[southernnorthcarolina]

As most Southern FReepers know, one of our great frustrations is that the move to Republican voting down-ballot has been so agonizingly s l o w. We've been voting GOP at the Presidential level pretty dependably down here for decades, and we've had a lot of success at the U.S. Senate and Congress levels too, because the case can be made that a vote for a Democrat Senator, for example, is a vote for Daschle as Majority Leader, or for Hillary or Teddy as a Committee Chair.

But State House, State Senate, and Council of State races have, for the most part, been something else entirely. A sort of circular logic has been at work, and it's hard to break the cycle. You know, "I'm a conservative, but the Dems control the State House, so if I don't vote for them, I won't have any influence." In other words, people vote for Dems because they're in control, and the Dems are in control because people vote for them. Once that absurd loop is broken, however, there's a good chance it'll stay broken. The majority of Southerners are conservative by most reasonable definitions, and as it becomes clear that a vote for a Republican isn't wasted, the momentum will pick up.

[Overtaxed]

You know, "I'm a conservative, but the Dems control the State House, so if I don't vote for them, I won't have any influence."

The thought goes double for county comissioners and school board elections.