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Thus, it is no simple matter to devise a political campaign that can appeal to Southern blacks as well as whites, to Florida motel operators as well as Texas bankers, to South Carolina cotton growers as well as Virginia lawyers, to blue-collar as well as white-collar workers. The South, once derided as a cultural and political backwater, has come to resemble the rest of America, both physically and in its social and political attitudes, more closely than at any other time in the country's history. "Today," says Carter, whose candidacy helped end the South's isolation, "Oregon doesn't have a much different philosophy from, say, Florida."
That is overstating things a bit. For all the changes during the past two or three decades, the modern South -- about a third of whose population lives in rural areas -- remains more conservative than the country as a whole and is more likely to be turned off by such things as the gay-rights and pro-choice movements. Understanding that, Republican presidential candidates from Richard Nixon to Bush have targeted white Southern voters by stressing economic and social conservatism -- including thinly veiled appeals to racism, like the notorious Willie Horton ads of 1988. The results have been divisive but spectacular. Since 1968, except when Carter won in '76, G.O.P. presidential candidates have owned the South and the Democrats have seen their once secure Southern base shrink until its mainstays were blacks and poor whites. This year the task facing Clinton and Gore is to reach out to the mostly white voters who defected during the past quarter-century while remaining true to their party's civil-rights and economic traditions.
The South has played a major role in electing Presidents since the founding of the Republic. In the 20th century, few candidates have made it to the White House without strong Southern support. The news from Madison Square Garden last week, as Clinton and Gore delivered their acceptance speeches in the soft, rolling accents of the South, was that the Democrats were back on their old flame's front porch, roses in hand, hoping to rekindle the spark of passion in her fickle heart.