Second Verse, Same as the First: The 2012 Presidential Election in the South

Introduction: Southern Politics and the 2012 Presidential Election

xv Introduction Southern Politics and the 2012 Presi­den­tial Election Branwell DuBose Kapeluck Scott E. Buchanan As readers of this volume well know, the South occupies an important place in the study of American presi­ den­ tial politics. First, the eleven states of the former Confederacy tend to vote as a bloc. This tendency toward one-­ partyism elevates the relative importance of the region nationally . The South is also culturally distinct from other regions in the country in ways that affect political attitudes and behavior. Southerners are more likely to be born-­ again Christians and are more politically and socially conservative than their fellow nonsouthern citizens.1 Finally, southern states (and the Sunbelt more broadly) have experienced significant population growth in the postwar period due to industrial growth, a warmer climate, and an increasing number of retirees moving south. This growth has translated into more representation in the U.S. House and the Electoral College. The South had 127 Electoral College votes in 1944, which was almost a quarter of the total and just short of half of that needed to win the election.2 In 2012 the southern states’ share of the Electoral College was 160 votes. This is 30 percent of the total Electoral College votes and 59 percent of the total needed to win. Until 1964, the South was a source of strong electoral support for Democratic presi­ den­ tial candidates, though there was evidence as early as the 1948 presi­ den­ tial election that the region’s place in the Democratic coalition was contingent upon the party turning a blind eye to black civil rights. This Dixiecrat revolt may be seen as the beginning of the region’s xvi H Introduction divorce proceedings, with the final split occurring in the civil rights era of the 1960s.3 The eventual move to the Republican Party was gradual, however. The Wallace candidacy in 1968 siphoned off the electoral votes of five southern states. While Texas remained in the Democratic column in 1968, Richard Nixon won South Carolina in what turned out to be a harbinger of the future. Nixon carried the South in 1972, and he won 78 percent of the vote in Mississippi, his largest margin of victory in any state. Carter, with the lone exception of Virginia, won the South in 1976, though he won only his home state of Georgia four years later. Reagan’s election in 1980 cemented the GOP’s ascendancy in the region. The Democrats were able to make significant inroads in the South during the 1990s by nominating a southerner, Bill Clinton, for presi­ dent. The Clinton-­ Gore ticket carried four southern states in both 1992 and 1996, though this success was not continued in 2000. Despite Vice Presi­ dent Al Gore at the top of the ticket, George W. Bush carried the entire South, including Gore’s home state of Tennessee. Four years later, John Kerry failed to carry any state in the region. Something interesting happened in 2008, though. The Democrats nominated Barack Obama, the nation’s first black major-­ party presi­ den­ tial candidate. Hawaii-­ born Obama, hailing from the Land of Lincoln, was about as nonsouthern as possible. Obama won the presidency, however, with the help of three southern states, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Four years later, Obama, despite a struggling economy, held on to Florida and Virginia and lost North Carolina by only 2 percentage points, Romney’s closest win in the nation. It is clear that in the past few decades the South has become an increasingly pivotal region for presi­ den­ tial candidates of both parties . Awareness of the region’s influential position in American politics prompted the creation of the biennial Citadel Symposium on Southern Politics in 1978, which continues to meet in Charleston, South Carolina, every even-­ numbered year. While the scholars involved in the symposium have collaborated on a number of books on southern politics, presi­ den­ tial politics in the South has emerged as a theme that has generated a series of books (and one edited journal) covering every presi­ den­ tial election since 1984. The initial book was published by Praeger, which continued publishing the books through the 2000 election. Analysis of the 2004 presi­ den­ tial election in the South was published in a special edition of the American Review of Politics, which has also regularly published some of the best papers from each Citadel Symposium. The editing for all of these works was done by...