Hopefully those in the Democratic party who suggest that we write off the South are paying attention...

I do, however, have to take exception with some of the author's comments about Bill Clinton.  He was a DLC Democrat- no doubt- and part of the liberal inteligensia that so many feel steered us wrongly in the 20th century.  But Clinton was not so far removed from his modest Southern upbringing as to be unaware of the cost of a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.  He sealed Bush I's fate in that moment- when he looked into the eyes of the American populate, told them he felt their pain, and actually meant it.

Politicians like Webb and Edwards are resonating now for the same reason that Clinton connected then- because they have lived our lives. Bush II tries desperately to emulate the folksy, man of the people persona that his handlers designed for him.  He fails utterly and miserably, over and over again.  We as a people long for someone genuine, some truth teller to lead us away from the lies of the Emerald City.  Ultimately, Clinton's biggest sin may not be that he lied to us but that he lied to himself.

As I listen to Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama, I can't help but feel that they're lying to themselves as well, Obama that he's qualified to lead the country and Hillary that she's strong enough to lead without the validation of public opinion.  Of course, the rub is that there's no guarantee that brutal honesty is desirable in a President.  Carter was scrupulously honest and universally reviled, Reagan was totally delusional and beloved. 

I hope that we have truly crossed the river, that the 2006 mid-terms were not a fluke, and that Americans have finally decided that we want intelligence and dignity in government over Wall Street branding and "Mission Accomplished" platitudes.  But I'm not yet convinced.  And I haven't forgotten that for all his faults, Bill Clinton always made me hope.

Thank you for these thoughtful comments. I have always felt that Bill Clinton has hidden within him a spiritual nature akin to Tolstoi's or St. Paul's and if he had turned back to the Deep South instead of going North after his real work in the world was done, he would have found that nature and he could have awakened in America a soul so big that it would reign a thousand years. Instead he moved to New York. But it takes a great failure; a near-fatal falling to precede such an Awakening and like Tolstoi and John Lennon, one has to simply cast away one's earlier life's work in abandonment and take the new direction the heart demands - I would still not be surprised to see him to do something like that.

The "Whistling Past Dixie" theme, which comes mostly I think from the NPR essayist Thomas F. Shaller is not only immoral and irresonsible but is also delusional and totally foolhardy. It is yuppie politics and naive beyond belief - I couldn't bear to read the entire book - and it fully misunderstands American history. What I think the Shaller book most represents in a red/blue division not unlike that which came about in the mid 1800s - recall, North and South were coming at odds as economy rose, but had been different places in their earlier 250 years since 1607; one a pastoral culture and one a growing industrial culture. The Whigs party fell victim to this division and I see the same aspect of the Democrats that Shaller celebrates disintegrating in the same fashion. The Jarding/Saunders book, "Foxes in the Henhouse" follows more accurately the demographics. North and South are symbiotes.