Instapundit is now writing for The Guardian about the American elections (congratulations Glenn!):
"In my lifetime, only one Democrat who was not from the American south has won the presidency. And the Democrat who did so, John F Kennedy, accomplished this feat when I was two months old. Since then, many have concluded that it's impossible for a Democrat to win the south unless - like Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter - he has southern roots. (Al Gore, who hails from Carthage, Tennessee but who spent much of his childhood in a posh Washington hotel, apparently wasn't southern enough.) But why would that be? It can't be because southerners won't vote for people from outside the south. After all, they happily voted in droves for Ronald Reagan, a Californian transplanted from the midwest. Nor is it likely to be because of 'traditional values', since southerners also voted for Bill Clinton, a Democrat whose commitment to monogamy was famously shaky...
"...So what is it about the south? I think it's defence. Some time between the election of John F Kennedy, and the ignominious defeat of 1972 Democratic nominee George McGovern, the Democrats lost credibility on national defence. From Kennedy's stirring "bear any burden, pay any price" language, to the "peace at any price" slogans of the anti-war left in 1972, the Democrats lost their traditional stature as the internationalist and interventionist war party. Instead, they became identified with the welfare-state liberalism of the north-east and west coast, and with the anti-military sentiments of the anti-Vietnam war movement."
