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.

Well said. It is rather telling that none of the pro-Joe Wilson posters on this thread have any comment to your post. Some things are just too true to refute with any amount of irrational ranting.

It is abundantly clear that there is a segment of the population that is completely irate and raging that Obama was even elected, and the largest part of that segment is from the South. Their vitriol and hate is boiling over throughout that region and wherever else their ilk resides within the borders of our country. Whether or not Obama proves to be a good President in the end or in any part of his term is totally irrelevant and meaningless to these people. To them he represents their worst nightmare, the sum of all fears: an uppity nigger from Chicago that got elected President. To these folks his Presidency simply has no validity and relevancy, and therefore anything he does, even if it directly benefits them, is evil, un-American, and communist. The interesting thing that politically, Obama is probably more moderate than Clinton, hasn't introduced any more big government than GW Bush did, and inherited most of the existing budget deficit.

It is no wonder that the rest of the industrialized democracies of the world are laughing at the current state of affairs in America fomented by fringe talk radio and that segment of the populous that they stir up. If indeed Obama accomplishes some form of health reform in his term, it will be one of the major accomplishments of the last 100 years considering the unmitigated hate for him from this sector. If all of this was really about restricting big government, than try to get these same folks to give up their Medicare and Medicaid. These same people have been benefiting from socialized medicine for years.

It is amazing how much of this country remains in the re-constructed South mind frame 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. This isn't playing the race card, and any of that crap that Obama detractors like to claim. The reality is that racism is alive and well in this country, and it just took electing a black man President to boil over that which has just been simmering beneath the surface all along.

Unless you live in the deep south, you should not judge. There are many socio-economic reasons for the "lag" that exist. First of all, these are the state with the highest percentage of blacks. This dramatically effects education, welfare, tax revenues, crime, income, economic development, unemployment, single parent families and quality of life. Call me a racist, but plug these stats into a "best places to live" formula and southern states are last in most catagories. As a matter of fact, the percentage of blacks nearly directly matches the rankings. For instance:

Mississippi 38% black= last in rankings

SC 30%= 2nd to last

Alabama 27%= 3rd to last ect.

On the contrast, "white" states rank the highest.

Minn., NH, Vermont, Idaho, Wyoming, Iowa, SD

Of course there are many other reasons. But having a 1/3 or 1/4 of your population putting a massive strain on a state's people, economy, and infrastructure is devistating. So until you actually live through the (reverse) pain, you are simply spewing ignorance.

Lingering resentment towards blacks and immigrants? What about the "lingering" crime rate of blacks and immigrants?

Hey north you can have ALL of the blacks from Louisiana. We have the second lowest unemplyoment in the country even with the free-men. God this a great country!!!

batman10;

Your response and the cruder responses that followed make my point. There are many urban areas with concentrations of African Americans that match your statistics for the South. The question is -- what are the views and attitudes of the non-African Americans who live side by side them in the northern cities? By margins of 2-1 or more, these northerners with similar ethnic blends are more liberal, less willing to blame low income minorities for their problems, and less willing to ignore "facts" when unreliable sources such as Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity preach hate.

My family is from the South although I now live in the North. My personal acquaintances from the South are generally very advanced in their thinking and willing to engage in intelligent discussions about current events. About half of them voted for Obama/ about half didn't. Race, as far I know, played no role in their decisions.

But these friends of mine are not representative of the typical white southerners. Were it not for the high African-American populations in the South, southern states would have voted 80-90% against Obama in 2008. Surveys show that John Edwards or Bill Clinton would have fared 20-30% better. What is your response? You say it is because the South has so many "blacks" and a northerner is "spewing ignorance" by pointing out that backward attitudes among whites in the South are the leading cause of intellectual gridlock. You claim that whites living among blacks is some kind of hardship that justifies ignorance!

So long as people make the kind of argument you have made and refuse to reject this kind of racism, the "lag" you mention will always exist. The ignorance that pervades the white South is not a new phenomenon -- it is the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and the bible belt's grip on the "minds" of people who would paint a Hitler moustache on an Obama picture, or dress him up as an ape or a witchdoctor. Most white southers would never do such things -- but I ask you where is the outrage among southern fundamentalists who secretly enjoy seeing the African American president being put back in his place?

Like it or not -- these are your southern friends, and without them Fox News would be a failure.