The GOP's Southern discomfort (All of a sudden, Texas isn't Southern)

The Politico ^ | May 23, 2015 | Alex Isenstadt

[2ndDivisionVet]

As the 2016 Republican presidential campaign gets underway, the nation’s most reliably red region finds itself yet again without a native son in a leading position.

OKLAHOMA CITY — It’s the heartland of the modern Republican Party, the most reliably red region in presidential elections. But as the 2016 GOP campaign for the White House gets underway, the South finds itself yet again without a native son in a leading role.

As party leaders gathered here for the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, a traditional candidate cattle call that draws many of the party’s presidential hopefuls and attracted around 2,000 activists this year, there was no shortage of reminders about the South’s importance, both financially and electorally, to the party’s political fortunes.

Yet the three Republicans who lead the field are a governor from Wisconsin, Scott Walker, and Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush, two candidates rooted in the part of Florida that is most culturally distinct from the South — Miami.

The GOP primary is not without authentic sons of the South — South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, both born in small towns at the dawn of the civil rights era, proudly identify as such. There is also Bobby Jindal, the Baton Rouge-born Louisiana governor.

But all of them — including former Gov. Rick Perry, as a Texan not quite a Southerner but stylistically close enough to pass for one — find themselves trailing far behind in the polls, struggling to demonstrate their viability as 2016 prospects. Two other candidates with tenuous claims to the Southern candidate mantle — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Canada-born Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — are faring better but still have a ways to go in expanding their voter bases. Should they all fall short, it would mark the third consecutive presidential election that the Republican Party has picked a nominee who doesn’t hail from the South, even in its most expansive definition.

Few here at the SRLC said that it matters, as long as the candidate who captures the GOP nomination shares the same conservative values.

“I just think our people don’t care where they’re from as much as what they believe and how they lead,” said Chad Connelly, a former South Carolina Republican Party chairman.

Steve Fair, Oklahoma’s Republican national committeeman, said Southern voters no longer simply supported a candidate because they were from the South. With the rise of the Internet and technology, party activists had a wide array of factors influencing who they got behind.

“I don’t think geography is nearly as important as it was 45 to 60 years ago,” he said. “Obviously a person from the South is more appealing, because of culture. But I don’t think it’s a critical factor.”

It’s not hard to understand why. Southern Republicans see the region’s red tint — you could take I-40 out of Oklahoma City and drive on it for more than 1,000 miles and not encounter a single state with a Democratic governor or state legislature — as validation of the conservative style of governance and values they espouse, and they’ve already remade the national party in that image.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, who played host to the conference, started off the confab with a 15-minute speech in which she highlighted her own state’s steadfast conservatism. In the 2012 election, she noted, all 77 of its counties broke for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. It was, she said, “the reddest state in America.”

At the conference, powerful Oklahoma energy company executives who’ve filled the Republican Party’s coffers, like Harold Hamm and Larry Nichols, stalked through the halls of the downtown Cox Convention Center and appeared at panel discussions. T. Boone Pickens, the iconic local oil man who famously helped to finance the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” TV ads that sunk John Kerry’s presidential campaign, was feted with a lunch celebration to commemorate his 87th birthday.

The Republican presidential hopefuls who spoke here this week sought to highlight the GOP’s need to build an electoral coalition that would allow them to win the White House. Picking a candidate who could only appeal to the party’s Southern base, the message seemed to be, wouldn’t be enough.

Walker took the stage on Thursday to highlight his own experience in a purple state. He’d been elected, re-elected, and survived a recall attempt, he pointed out, in a state that hasn’t voted for a Republican for president since 1984. “I think going forward, we need someone who can fight and win,” the Wisconsin governor said.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who as a Northeastern Republican is a member of a suspect class in the view of some conservatives, outlined his state’s long history of Democratic domination and said he’d beaten the odds. “Our first priority must be winning,” he said.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush made a similar point. “I think we have to go beyond preaching to the choir, to be honest with you, although I love the choir, don’t get me wrong.” said Bush, who’s tangled with conservatives on some issues. “To get outside our comfort zone…go campaign in the Latino barrios across this country, go to the college campuses that haven’t heard from a conservative in a long while, go to the black churches to talk about school choice.”

That message seemed to resonate among many attendees. After six years of exile from the White House, many are ready to seek out a candidate with broad appeal — regardless of what part of the country they come from.

“I might have a slight preference for a Southern nominee, but I really wouldn’t make it a litmus test,” said Mick Cornett, Oklahoma City’s longtime mayor.

One factor that might lift a Southern candidate is the primary calendar. A group of states, including Alabama, Texas, and Virginia, are banding together to establish what’s being referred to as the SEC primary, an allusion to the NCAA powerhouse conference in the Southeast. The plan, which would designate March 1 as a single day when Southern states would hold their primaries, is intended to give the region greater influence over the nominating contest. In recent nominating contests, the region’s primaries were spread out among a number of different dates.

“I don’t think the South will be left out,” said Roger Villere, the Louisiana Republican Party chairman. “I think you’re going to see some candidates take off.” Villere is supporting Jindal, his home state governor, who formed a presidential exploratory committee earlier in the week and delivered a well-received speech at the conference.

Fallin,the host, has remained neutral throughout the early stages of the primary. But she provided glowing introductory speeches for many of the candidates who made their way to the conference. At a press conference on Thursday, when asked if she would prefer the party nominate a candidate from the South, she couldn’t help but to break into a smile.

“Well, of course,” she said. “That would be nice.”

[2ndDivisionVet]

So Alex doesn't realize that both Texas and Florida were members of the Confederacy?

[Clemenza]

Florida is only culturally part of the south from Ocala on north. I live in a county named after Robert E. Lee, and there are plenty of Ohio, Wisconsin, and less occasionally Boston accents, but “suthuners” are few and far between.

[Proud2BeRight]

Cruz is as much Texas as the Kenyan was Illinois.

[ansel12]

Nonsense, Ted Cruz is full on Texan, and raised in my own home town.

Cruz came to Houston at age 4 and graduated high school there.

“”Cruz attended high school at Faith West Academy in Katy, Texas, and later graduated from Second Baptist High School in Houston as valedictorian in 1988.””

[conservativejoy]

Neat Stuff! Thanks for sharing!

[Proud2BeRight]

You read my post the wrong way. I was throwing out sarcasm.

[BigCinBigD]

Oh, were still Southern. Don’t make us prove it.

[CharleysPride]

Texas and Florida are in the “American South” and parts of the Confederacy — so were New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Often when people mention “the South” they are thinking of “Dixie South”
—Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana being the hard core.
—Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia being the middle tier.
—The others being associate members with more of a separate identity.

[American Constitutionalist]

Gibberish diearea of the mouth from Politico.

Ted Cruz will shine were others have failed.

[American Constitutionalist]

I was born south of Mason Dixon line, does that count ?

[American Constitutionalist]

But yet, during the Cival War Robert E. Lee held his loyalty of old Virginia over the Union.

60% of the cival war was fought in Virginia, and the capital of the confederate south was Richmound Virginia.

[CharleysPride]

Yeah, always thought they should have left capitol in Alabama, stretch strategic depth of the invaders.

All the state’s rights foolishness really hamstrung supplying and maintaining a “national” army.

[Darren McCarty]

Maybe that idiot at Politico needs to rethink his premise. The GOP isn’t a “Southern” party. It’s an American party. The GOP represents America. The democrats represent big cities and academia towns.

[American Constitutionalist]

Your right , Robert E. Lee should have never tried to invade the North, he should have instead surrounded Washington directly, cut off all supply lines in and out of Washington.

He also should have forced the Union Army to go deeper south and cut off supply lines in the rear, then attack the Union Army.

[wardaddy]

If Texas aint southern then drive from Texline to Clayton and tell me accents don’t change pronto

And no more sweet tea

Only folks who claim otherwise are yankees who moved there since early 80s oil boom and are ashamed of it

I’ve argued this with yankee Texans before

And the relationship between Bonnie Blue and original Lone Star and Scott and Troutman flags

Silly people

To be honest

Dallas Ft Worth is arguably still the largest cluster of southern speaking whites in the US and not coincidentally damn hospitable folks to be so huge

I’m there annually sure seems that way to me

Another shocker

Oklahoma. Southern too

[re_nortex]

Ted Cruz is full on Texan, and raised in my own home town.

Although circumstances were such that Senator Cruz happened to be born in Alberta, he's thoroughly Texan in all respects. He joins others who are "Texan by Injection" such as Ted Nugent and Chuck Norris.

All three of them are far more Texan than any of these native born Texans. all of whom are low-life commie scum: Dan Rather, Clay Jenkins, Ann Richards, Scott Pelley, Natalie Maines, Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, Tommy Lee Jones, Annise Parker, Domingo Garcia, LLoyd Doggett, Willie Nelson and on and on and on...

[wardaddy]

Good post but remember Santa Fe citizens were ambivalent about the nearby confederate tactical victory at Glorieta pass so the confederates went back to Texas discouraged after a campaign of distance

I’ve visited the site but truly the old Puebloan village ruins and mission there is more substantive

Arizona had more pro confederacy I think on recall not googling

Cattle baron support in the southern halves of what is now AZ and NM

more mining. Yankee interests in the northern parts

My Mississippi family had a branch in New Mexico area from 1895-2007

My dad was born in Artesia

They migrated back and forth from Dixie to there

New Mexico has a sharp northern or western accent
Folks more standoffish than Texas

I know the northern half like I know TN or MS

Even my kin who died out. Became that way if they stayed

[CharleysPride]

Thanks for the reply, interesting stuff.

War in the West always has fascinated me.

[TNMOUTH]

But haven’t you heard...Cruz is evil! He has voted incorrectly on TPP. He is now no longer fit to serve as POTUS! Oh no! The sky is falling!

Go Cruz!!!

[American Constitutionalist]

I believe it will all be sorted out after everyone has took the time to understand it after reading it.

We place all of this in the good Lord’s hands with prayer.

God may your mighty hand guide Ted Cruz and let your mighty hand be upon Ted Cruz in Jesus Christ’s name Amen.