Both were Southern born and raised, both launched their poltitical careers there. If that doesn't make them Son's of the South then what does?
Both are Democrat Scalawags.
By definition a 'scalawag' was a Southern white who joined the Republican party.
Actually, given the South's belated conversion to conservativism, it is you all who should be thanking those of us in the Plains who have stood against liberalism all these decades. Without us you would be a year and a half into either the second Gore administration or the first Kerry administration.
States like Kansas and Nebraska and the Dakota's and Utah and Idaho were conservative when conservative wasn't cool. The South is late to the party. Southerners didn't start switching to the GOP until they realized that they could call themselves 'Republican' and still keep their big spending, big government ways.
Good words and another point of gratitude is the services that the soldiers of the Midwest, largely the ancestors of today's plains residents, performed in liberating the South from the grip of the slave tyranny. I get the impression that some think that the Union army was made up of Ted Kennedys and big city criminals. The bulk of the Union soldiers were hard working rural men who had more in common with the ordinary reb soldier than did the decadent plantation class who instigated the whole crisis.
#####Both were Southern born and raised, both launched their poltitical careers there. If that doesn’t make them Son’s of the South then what does?#####
Supporting conservative causes would help.
#####By definition a ‘scalawag’ was a Southern white who joined the Republican party.#####
I’m fully aware of that. That’s why I called them DEMOCRAT scalawags.
#####Actually, given the South’s belated conversion to conservativism, it is you all who should be thanking those of us in the Plains who have stood against liberalism all these decades.#####
I can agree with that in part. The Plains states and the Rocky Mountain states are an important part of the GOP’s base, and to their credit they’ve been GOP for a long time. However, many of the GOP leaders from that region have been proponents of the liberal wing of the party. George Norris, “Fighting” Bob LaFollette, etc. They’ve elected some good solid conservatives, too, of course.
The South’s conversion to conservatism was not belated. The South was solidly Democrat for a century but they were mostly conservative Democrats. The Democratic Party hasn’t always been the nearly monolithic leftist party that it is today. Take the FDR years as an example. FDR’s popularity frightened the GOP into capitulation. GOP presidential candidates for years ran on a platform of “New Deal Lite” (Landon, Dewey, Wilkie, and even Eisenhower). Congressional Republicans offered no serious resistance to the New Deal. But Southern Democrats often did. Walter George (Georgia), Josiah Bailey (North Carolina), Harry Byrd Sr. (Virginia), Tom Connally (Texas) and others gave FDR hell. It got so bad for FDR that he violated Democrat Party tradition and recruited liberal candidates to oppose these Southern stalwarts in Democrat primary elections. FDR was especially determined to oust Senator George, who hailed from Georgia, where FDR often vacationed (Warm Springs). In every case the voters rejected the liberal challengers and returned the conservative warhorses to office.
Now, you may argue that the South voted for FDR over and over. That’s true, but what was the alternative? New Deal Lite?
Once the GOP began to get its act together, and moved to the right under guys like Barry Goldwater & Ronald Reagan, instead of being dominated by liberal Northerners like Rockefeller & Scranton, the South began to shift to the Republicans.
#####Without us you would be a year and a half into either the second Gore administration or the first Kerry administration.#####
Well, that’s true, but it’s also true of the South. Neither the South nor the Heartland states can elect a GOP president alone. But together we can. If the South didn’t exist, or became liberal (as so many PC-Conservatives seem to desire), exactly how could North Dakota, Idaho, Utah, and Company elect a president over the massive Democrat votes from Yankeedom and the West Coast?
#####States like Kansas and Nebraska and the Dakota’s and Utah and Idaho were conservative when conservative wasn’t cool. The South is late to the party. Southerners didn’t start switching to the GOP until they realized that they could call themselves ‘Republican’ and still keep their big spending, big government ways.#####
No. Conservatives switched to the Republican Party when the GOP moved to the right and the Democrats began purging their party of conservatives. Did Southerners support their share of pork spending? Sure. They supported tobacco and cotton subsidies, for example. Just as the good folks in the Plains supported wheat and corn subsidies.
I salute the Plains & Rocky Mountain States for their conservatism. But I also salute the South for the same reason. You failed totally to address my observation that Yankeedom voted overwhelmingly for Clinton, Gore, and Kerry and will do likewise for Hillary.