...that the South no longer dictates the outcome of presidential elections. NYTimes article explores the diminishing power of low-income, uneducated white Southerners in politics as evidenced by the failed Clinton and McCain bids for president.

Most of the comments from the interviewees, such as how the Obama administration will cause blacks to be more aggressive or that Obama voters should seek penitence, did not surprise me. I spent some of my formative years in the rural South and often my family received threats from neighbors in our all-white neighborhood. As for Southerners and the seriousness of their politics, I found that out the hard way when I was physically assaulted by fellow classmates in the second grade for wishing that Ross Perot would become president in the 1992 elections. (For those who were not there, Ross Perot was the independent party challenger who threatned to siphon Republican votes from Bush I which would result in a Clinton I victory. I was seven or eight at the time and only picked Perot because he was the underdog and felt bad that he did not have many friends....).

Anyway, I think the era of Southern-strategy and catering to hard-working Americans (read Caucasian and barely-educated) is overdue for its demise.

as for the pic....yeah, it might be offensive, but....of course, not all white Southerners who dropped out of high-school look like this....it was more illustrative than anything else