The Southern Male Democrat

A checklist of the things in life that I love would be pretty typical for a white, southern-native male such as myself. I love Elvis and Johnny Cash. Fall is my favorite season because I get to throw big tailgate parties and fry various cuts of meat. Beer is a vital fluid for life and I hate, no, I loathe cold weather. Small packages of snack crackers are called “nabs”. “Fixin to” means that I am on the verge of doing something my wife asked me to do.

And yet despite all of these interests and habits that make me just like millions of other native southerners, I am a yellow dog, wouldn’t vote Republican for dog-catcher, DEMOCRAT. My home state of North Carolina hasn’t voted Democratic for President since Jimmy Carter in 1976, Republicans have dominated most of the US Senate races and one of the most popular free stickers each year at the state fair says - “My God, My Country, My Republican Party.” Yet somehow I managed to escape this affliction that seems to infect many of my fellow bretheren. This bit of going against the societal norm is what gave me the idea and name for this blog.

According to data on CNN (give me a break, this is my first blog post ever. I’ll learn how to hyper-link next month….) President Bush received 62 percent of the white male vote in 2004. Similar data on the Democratic Leadership Council website says that President Gore only received 36 percent of the vote from the same demographic in 2000. While sitting on my chair, I could not find data to reflect racial vote preferences broken down by region, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that those margins were probably larger in southern states that President Bush won handily.

And yet if you ask the typical, non-political southern male why they didn’t like Kerry/Gore/Clinton/insert Democrat here - the answers always revolve around vague generalities, based on misperception and sometimes urban legend of winning in the euromillions results. (Hmmm…that’s probably a good column idea - debunking Democratic urban legends pushed by Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.)

To be fair, many Democrats have the same problem. Latte-sipping liberals in New Haven, Connecticut and Milwaukee just know that President Bush is the root of all evil because MoveOn.org told them so. Neither side wants to break out of the political roles dictated to them as societal preferences based on where they live or grew up.

And that is the purpose for this blog. To try and show the five people who wind up reading this how we all have much more in common than we think. Of course, my smart readers are now saying - “Wait a second, you just said you’re a partisan Democrat, so how can you possibly show what we may have in common?”

It’s a fair question to which I’ll just say this - Just because I never vote Republican doesn’t mean that I don’t respect my friends across the aisle, nor does it mean that I cannot admit when the Republicans have it right and my side has it wrong. I’ve got strong political beliefs that I can and will defend, but at the end of the day my choice of parties merely informs my politics, it does not dictate my politics.

The best part about this blog is that it won’t all be ping post political. I have all sorts of quirky thoughts related to food, music and my current favorite show, Phil and Teds Sport Family Guy. So come on in the house, kick off your shoes and let’s get to know each other!