Free It's My Party by Peter Robinson Page B

replied with the first few words or phrases that came to mind
.
    “New England,” I said
.
    “Foliage in the fall,” he replied. “Covered bridges. Maple syrup.”
    “The Midwest.”
    “Farmland,” he replied. “Good-hearted, plain-spoken people.”
    “The West.”
    “Palm trees,” he answered. “Beaches. High tech. Hollywood.”
    “The South.”
    “The South?” my friend said. “Oh, I see what you’re getting at. Big fat motorcycle cops with mirrored sunglasses, waiting
     to pull guys over. Televangelists ripping off widows by getting them to send in their Social Security checks. Hillbillies
     so inbred they have six fingers on each hand. Girls with big hair, big boobs, and no brains. You want me to keep going?”
    It amounted to a concise illustration of the problem
.
    There is a school of thought that the South is bad for the GOP. The South, this school holds, is too pro-gun and pro-military,
     produces abrasive leaders in Congress, such as Congressman Dick Armey and Tom DeLay of Texas and Senator Jesse Helms of North
     Carolina, and generally accents its politics the way it accents its speech—in a way that jars on everybody outside the South.
     Worst of all, the South is the home of the religious right.
    The argument was best stated in an article that appeared not long ago in the
Atlantic Monthly
. The article disturbed me, partly because it was entitled “Why the GOP is Doomed,” and partly because it was written by the
     journalist Christopher Caldwell, whom I know to be an astute political observer. “There is a big problem with having a southern,
     as opposed to a Midwestern or a California, base,” Caldwell wrote.
    Southern interests diverge from those of the rest of the country, and the southern presence in the Republican Party has passed
     the “tipping point” and begun to alienate voters from other regions.
    The most profound clash between the South and everyone else, of course, is a cultural one. It arises from the southern tradition
     of putting values—particularly Christian ones—at the center of politics… [Non-southerners] are put off to see that “traditional”
     values are now defined by the majority party as the values of… denizens of two-year-old churches and three-year-old shopping
     malls.
    Televangelist Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority may now be defunct—Falwell shut down the controversial organization in 1996—but
     the majority in the South still likes to think of itself as moral. When that attitude gets mixed up with politics, the anti-southern
     school believes, it strikes everybody outside the South as sanctimonious.
    I grant the observation—Republicans in the South do indeed place moral values smack in the middle of their politics. On the
     Web site of the Republican Party of Texas, for example, you’ll find a page that contrasts the beliefs of Republicans with
     those of Democrats. “Republicans,” the page asserts,
    believe the traditional family and the values it fosters are the foundation of American society and their preservation is
     essential to our Nation’s continued success. Democrats believe American society must redefine its values and the role of the
     family to fit new lifestyle concepts, which have resulted from the 60s counter-culture movement.
    If “good people” had been substituted for “Republicans,” while “sinners,” “reprobates,” or “degenerates” had been substituted
     for “Democrats,” that passage could have been preached from any one of a thousand pulpits across the South. As a mandate for
     policy, the passage is so vague that it can be read as calling for everything from revisions in the federal tax code (an end
     to the marriage penalty, perhaps, or an extension of the child care credit to mothers who remain at home) to new state laws
     regulating divorce (an attempt to strengthen the institution of marriage by repealing no-fault divorce statutes). Yet its
     moral stance is clear. The correct setting in