A Voinovich Vent Over A Dixie "Dustup"

I was awaiting a pundit smack down of Sen. George Voinovich for saying there are “too many Southerners” in the Republican Party (with Voinovich citing Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma by name, strangely adding an “err, err” for emphasis).

Well, “Diaper Dave” Vitter took up the challenge about a week or so ago here and said the following…

"He's a moderate," the Louisiana senator said, "really wishy-washy."

Kind of a tepid attack there, I must say (not hard to imagine what would spew forth if Voinovich’s words had come from a Democrat).

And Kathleen Parker, in so many words, agreed with Voinovich here (color me shocked)…

Whatever Voinovich's sound effects were intended to convey, his meaning was clear enough: Those ignorant, right-wing, Bible-thumping rednecks are ruining the party.

Alas, Voinovich was not entirely wrong.

Not all Southern Republicans are wing nuts. Nor does the GOP have a monopoly on ignorance or racism. And, the South, for all its sins, is also lush with beauty, grace and mystery. Nevertheless, it is true that the GOP is fast becoming regionalized below the Mason-Dixon line and increasingly associated with some of the South's worst ideas.

I find it hard to accept anything approaching wisdom from someone who got at least as much mileage over John Edwards’ haircut as any other pundit, but that saying about the blind squirrel finding the nut does have a ring of truth.

Indeed, the severest criticism I’ve heard of the Ohio senator came from Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post (from here)…

Somebody please buy Ohio Sen. George Voinovich a ticket to the real South, preferably on a slow-moving train, so he can observe the country he helps govern. Last month, Voinovich charged that Southerners are what's wrong with the Republican Party. "We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," he told the Columbus Dispatch, talking about his colleagues from South Carolina and Oklahoma. "It's the southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners. What [the] hell they got to do with Ohio?' "

Let's set aside the fact that Oklahoma's panhandle is closer to Santa Fe than the South and dwell on what Voinovich meant: The GOP is overpopulated by unrepresentative white fire-breathers isolated from the rest of America. When Voinovich refers to "southerners" with such Gone With the Windiness, he conjures images of backward, angry rednecks who scream at black schoolchildren, drive pickup trucks emblazoned with Confederate flags and believe the Civil War was about declaring independence from northern aggressors. These stereotypes all mislead in the same way: They define a unified, homogenous South, with virtually no trace of diversity or dissent.

You'd never know from these references that the Southeast has become the fastest-growing destination for foreign-born immigrants and Americans on the move. Or that most white southerners opposed secession and that thousands of them fought for the Union, from the Alabama hill country to Arkansas, including a band of guerrillas in Jones County, Miss., who effectively seceded from the Confederacy. Or that the white men and women who taught in the first desegregated classrooms had crosses burned on their lawns, too. Or that 5 percent of the population of Biloxi is Vietnamese American, just one more cultural influence in a town built by Poles, Slavonians, French Acadians and Italians. Same with New Orleans.

And from this point, what we get is basically a travelogue from Jenkins with lots of interesting historical anecdotes that really doesn’t represent anything along the lines of a smack down that would surely be provided with gusto if a non-Repug had dared to give offense to the “land of secession.”

No charges of “elitism” aimed at the departing Ohio senator? No accusations about Voinovich not understanding the “real America” (or something – his views are said to be “unrepresentative and regionally isolated,” according to Jenkins…pardon me, but do you have some Grey Poupon, Sally)?

As a contrast, let me give you an idea of some of the dreck that people of my political persuasion had to endure when the Repugs were “riding high” in the middle of this decade, particularly right after a certain presidential election in 2004, and maybe you’ll understand why I find the relative silence in the face of Voinovich’s remarks so ingratiating.

This is a post from someone named Cynthia Sneed, who participated in a “Red State, Blue State” series with two “blue state” posters, Tim Horner (who I once communicated with – nice guy) and Terri Falbo. And as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, Sneed was a “red state” poster, along with a gentleman named Joe Franklin, who at least showed some class in the aftermath of the Bush/Kerry contest.

What Sneed said, however, was something wholly other…

The Democratic Party leadership and political pundits want to believe this election was all about homosexuality and gay/lesbian marriage. Typical liberals, they confuse morals and values.

I do not know if it is ignorance or naiveté that leads the Democratic Party today. They still believe that they lost this election because of right-wing, Bible-believing, flag-waving, gun-toting, brain-dead, homophobic Christian morons.

No: The Americans who held hands, cried in church, wept with neighbors, flew their flags, and gave hundreds of millions of dollars to the victims of 9/11, wear their little American flag pins proudly and still get misty-eyed when the National Anthem is played. Those are the people who voted Tuesday.

As opposed to us hedonistic, atheistic, blue state misfits…

We are disrespected, loathed and ridiculed by vainglorious, aging baby boomers, washed-up rock stars, and Hollywood celebrities languishing in the glory of their "revolution" movement - now in complete control of the party of FDR and JFK.

Democrats politicized a war that my generation is committed to winning. Humiliated by Iran in 1979, frustrated by the numerous attacks during the 1990s, and infuriated by 9/11, we see that the war on terror must be prosecuted into regions and against enemies far beyond the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and Osama bin Laden.

The attack that apparently had little effect on the Democrats' golden child is our Pearl Harbor. This is our opportunity to combat evil, saving future generations from the horror, grief and humiliation we suffered on that fateful day - just as we saved countless Jews, homosexuals, Catholics, and mentally challenged people from Naziism.

This is what we had to deal with from a geographic demographic choking on its own pride and self-absorption, for whom George W. Bush was their anointed one, an individual who commanded nothing less than unquestioned loyalty in their minds. This is what we had to deal with from people spoiling for a fight, their lizard-brain functions apparently having kidnapped their capability for rational thought, with those in the Democratic Party (at least Sneed got our name right) guilty of nothing except trying to make sense of insanity.

Whereas Voinovich comes along and says something much more provocative than anything we could have conjured up and faces nothing comparable in response?

Oh, and just for the record, at the time she wrote this, Sneed lived in Alabama (no word on her present whereabouts).

Well then, let’s remind Ms. Sneed and others who “look away,” you might say, when faced with same-party criticism, of the dwindling role their region plays in our political life (here also).

As noted here, Tom Schaller, author of “Whistling Past Dixie,” tells us…

What Democrats shouldn't do, Schaller says, is continue their obsession with regaining the electoral advantage in Southern states that they lost thirty years ago. The South is now solidly Republican and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Wooing back the disaffected social conservatives of Dixie, Schaller advises, only distracts Democratic candidates from cultivating a majority in more fertile territory, particularly the post-industrial Midwest and swelling Southwest.

``In a country divided 49-49,'' Schaller said last week, ``you have to go to the places where you get a high rate of return. For Democrats, that's not the South.''

…

(According to Schaller) population growth in several Southern states is stagnating.

``The South today,'' he writes, ``wields not much more electoral power nationally than it did a century ago,'' when it formed the solid base of the (minority) Democratic Party.

I will only say in defense of the South's overrated (I believe) political clout that Obama benefitted from some voting trends that could prove to be aberrations (though hopefully not, at least not all of them): 1) A huge increase in African-American voter participation; 2) A palpable discontent with the Repugs over our cratering economy; 3) A recognition of speaking to “values voters” in language they understood; and 4) The presence of Sarah Palin on the Republican presidential ticket.

Also, as noted here in the comments here, I think the Repug political strategists figured out that there is actually a bit of economic populism in the South where there isn’t as much “big gumint” opposition as one would think. However, that gets crowded out of the picture when “values voter” issues such as gay marriage and abortion are all that people particularly of that region hear about from their news sources and their political leadership.

But in terms of “the big picture,” let us not lose sight of the following from Nate Silver (here)…

Self-described conservative Republicans represent only about 20 percent of the population. This base is not necessarily becoming smaller; it's still alive and kicking. What is true, however, is that the (1) base has never been sufficient to form a winning electoral coalition, and (2) that there are fewer and fewer non-base (e.g. moderates, libertarian Republicans, Republican leaning-independents). As these moderates have fled the GOP, the party's electoral fortunes have tanked. But simultaneously, they have had less and less influence on the Republican message.

Thus the Republicans, arguably, are in something of a death spiral. The more conservative, partisan, and strident their message becomes, the more they alienate non-base Republicans. But the more they alienate non-base Republicans, the fewer of them are left to worry about appeasing. Thus, their message becomes continually more appealing to the base -- but more conservative, partisan, and strident to the rest of us. And the process loops back upon itself.

What this also points out is the importance of the southwest as an emerging regional political base, with Hispanic immigrants making up the largest growing segment of the population (though health care reform affects everyone in this country, it affects Hispanics the most, along with African Americans, as noted here).

Oh, but the South does “lead” in some categories, as noted here, which would be divorce, teenage pregnancy, and consumption of online porn (and, as noted here, the “birthers” are overwhelmingly from the South).

I honestly think that a lot of what I noted above would have been expressed by Voinovich if he’d been a bit more lucid; he was going in that direction anyway (though, experienced pol that he is, he probably realized that he had a “short leash” here).

And had people like Cynthia Sneed managed to rein in their triumphalism back when it would have mattered, perhaps our present political, economic and foreign policy outcomes would be just a bit better than they are now (with, subsequently, less crankiness from yours truly).

And don’t preach to me about “the fluidity of American society” until, for starters, our countrymen (and women) below the Mason-Dixon line articulate something approximating the Christian concept of forgiveness for past intolerance (starting with some contrition for the benefit of these ladies whose only “offense” was speaking their minds at a time when everyone who dissented from conventional wisdom was told to sit down and shut up).