Take Your Southern Strategy And Shove It

Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune at 3:26 PM on October 12, 2008.

According to Research 2000, Barack Obama has a 13% national-poll lead on John McCain. According to SurveyUSA, John McCain has a 27% lead in Alabama. George Wallace used to be the governor of Alabama. Here is what George Wallace did to John Lewis:

Lewis put his life on the line at several of the best-known battlegrounds in the modern African American struggle for equal rights. He was arrested numerous times for acting on his beliefs. Lewis was one of a small group of men and women who protested the segregation of interstate bus terminals in 1961 by traveling in integrated groups through the South. These Freedom Rides attracted national attention. When Lewis and others were attacked by white segregationists at a bus station in Montgomery, Alabama, they made national headlines and publicized the plight of blacks under a racially segregated social order.

Here is a pictorial representation of what George Wallace did to John Lewis. Jim Zwerg is checking how many teeth he has left.

You can read about what George Wallace did to Jim Zwerg here, and you should never forget what John Lewis and Jim Zwerg did for justice and human rights. There should be statues commemorating their efforts in every town square, because they are the living embodiment of human courage and righteousness. So, when John McCain says that John Lewis is one of his personal heroes, that is a point in John McCain's favor. But when John Lewis warns John McCain that:

Wallace "never fired a gun," Lewis added, "but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed. . . . Senator McCain and Governor Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all."

...he knows what he's talking about. McCain and Palin's scurrilous and inciteful attacks may still play in modern-day Alabama, but they don't play outside the south. Again, let's look at the Research 2000 poll:

McCAIN/OBAMA

NORTHEAST 28 65

SOUTH 53 41

MIDWEST 38 55

WEST 39 53

It looks to me like the Southern Strategy has evolved to the point that it is a strictly southern strategy, with no salience outside of that region. I don't want to pick on the South, but the numbers tell a story. The rest of the country has moved on past the politics of Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay. On November 4th, the country with ratify the official end of successful George Wallace politics ... whether Alabama likes it, or not.