A Historical Look at Electoral Maps

When I was a kid, "The Solid South" used to mean that the southern states from Texas through The Carolinas could be counted on to support the Democratic presidential candidate.  This had been true since 1880, and was a manifestation of southern resentment against Republican northern profiteers, known as carpet baggers, who had gotten fat on the post war reconstruction.

This all changed in the 1960's, after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law.   He said at the time that the Democrats had lost the south for a generation. What a failure of imagination!  Here we are, more than 50 years later, and the South is still lost, and probably will remain so for a few more decades.

Heres' s a link to historical electoral maps.

In 1964, the effect was immediate.  For the first time in history, the Republicans took LA, MS, AL, GA and SC, while suffering an epic national loss of of 486 to 52 electoral votes.  As an aside, it's also notable that in the first half of this century, the Democratic party was a welcome home to southern racists.  After 1964, they ran to the Rethugs, who welcomed them with open arms, as evidenced by the Nixon-Reagan southern strategy.

The south revealed its other characteristic factor in the '64 election - voting for its native son.  The Dems carried Texas in '64, and again in '68, when LBJ decided not to run again, and Humphrey stepped up to get stomped by the vile Richard Nixon.  Despite the even worse George Wallace draining off 5 southern states and their 46 electoral votes, Nixon beat Humphrey by 110.

The only anomaly occurred in 1976, when Democrat Jimmy Carter of Georgia swept the south and beat Michigan's Jerry Ford by 57 EV.  The south gave the presidency to its native son. Except for the first two elections of the 2000's that were stolen by GWB, that was the closest EV margin since 1884.

In '92 and '96 Clinton won his home state of AR, along with a couple other southern states each time, beating his rivals by sizable EV margins.

Florida has gone blue in the last two elections, but the rest of the south remained solidly behind McCain and Romney.

What will happen now?  The black guy has been replaced by a woman who has been vilified by the right wing for 25 years.  More recently, the Rethug controlled congress has wasted huge quantities of both time and money chasing bogus scandals to further discredit her.

HRC is very unlikely to win any southern state beside FLA, which has a large contingent of displaced northerners.

It's up to the rest of the country to keep the dumb con man, who has deep and serious emotional problems, and might actually be insane, out of the White House.

What a god damned night mare.

The Rest of the Tigers' Season

After today's game against the Sox ace Quintana, who has the 2nd best ERA in the AL, the Tigers have 7 games left against first place CLE and 3 more with defending champion KC.

Next up are 3 games against the Orioles, who are 1 game ahead of them in the wild card race.

So far, they're
1-11 vs CLE
6-10 vs KC
1-3 vs BAL

Their other remaining games are 7 against the Twins and 3 against the Braves. They're 10-2 against the Twins, and have not played the 54-85 Braves.

So, they have 14 tough games, and10 where they should be heavily favored.

With 13 remaining games head to head against teams they are contending with, they have an opportunity to control their own destiny, but I have a hard time seeing this as a favorable schedule.