In his Washington Post column today, George Will gets a lot of things right in his discussion of Kerry, Edwards, Democrats, Republicans, and the South ? a lot of things that other analysts don?t understand or willfully misrepresent. For example, he points out that Republican in-roads into the previously solid South began long before the civil-rights movement reached a boil, long before it was possible to argue that a devious ?Southern strategy? by Republicans was capitalizing on white racism. The real pattern began with GOP gains in the Peripheral South as Northerners and Midwesterners began to move to sunny climes and natives began to go suburban and middle-class.
The piece is well worth reading, not least by Democrats who believe they have no chance of winning Southern states, which is simply not true if you are paying attention (though places like South Carolina, Virginia, and Alabama aren?t in play, of course).
