momentum came to a screeching halt after he blundered in a debate over his détente policies by misspeaking and claiming that, “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration” (Witcover 1977: 597). Carter’s narrow victory nevertheless won him a Solid South minus Republican-oriented Virginia (Table 2-3). The “new” Democratic South, though, was a far cry from the solid Democratic loyalties of white southerners of the New Deal era. Enfranchised by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, African Americans voted overwhelmingly for the Democrat, permitting Carter to narrowly carry the South with the backing of only 47% of southern whites (Black and Black 1992, 329).

The first two elections of the 1980s that saw Ronald Reagan elected president were characterized by strong short-term forces that benefited the Republican, while dealignment (the rising numbers of Independents since the political turmoil of the 1960s) virtually eliminated the Democratic advantage on the long-term force of party identification. In 1980 the public was greatly dissatisfied with double-digit inflation, high unemployment and interest rates, the anti-American Islamic government of Iran holding 52 American diplomats as hostages for a year, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to prop up a faltering communist regime. Carter’s desperate effort to paint Reagan as another conservative extremist like Goldwater faltered as the genial aging former actor turned to the president in a debate and with a smile on his face joked, “There you go again” (Reagan 1990: 221). Carter’s image of poor leadership dashed his reelection hopes, and except for his home state of Georgia every southern state backed his Republican challenger. Four years later Reagan, benefited by peace and prosperity, won reelection with a “feel good, it’s Morning in America” campaign. Efforts to paint the 73 year old as “too old” to be president floundered when the genial Reagan was asked in a debate whether he was too old to remain president. With twinkling eyes, the smiling Reagan quipped, “I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience” (Reagan 1990: 329). Democrat Mondale’s campaign is most remembered for his historic selection of a woman, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, as his running mate, and for his pledge at the Democratic convention to be honest with Americans about the need to balance the budget by promising to “raise taxes” (Goldman and Fuller 1985: 228). Reagan swept the nation, winning every southern state and every other state in the nation except for Mondale’s home state of Minnesota (and the District of Columbia).

As the numbers of Independents rose nationally and the numbers of Democrats fell to the level of Republicans, short term factors now determined the outcomes of presidential races. Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1988 bested Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis with a negative campaign that painted the Democrat as an unpatriotic, soft-on-crime, tax-and-spend liberal. Bush called Dukakis a card-carrying member of the ACLU (the “liberal” American Civil Liberties Union), denounced him for vetoing a Pledge of Allegiance school bill because the pledge included the words “under God,” and blasted him for turning the criminal “Willie Horton” loose because of a prison furlough program. Dukakis poured oil on the flames during a debate with his reaction to a question about his wife from newsman Bernard Shaw: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” With a smirk and in his uninspiring “Ice Man” persona, Dukakis calmly responded, “No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. We've done so in my own state.” (Shaw and Dukakis quotes appear in: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showdebate.php?debateid=14, accessed January 17, 2007). Despite lagging the Democrat in national polls during the summer, Bush pulled out the election and repeated Reagan’s feat of carrying every southern state.

The Clinton elections of the 1990s illustrated how short-term factors can benefit the out-of-power presidential party when times are bad, and benefit the incumbent party during good times. Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, a leader of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, had defused the “liberal” label by flying back to Arkansas during the campaign to sign a death penalty warrant and by criticizing Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition for giving a forum to radical African American rap singer Sister Souljah. Drawing attention to the unpopular economic recession with a campaign slogan of "The economy, stupid" (Germond and Witcover 1993: 432), Clinton was benefited by the incumbent president’s impatient glance at his watch during a “town forum” debate as a woman from the audience expressed concern over the people hurt by the economic downturn (Table 2-3). Four years later, President Clinton won reelection as he benefitted from the booming economy and a futuristic campaign theme of building “that bridge to the twenty-first century” (Clinton 2004: 723). In contrast, Clinton’s Republican opponent, former Senate Majority Leader (the GOP had won control of the congress in the 1994 midterm elections) Bob Dole appeared old and burdened by a public image of sarcasm. Dole’s most memorable campaign event was falling off of a platform when he leaned over a weakened railing to shake supporters’ hands. In both elections, the victorious Democrat was able to crack what had become the solid “Republican” South in the previous two presidential elections, as Clinton and his running mate Senator Al Gore of Tennessee carried their home states in both years, as well as Georgia and Louisiana in 1992 and Florida and Louisiana in 1996.

The 2000 presidential election illustrates how competitive presidential elections have become in this 6^th party system of dealignment, as the victorious Bush won in the electoral college despite losing the national popular vote, a quirk that last occurred in the 1888 presidential election when popular vote winner Grover Cleveland lost the presidency to electoral vote winner, Republican Benjamin Harrison. Portraying himself as a “compassionate conservative,” Republican George W. Bush benefited from Democrat Al Gore’s arrogant “sighs” of impatience while the personable Texas governor presented his case in a debate. Because of Clinton’s impeachment for lying about having sex with White House intern Monica Lewinski, Vice President Gore distanced himself from the administration, even its enviable economic record, and managed to lose the election and every southern state, including his home state of Tennessee and Clinton’s home state. Bush won reelection four years later by dogmatically projecting his image of being a decisive, terrorist fighter who will “protect you,” and relentlessly branding Democrat John Kerry as a flip-flopping liberal by replaying Kerry’s explanation of his vote on an appropriation for the Iraqi war that “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” (last quote cited in: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/29/politics/main646435.shtml, accessed January 17, 2007). Once again, Democrats lost every southern state, and lost another presidential election. Democrats fared much better in 2008, benefitted by a financial crisis and a deepening recession that occurred under Republican Bush's watch. The charismatic and articulate speaker Obama not only won the election for the Democrats, but also picked up a few southern states for the first time since Clinton.

Party Realignment in the South Grounded in Ideology

In addition to being the foremost scholar of southern politics in his day, V.O. Key pioneered the study of how changes in party fortunes (“realignment”) ushered in new political eras characterized by a loss of popular majority status by the dominant party. A single election that ushered in dramatic partisan change was termed a “critical election,” while partisan change by a key demographic group over a longer time span was referred to as “secular realignment.” Subsequent scholars also added the term “dealignment,” where a rise in Independents and more people voting for the candidates instead of the parties reduced the political support of one or both of the major parties.

Political scientists have studied how tremendous changes in the southern electorate over the last half century have accompanied the dramatic transformation of the region’s loyalties in presidential elections. Using the National Election Studies (NES, a national public opinion poll conducted every two years since 1952 by the University of Michigan) and network exit polls, Merle Black (2004) documented how Democrats lost their advantage in party identification among southerners in 1984, and how by the mid-1990s a majority of white southerners were now identifying with the Republican party. Harold Stanley (1988) points out that dealignment as well as realignment characterized change among southern whites between 1952 and 1984, as white southerners in later years were making more comments about the attributes of the presidential candidates instead of the political parties when asked what they liked and disliked about the two parties and its presidential nominees.

Bruce Campbell (1977a) concluded that changes in white partisanship were due to conversion or changes in an individual’s partisan identifications rather than to migration into the region or generational replacement, and that partisan change among white southerners resembled the process of secular realignment. Paul Allen Beck (1977), also relying on NES data from 1952 through 1972, counters that dealignment among native whites was largely due to generational replacement, as the young favor independence more and were tending to bring their party loyalties into line with their attitudes and images of the parties on racial issues. Campbell (1977b) also adds that the 1964 presidential election was a critical election for African Americans in the South, as native black southerners showed heightened interest in that election and blacks most strongly in favor of federal civil rights measures shifted most dramatically towards the Democratic party.

Exactly why white southerners have switched to Republican party loyalties is hotly debated, with many scholars pointing out that the more conservative values of southerners on a range of issues has led them to bring their partisan loyalties into line with their issue attitudes, as the regional memory of historic events favoring the Democrats, such as bitterness over the GOP’s role in the Civil War and enthusiasm for FDR’s New Deal programs to help people cope with the Great Depression, has withered over the decades. Reviewing a host of studies, Cotter, Shaffer, and Breaux (2006) found that southerners are indeed somewhat more conservative than other Americans on numerous non-social welfare issues, such as race, cultural, crime, gender roles, morality, and school prayer. Using NES data, Edward G. Carmines and Harold Stanley (1990) demonstrated that Republican partisan identification grew among white southerners who labeled themselves as “conservative,” as well as among those who took conservative positions on public jobs, minority aid, defense spending, and abortion. Using 1980 and 1988 NES data, Alan Abramowitz (1994) argues that race issues were less important than national defense and social welfare issues in shaping white southerners’ partisan identifications. Using unique party image data in statewide polls of Alabama and Mississippi residents, Shaffer, Cotter, and Tucker (2000) found that different issues were important to whites and blacks, as the partisanship of whites was more affected by their perception that Republicans would be more successful in reducing crime and preserving traditional values, while blacks believed that Democrats would care more about combating poverty and protecting the interests of African Americans.

Other scholars argue that the key issue motivating white southerners to switch their partisanship from Democratic to Republican has been race. As the national Democratic party has become associated with support for civil rights, starting with the presidencies of Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson, and as African Americans have realigned into the Democratic party, “white flight” has taken place. Using an innovative “unobtrusive” measure, James Kuklinski and Michael Cobb (1997) find that racial prejudice is still higher in the South than in the rest of the country, particularly among southern white males. Uses NES and GSS (General Social Survey, usually conducted annually by the University of Chicago) data from the 1970s through 2000, Nicholas Valentino and David Sears (2005) found that “symbolic racism” became increasingly important to the party identifications and the presidential votes of white southerners than it did to other Americans, and that issues of affirmative action and aid to minorities were much more strongly associated with the presidential votes of southerners in the 1990s than they were to the votes of non-southerners. Stanley Watson (1996) found that in 1980 half of white southerners viewed the Democratic party as too liberal on the issue of aid to minorities. Using NES data from 1986 through 2000, Jonathan Knuckey (2001) found a growth in Republican party identification among white southerners who had high scores on a racial resentment scale, but little partisan change among those lacking such resentments.

Regardless of the reasons for the realignment of the white South from the Democratic to the Republican party, the southern party system has now come to resemble that of the rest of the nation. Instead of southern whites being overwhelmingly Democratic because of Civil War memories, and therefore not showing the kind of class differences that existed in the north, where the higher socioeconomic status (SES) were more Republican than the lower SES, southern whites are finally responding to the ideological split between the two national parties as do voters in the rest of the nation. Using NES data, Richard Nadeau and Harold Stanley (1993) showed that since the mid 1970s, higher SES southern whites had become more Republican than the lower SES, resembling the type of class polarization in party identification that existed in the rest of the nation. Indeed, by 2000 class polarization, which was becoming increasingly important throughout the nation, was even stronger in the South than in the non-south (Nadeau, Niemi, Stanley, and Godbout 2004).

How Presidents Reinforced the Ideological Realignment of the Parties

Before 1984 when Democrats retained an advantage over Republicans in the partisanship of southern whites (Black 2004), ideological differences between Democratic and Republican presidents were harder for voters to discern, particularly on foreign policy issues. Democratic president Harry Truman after the end of World War 2 originated the policy of Containment, using American resources to prevent the spread of communism. Truman established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a self-defense pact between Western Europe and North America, sent hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent communist takeovers in Greece and Turkey, and led the nation into the Korean War to prevent the communist North Koreans from conquering South Korea. Democrat John Kennedy backed an invasion of communist Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and rattled the sword by speaking before the Berlin Wall (dividing a city located within communist East Germany that had a West Berlin sector controlled by non-communist West Germany), “I am a Berliner.” Democrat Lyndon Johnson militarily pursued anti-communist policies that fought “looming” communist takeover threats by invading the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and sending half a million American troops to South Vietnam in southeast Asia (Table 2-4).

Republican presidents before the 1980s pursued some “dovish” policies. Eisenhower refused to back European colonialism, and did not come to the support of the French in Vietnam and even opposed France and Britain’s attack on Egypt in the Mideast in 1956. Republicans Nixon and Ford pursued “détente” with communist China and the USSR. Economic differences between the parties were more noticeable, as Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society programs were clearly liberal in nature. But even on domestic issues party differences were blurred, as Eisenhower refused to seek the repeal of the New Deal, and Nixon supported deficit spending, wage and price controls, and the establishment of such federal regulatory agencies as EPA and OSHA (Table 2-5).

Party differences, particularly on foreign policy issues, became much more noticeable under the presidencies of Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter angered conservatives with his idealistic concern for other nations instead of maintaining a single-minded focus on American national security interests. Carter was scorned by conservatives for negotiating a treaty to give the Panama Canal back to the nation of Panama, and for promoting “human rights” in nations allied with the U.S. in the Cold War. Indeed, Carter’s human rights campaign was viewed as weakening the repressive but pro-American “Shah” of Iran, permitting Islamic militants to overthrow him and to then angrily hold 52 American diplomats as hostages for the Shah’s return for trial. Conservatives also criticized Clinton’s presidency for its philanthropic use of the military in “nation-building” exercises in Haiti and Bosnia (Table 2-4).

Conservatives on the other hand applauded Republican presidents’ singular focus on protecting the national security interests of the U.S. Reagan engineered a massive defense spending increase, invaded Grenada to prevent a communist takeover, and in divided Berlin challenged the Soviet leader, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall!” (Reagan 1990: 683). Under George H.W. Bush, not only did communism wither in Eastern Europe and the USSR itself, but also Bush unapologetically used American military might to topple an anti-American dictator of Panama, and to roll back Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the oil-rich Mideast. Conservatives applaud George W. Bush as a leader in the fight against terrorism, as he invaded and overthrew the anti-American governments of Afghanistan and Iraq (Table 2-5).

Differences between recent Democratic and Republican presidents also exist on some domestic issues, though they are less stark than on foreign policy issues. Republicans Reagan and George W. Bush both enacted across-the-board tax cuts, though George H.W. Bush raised taxes to try to combat a growing deficit during a recession. Reagan and George W. Bush are two presidents most known for opposing racial quotas, yet Bush is the first president to name successive African Americans to the vital post of Secretary of State (Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice). Democrats Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton both made historically large numbers of African American appointments to the federal judiciary, yet Carter’s recession and Clinton’s welfare reform were blasted by liberals as hurting the economically poor. Ironically, federal spending rose dramatically under Republicans George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush with the latter increasing federal education spending and implementing a costly prescription drug program for the elderly.

The New Party System and the South

Increased ideological differences between Democratic and Republican presidents and presidential candidates have likely contributed to the realignment of conservative southern whites from the Democratic to the Republican party. The Sixth Party System that we are now living through has some continuities with the New Deal system, such as the Republican party’s generally conservative orientation, its high-income supporters, and its pro-business policies. A major change is that Democrats have lost their majority party status in this new era of dealignment and absence of any majority party, perhaps because of the leftward drift of their party. Previously liberal only on popular New Deal economic issues that attracted a diverse coalition including blue-collar workers and the economically disadvantaged, national Democrats embraced civil rights in the 1960s and then feminism and even gay rights in subsequent decades. Foreign policy differences between the national parties became stark with Republicans embracing a militant, conservative, nationalism posture and Democrats offering an essentially “dovish,” internationalist orientation. As national Democrats associated themselves with such social minorities as angry civil rights leaders, outspoken feminists, and militant gays, the New Deal Democratic coalition lost its white southern base to the Republicans. From 1968 until 2008, Democrats were able to win only three presidential elections, and only with presidential nominees from the South who projected a “centrist” image before being elected. Democrats at first kept control of Congress, except for the 1980 Reagan landslide that brought in a GOP-controlled Senate for six years. However, even that remaining Democratic advantage was dashed in the 1994 Republican “tsunami,” which swept in a GOP-controlled Congress that persisted (except for a temporary, 2-year Democratic control of the Senate after the disputed 2000 presidential election) until the 2006 midterm congressional elections.

In the next chapter, we turn to a more in-depth examination of this modern Sixth Party System. We begin by explaining the historic differences between the Deep and Rim South sub-regions, which were especially evident in presidential election voting during the later years of the Fifth Party System and early years of the Sixth Party System. We then examine how distinctions between these sub-regions have lessened over recent decades. We also study how the South in a host of non-presidential elective contests has been transformed from a bastion of Democratic party dominance into a more Republican oriented region. The extent to which national politics may have influenced Republican gains in gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and state legislative elections is also assessed. We also briefly examine party competition for state offices often overlooked by scholars of southern politics- statewide elective offices other than governor. We conclude by returning to the types of issues that help each of the parties to win elections and to form successful governing coalitions.

Table 2-1

History of the Political Party Eras in the United States

1^st	2^nd	3^rd (no dominant party)	4^th	5^th	6^th (no dominant party)
1796-1828	1828-1860	1860-1896	1896-1932	1932-1968	1968-?
Federalists	Whigs	Republicans	Republicans	Republicans	Republicans
National Power	Anti-Jackson coalition	Anti-Slavery Party		Conservative ideology	Conservative ideology
Pro-Business	Pro-Business	Pro-Business	Pro-Business	Pro-Business	Pro-Business
Elitist	Nativist			High income support	High income backing
Pro-Britain					Conservative nationalism
New England base	New England base	Northern base	Northern base		Southern base for presidential elections
Minority Party	Minority Party	Presidential elections dominant	Majority Party		Presidential elections stronger
[Jeffersonian] Republicans	Democrats	Democrats	Democrats	Democrats	Democrats
States’ Rights	Jacksonian Democracy Promoted	Anti- Civil War Reconstruction		Liberal economic issues	Liberal ideology
Pro-Agriculture	Pro-Agriculture	Pro-Agriculture	Pro-Agriculture	New Deal coalition	New Deal minus white Southerners
Less Elitist	Catholics welcomed			Workers and low income supporters	Social minorities
Pro-France	Territorial Expansion				Dovish, internationalist
Southern base	Southern base	Southern base	Southern base		Dealignment era
Majority Party	Majority Party	Congress dominant		Majority Party	Congressional elections stronger

Source: Ladd (1970); Ladd and Hadley (1978); Sundquist (1973).

Table 2-2

Presidential Elections in a Time of Regional Transition

Year	National Popular Vote	Issues	Candidate Factors	Party Factors/ Campaign Events
1948
Truman (D)	50%	New Deal domestic issues		Democrats majority party
Dewey (R)	45%	Dissatisfaction	Popular governor
Thurmond, Wallace	2% each	Civil rights splits Dems
1952
Eisenhower (R)	55%	Korea, communism, corruption- dissatisfaction	War hero
Stevenson (D)	44%
1956
Eisenhower (R)	57%	Peace and Prosperity- Satisfaction	“I Like Ike”
Stevenson (D)	42%			Majority party
1960
Kennedy (D)	50%	“Time to move ahead”	Young, charismatic	Majority party- Catholicism hurts
Nixon (R)	50%		Popular VP, knowledgeable	Televised debates hurt
1964
Johnson (D)	61%	Centrist	Incumbent	Majority party
Goldwater (R)	38%	Too Conservative	Extreme, Impulsive	Divided convention
1968
Nixon (R)	43%	Vietnam, riots, crime- Dissatisfaction
Humphrey (D)	43%			Majority party- Divided convention
Wallace	14%	Civil rights splits Dems
1972
Nixon (R)	61%	World leader, prosperity- Satisfaction	Popular candidate
McGovern (D)	38%	Extreme Liberal		Running mate resigns

Note: Percentages fail to total 100% due to minor party candidates.

Table 2-3

Presidential Elections after the South Reunifies

Year	National Popular Vote	Issues	Candidate Factors	Party Factors/ Campaign Events
1976
Carter (D)	50%	Stagnant Economy, Nixon Pardon- Dissatisfaction		Majority party unified
Ford (R)	48%	Conservatism helps		Debate blunder
1980
Reagan (R)	51%	Inflation, recession, Iran, Afghanistan- Dissatisfaction		Debate win- “There you go again!”
Carter (D)	41%		Poor leadership
1984
Reagan (R)	59%	Peace and Prosperity- Satisfaction	Likeable person
Mondale (D)	41%			1^st woman VP
1988
Bush (R)	53%	Peace and Prosperity		Negative campaigning
Dukakis (D)	46%	Too Liberal	Uninspiring	Anti-death penalty debate
1992
Clinton (D)	43%	Moderate, “New Dem” Dissatisfaction		“It’s the economy, stupid”
Bush (R)	38%	Recession hurts		Aloof at debate
1996
Clinton (D)	49%	Good economy, Satisfaction
Dole (R)	41%		Old, uncaring	GOP retains Congress
2000
Bush (R)	48%	Compassionate conservative	Personable
Gore (D)	48%	Clinton scandal, Liberal		Debate arrogance
2004
Bush (R)	51%	Decisive, terrorist fighter
Kerry (D)	48%	Flip flopping Liberal
2008
McCain (R)	46%	Financial Crisis hurts		Unpopular Rep. President
Obama (D)	53%		Charismatic speaker
2012
Romney (R)	47%	Blasting 47% non-taxpayers hurts	Rich guy image
Obama (D)	51%	Middle class policies	Connects with average voter

Note: Percentages fail to total 100% due to minor party candidates.

Table 2-4

Ideology of Democratic Presidents’ Programs

President	Liberal Policies	Neutral Policies	Conservative Policies
Franklin D. Roosevelt	New Deal economics- relief, recovery, reform	World War 2 leader against Fascism
Harry S. Truman	Civil rights and Fair Deal policies rejected		Containment- NATO, Greece/Turkey aid, Marshall Plan, Korean War leader
John Kennedy	Racial integration, Peace Corps, foreign aid backs, health care fails		Anti-Communist, Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuban Missile Crisis
Lyndon Johnson	Great Society, Anti-poverty, urban renewal- CAP, Medicare, Medicaid, student loans/grants, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act		Anti-Communist, Dominican Republic invasion, Vietnam War leader, balanced budget
Jimmy Carter	Panama Canal treaty, Human Rights backs, Iranian hostage crisis, black appointments, Education Dept, energy program	Mainland China relations restored, Camp David Mideast peace	Tightened credit precipitates recession, deregulates industries
Bill Clinton	Black appointments, gays in military fails, HillaryCare fails, MonicaGate, Haiti-Bosnia nation building		Welfare Reform, more police on streets, balanced budget, Iraq attacks
Barack Obama	ObamaCare, gays in military, minority appointments, Iraq war ends		Bin Ladin terrorist killed

Note: foreign policy programs are indicated in bold print.

Table 2-5

Ideology of Republican Presidents’ Programs

President	Liberal Policies	Neutral Policies	Conservative Policies
Dwight Eisenhower	Keeps New Deal, anti-colonialism, stays out of Vietnam	Anti-McCarthyism, ends Korean War, Mideast neutrality	Balanced budget, pro-right wing dictators
Richard Nixon	Budget deficits, wage and price control, federal regulatory agencies grow	Détente- SALT treaty, visits to USSR, China, Vietnam peace	Vietnam War aggressively waged, southerners on Supreme Court, anti-busing, CETA/revenue sharing
Gerald Ford	Rockefeller VP, Détente continues	Pardon’s Nixon	Vetoes spending bills, Mayaguez rescue
Ronald Reagan	Budget deficits		Tax cut, defense buildup, smaller government, conservative leader, Cold War warrior, Grenada invasion
George H.W. Bush	Budget deficits, tax increase, domestic spending increases		Panama invasion, 1^st Gulf War won, communism withers in E. Europe and USSR
George Bush	Education standards and spending rise, prescription drugs, Budget deficits		Tax cut, Terrorism war leader, Afghanistan war, Iraq war, Conservative Supreme Court appointments, Anti-racial quotas

Note: foreign policy programs are indicated in bold print.

Figure 2-1

A social-psychological model of the presidential vote.

LONG- SHORT

TERM TERM

FORCE FORCES

Issues

Party Presidential

Identification Vote

Candidate

Attributes

Source: Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes, 1964.