TP: The waning political clout of the Old South
Source: Times-Picayune
It's telling that Louisiana was out of step with the national zeitgeist on Election Day for the first time since it went for former Alabama Gov. George Wallace back in 1968. For four decades, Louisiana went to the next president of the United States. But not this year. Obama did well in the New South, however, and my wish, -- based on no facts whatsoever, mind you -- is that the New Orleans diaspora helped turn communities across the South a little bluer.
Louisiana was one of five Southern states to support Republican Barry Goldwater in the landslide for President Johnson in 1964, and to line up with Alabama Gov. George Wallace's third-party presidential bid in 1968. But since then, in nine successive elections, Louisiana along with Arkansas and Tennessee, have voted with the winner every time.
The split outcome marks a watershed moment in American electoral history and may signal an end, at least temporarily, to a long period of outsize Southern power in Washington.
Not since John Kennedy's victory in 1960 has a Democrat been elected president who was not a Southerner.
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