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The one thing that Bush did for Republicanism in the South is, for a brief bit, he allowed it to ascend in much of the region, they even took legislatures they had not had since Reconstruction, though they didn't take ours.
The problem is, he did it by playing to a constituency that had essentially been discounted in one party politics, Evangelicals and specifically, Southern Baptists. To put it bluntly, Huckabee voters. Many Huckabee voters were Gore voters in 1988, and Carter voters in 1976 and 80.
The Republican Party was at one time a bastion of money and nothing else. It was where people who couldn't win a Democratic primary would go because of a belief that they could peel off just enough white votes to win. They weren't appealing to straight ticket whites, they were appealing to more educated, wealthier whites. In many cases, the GOP recruited people from old line families, the traditional power structure. Nothing populist about it. The Revolution that Rove and Bush provided was that they substantially increased the number of straight Republican voters, voters who had been Democratic until the 90s. Many of these were Southern Baptists. In 1994, the Alabama GOP almost nominated a pro-choice woman as it's gubernatorial nominee. She lost to a former governor who only became a Republican when he decided that it would be an easier primary.
So, the Republicans have achieved electoral strength. The problem is, they did it by becoming the political arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. Other people from the South will back me up when I say this, if you live in the South and are not Baptist, you usually have an antipathy towards Baptists. In Alabama, Huckabee's vote pretty much trailed the percentage of the Republican electorate in each county that was comprised of evangelical voters. There is a real rift there. Or to put it another way, if Roy Moore had been the GOP nominee in 2006, Baxley would be governor.
I personally have a growing suspicion that there is going to be an all out rift in the GOP in this state in 2010 and I think we'll see it throughout the South. We saw the seeds sown in the primaries this year. I think that McCain could lose female voters, particularly, if he plays too hard to Evangelical voters. You would also be surprised just how many women will vote for Hillary, but won't come out and say it.
Also, I seriously believe that McCain will have a Roy Moore like challenge from the right. In an election where national discontent is this high, there is a golden oppurtunity for third parties and I have not understood why no one has taken this into consideration.
The Democratic Party has a golden oppurtunity in the South by being anti-Evangelical, because many of the people who were the original Republicans in the region are starting to turn away, and many of these people are the money people.
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