If it were not for the South -- Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity would not enjoy the so-called "national" platform they do. All surveys agree on this geographical reality.

My Southern friends who have personally achieved a normal level of sophistication about current events -- are earnest when they say that their beloved South has actually progressed more than the North on social and racial issues. But if this is true, it is only because they had so much farther to go. They are still far, far behind.

Voting patterns, state civil rights laws, language, attitudes and social habits -- by every measure the South has only reluctantly moved from its pre-MLK/post civil war period. Forced only by law to deal with the black population-- lingering resentments against blacks and immigrants, bible belt ignorance, and what they would call "tradition" -- have mired the South in its ugly past. South Carolina, as far as I know, is simply in the same category as Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky.

I concede that there are pockets of the south in the north: Oklahoma, Southern Ohio, rural Pennsylvania are examples that leap to mind. But it is the South itself that ignites the ignorance that allows the craziness of the far right to flourish sufficiently to maintain national attention.

Those of us who can listen with an open mind to liberal and conservative ideas, but are constantly interrupted by b.s. conspiracy theories and hate -- are not elites or lefties -- we actually just want to talk about both sides of every issue. But when huge masses of backward "traditionalists" try to drag us back to the Scopes Trial debates -- it is hard to get anything done.

In this atmosphere, if Obama is able to pass health care reform (which will probably help southerners more than any other group) it will be a miracle.