The key that unlocks the White House door

By Lee Bandy
SouthCarolina Insider

(3/13/08) In 1968, Richard Nixon rode consultant Harry Dent’s “southern strategy” into the White House.

Four years later, Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter rallied the South to win the Democratic nomination and then the election.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan began his campaign in the South, in Mississippi.

In 1988, then-vice president George H.W. Bush won Dixie against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis .

Four years later, Bill Clinton picked a fellow southerner, Al Gore, to help him win the South.

And then in 2000, George W. Bush recaptured the South on the way to the White House.

Who will win it in 2008?

No one knows. It’s a question on the minds of many.

Charles Dunn, chairman of the political science department at Regents University in Virginia Beach, says it’s the “key that unlocks the White House door.”

Dunn says today’s political pundits are spending entirely too much time focusing on the pros and cons of Super Tuesday and the remaining primaries and caucuses.

They praise Barack Obama for his rhetorical skill and puzzle over John McCain’s resurrection from the dead.

They agonize about Mitt Romney’s fizzled campaign, and Hillary Clinton’s lost momentum.

They wonder why Mike Huckabee’s evangelical base faltered and why John Edwards' populist appeal never got out of the gate.

All of this is grist for the editorial writers and political science class, Dunn says. “But it misses the point. Who – the Democrats or Republicans will - ”will nominate a ticket and draft a platform that will appeal to the South?

The South is key to Dixie. It holds the most Electoral College votes – 189 to be exact.

Candidates and their campaigns have gotten the word – Don’t write off the South. You do so at your own peril.

Witness Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry’s campaign four years ago. He kicked it off in South Carolina and promised his audience he would be back, that he would not write off the South. He never returned.

Had he lived up to his promise, he might be president today. All he needed to do was win one southern state. He won zilch.

Democrats cannot afford to write-off the South as they have done in previous election years.

Have the Democrats learned a lesson?

“That’s the vital question,” Dunn suggests.

Time will tell.

The party that wins the South has a head start in the race to turn the key.

As the most homogenous region of the country, southerners generally reflect conservative cultural, economic, political, social and religious instincts.

“So, the party that nominates and drafts a platform appealing to the South can expect to win the favor of the South’s homogeneity,” Dunn said.