No Southerners in Obama's Cabinet

[Lunar]

This election is also the first one since, what, Eisenhower when there wasn't at least one Southerner on the ticket of either the Dems or the GOP?

Depends on whether we're counting Maryland (Agnew) as the South.  If not, then 1968 and 1972 didn't have Southerners either.  But if we *are* counting Maryland, then why not also Delaware?

My understanding was that Nixon was South-conscious and felt Maryland was "Southern enough" while Obama just didn't give a flying F

[Filuwaúrdjan]

but the glee in this thread is seriously misplaced and/or potentially dangerous.

On behalf of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, "cry me a river."

Ah, but you miss the point in the most ironic way possible.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I've been a part of literally every discussion of Mitt Romney

Exactly my point.  I think I gave reasons, but it either slipped through the cracks, the thread died out, or I later on in the thread gave my usual, less than polite reasons for disliking him.

[The Mikado]

Eh...it really sickens me to see people who think of themselves as openminded slandering vast swathes of their fellow countrymen on a few ignorant stereotypes.  That's the sort of thing conservatives are supposed to do, guys!

[Bacon King]

The amount of utter ignorance in this thread is suprising.

First off, the linked article is kind of silly because it tries to blame something on Obama just for not doing tokenism. It's pretty clear that he's just (at least mostly) picking the people he finds best for the job, so what if it happens to not have anyone from some region of the country?

Second, to everyone here who thinks or wishes that this is some way to punish the south, you're doing nothing but displaying your own intolerance on this subject. You blatantly stereotype an entire region of the country and assume for some reason everyone here is exactly the same politically. I'm not going to name any names, although this is honestly really directed at one person in particular, but please grow up.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

It's very interesting that the most 'patriotic americans' down there are always the ones with the confederate flag on their trucks. I think they mean to symbolize the racism of the region rather than any actual pride in the Confederacy.

[Holmes]

Obama responds!

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- http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20081213/NEWS02/812130361

[Scam of God]

Second, to everyone here who thinks or wishes that this is some way to punish the south, you're doing nothing but displaying your own intolerance on this subject. You blatantly stereotype an entire region of the country and assume for some reason everyone here is exactly the same politically. I'm not going to name any names, although this is honestly really directed at one person in particular, but please grow up.

That's absolutely right, and I shall continue to do so until you can manage to elect someone sane to your state governorship.

[Lunar]

And again, I remind people that Obama's top national security adviser is James Jones, a Missourian - that person holds a higher position in his administration than much of his cabinet.

AND THIS IS THE GUY WHO'S CURRENTLY FAVORED TO BE HIS SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE

Sanford Dixon Bishop Jr

Hell, his middle name almost sounds like "dixie" and he's from Georgia.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And again, I remind people that Obama's top national security adviser is James Jones, a Missourian - that person holds a higher position in his administration than much of his cabinet.

AND THIS IS THE GUY WHO'S CURRENTLY FAVORED TO BE HIS SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE

Sanford Dixon Bishop Jr

Hell, his middle name almost sounds like "dixie" and he's from Georgia.

Hmm. That could be a tricky by-election.

[Хahar 🤔]

Missouri isn't Southern. The parts where people live aren't, at least.
This shouldn't be significant.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

That's absolutely right, and I shall continue to do so until you can manage to elect someone sane to your state governorship.

Mike Beebe, Tim Kaine, Mike Easley, Phil Bredesen.  Those are just current Governors.

[Bacon King]

It's very interesting that the most 'patriotic americans' down there are always the ones with the confederate flag on their trucks. I think they mean to symbolize the racism of the region rather than any actual pride in the Confederacy.

No. Just no. Have you ever even been out of your home state? We make fun of the Confederate flag pickup truck type guys too.

Second, to everyone here who thinks or wishes that this is some way to punish the south, you're doing nothing but displaying your own intolerance on this subject. You blatantly stereotype an entire region of the country and assume for some reason everyone here is exactly the same politically. I'm not going to name any names, although this is honestly really directed at one person in particular, but please grow up.

That's absolutely right, and I shall continue to do so until you can manage to elect someone sane to your state governorship.

Referring to Louisiana/Jindal, I'm assuming? Say what you will about the guy, yeah he's got some superconservative beliefs that I really disagree with, but he's far from insane. Hell, the guy was a Rhodes scholar- he's probably smarter than you, me, or anyone else in this forum. And you do know that there was a Democratic governor of Louisiana all of three years ago, right?

Also, considering your avatar I don't think you have the right to make any sort of judgment call about electing sane people as governor, lol.

[The Dowager Mod]

Everyone bashing southerners for being southern need to stfu and kiss my grits.

[Bacon King]

Everyone bashing southerners for being southern need to stfu and kiss my grits.

[Brittain33]

but the glee in this thread is seriously misplaced and/or potentially dangerous.

On behalf of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, "cry me a river."

Ah, but you miss the point in the most ironic way possible.

There's only a point if you think that this is a real issue or a deliberate choice by Obama. I'm not taking this too seriously, nor do I expect there won't eventually be a southerner in the inner circle before we're done, but in any case... considering any emotion expressed in an Internet forum "potentially dangerous" on a macropolitical scale is to miss the point rather vividly.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The South really gets very little respect from me and I struggle to think of anything redeeming about the South or Southern culture and everytime I see a Confederate flag I want to vomit.

Sorry that I can't side with the high minded "shame on you" types here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's only a point if you think that this is a real issue or a deliberate choice by Obama.

I'm so uninterested in the story here that I've not even read the article. My comments were, really, based off reactions to it. Which have gotten progressively more and more extreme.

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I don't think so. If the attitudes expressed here are even slightly reflective of wider attitudes in the real world, then, yes, they are "potentially dangerous". And in exactly the same way that all that "real America" nonsense was.

[Brittain33]

I don't think so. If the attitudes expressed here are even slightly reflective of wider attitudes in the real world, then, yes, they are "potentially dangerous". And in exactly the same way that all that "real America" nonsense was.

Speaking as a lifelong resident of the north, in my experience, most of the North doesn't care about the South. That's how it's been for over a century. The regional divide is much more keenly felt and resented in the South than it is anywhere else in the country.

Hard core Democrats and political junkies are an exception to the rule, and there is some superficial prejudice (as there is with all sides), but you almost never achieve the same level of resentment and anger that some southerners have held toward the north across the whole period of American history. (I'm giving up worrying about my capitalization here.)

One simple reason is that most northerners aren't descended from Civil War soldiers and don't identify with that history at all; similarly, the Civil War left few scars in this part of the country. The other part is, given the imbalance of wealth between the two regions, we know historically how those imbalances are perceived differently and lead to a gap in resentment.

Anyway, as you well know, the South as it exists in reality is different from "the South" as commonly stereotyped, lionized, or attacked, because the "real" South includes huge pockets of loyal Democratic voters, including African-Americans. James Clyburn is from the South. I'm not really worried that the Democratic Party is going to forget this or shut out its power brokers from Atlanta, Raleigh-Durham, or Houston because some young political junkies or college students vent some steam on the Internet about the dominating political class in most of the South which voted uniformly for Bush in 2000 and 2004.

[angus]

Yes, I suppose so, you're commenting on how futile it is to try and define region by culture. Point taken. Still, if Maryland is south, and Miami is south, and Southern Illinois is south, then the term 'south' has lost its meaning. It means nothing. It is just a geographic entity. No distinctive accent, heritage, or political uniformity holds it together anymore. And what kind of south is that? We need someplace to stereotype and feel superior to...

Not exactly.  Miami and Maryland are in the South.  By definition.  Southern Illinois and York, Pennsylvania are not.  True, Cairo (pronounced Kay Row locally in that part of Illinois, as I was told there a few years ago) is a lot more like Kentucky than it is like Chicago, at least demographically, and the Cairo locals may well cling to Guns and Religion more than the Bethesda crowd, but there is a South, defined by Mason and Dixon's Line.  And it doesn't include Southern Illinois technically, but it does include all of Maryland, technically.  (And you're also wrong about Statesrights.  He laments the fact that maryland doesn't seem as southern as it used to.  So he's on the same frequency as you are, I think.)  As for your comments about Baptists, that's called the Bible Belt.  Not the South.  Not that the two are orthogonal, in fact they have a great deal of overlap, but they're simply different by definition.  If the thread had said, "No Bible Belters have been appointed" then we could have that argument, but the thread didn't say that, did it?

But the broader point about Democrat administrations no longer being automatically associated with southern accents the way the used to be--Just try to remember 1977, or, if you're not old enough, 1993, or, if you're still not old enough, just use your imagination.  Or YouTube, which is what has apparently supplanted imagination and original thought for Generation Wired--is probably the bigger issue here.

As for folks bitching about having no one from their state in the white house, I have no sympathy for them.  Democrats in this state set Obama up like a king.  You remember the coverage "Lily-white Iowa gives O-man his first primary win!  Could we actually elect a black president?  Will New Hampshire rednecks follow suit?  Or are they just English enough to balk at the idea of a Barack Obama presidency?  And anyway, Hillary Clinton is a very English-sounding name and has been canvassing New England since 2006.  But for now, I'm Chris Matthews, here at the UNIdome in Cedar Falls."  (Yes, he did two shows within a mile from my house in the weeks leading up to last winter's primaries.)  But the Democrats of this state gave him his soapbox and he didn't even give them a hand job.  Ah, at least he paid his bills, which is more than I can say for Senator Clinton, whose campaign still owes merchants statewide about a hundred thousand dollars, mostly for catering.  Anyway, you don't hear Iowans bitching about that.  Seriously, it just never comes up.  The Democrats of Iowa voted for the man they thought best for the job, with no expectations of an appointment.  (This isn't Illinois, after all. 

Um, what was my point?  Oh, yeah, that focusing on the fact that Obama didn't name any southerners to his cabinet is missing the bigger picture.  He's about change, isn't he?  Change was the mantra.  And if he'd gone with Clintonistas and Ex-carter people, all he'd have is southerners, and a few raging bulldykes like Janet Reno.  The fact that we'll actually have a Democrat in the White House, and no southern accent in earshot is about as serious a bit of evidence for change as I can imagine.  Moreover, he hasn't bashed Republicans since he was elected, which is more evidence for the change on which he campaigned.  Granted, I wasn't part of that cadre of Iowa voters that handed him a primary victory, mostly because I was at the GOP primary on January 3rd supporting Ron Paul, just like the rest of my fellow white supremacist Ron Paul supporters, but I don't regret voting for Obama in the general election.  His appointments haven't agreed with me totally, but they're largely centrist and not from the older Democrat school.  Sure, there are a few Bush legacies and Clinton legacies, but we're in two wars and a recession, so you can't expect him to change everyone.  But the changes he has suggested are refreshing, don't you think?

[Beet]

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True, but the reason that no one cares that there isn't a cabinet member from Iowa, or between xx degrees longitude and yy degrees latitude, and so on, is that it's purely geographical. There may not be a Cabinet member from Iowa, but there is from South Dakota, and there are from Illinois, and they are all in the Midwest. And what you're saying here is purely geographical. The reason that someone might care that there is southern representation on the cabinet is cultural. It's a cultural issue we're speaking of, not a geographical issue.

Geographically, the regions don't make any sense. New Mexico is in the south, but it is not in "the South." New England is too small to be a real subdivision. And so on and so on. Basically the regions were defined to reflect cultural stereotypes underlying them, but sometimes that means the literal definition is imperfect.

And in practice, that is how the term 'South' is used. Most people associate the South, or want to associate the South, with a particular culture, heritage, and political uniformity. It's "southern drawl, southern accent" not "bible belt drawl, bible belt accent". Neil Young didn't write the song "Bible Belt Man" he wrote "Southern Man", even though the song doesn't have a lot to do with geography. It's "Southern belle" not "Bible belt belle", and so on and so on. What I was saying without using the term Bible Belt explicitly was that the cultural South is synonymous with the Bible Belt. You are correct about the strict definition of South, but my point is that the strict definition simply doesn't incite the kind of connotations and emotions as the Bible Belt definition does, which is what comes to most people's minds when the South is brought up:

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I agree.

[angus]

That's all well-understood.  (As an aside, I remember when I was working in Amsterdam, I learned of de Bijbelbelt, which is a Flemish word having the same connotation as it does in English.  Interestingly, it refers to the southern portion of that country, and includes Limberg, of the smelly-cheese fame, because of the calvinist/protestant effects on local governments therein.  So if you're outside the US, make sure you understand which "bible belt" is antecedent.)

I also am aware of the fierce patrimony among the southerners.  You'll recall I lived in Columbus, Mississippi for three years after I moved from the San Francisco bay region and before I moved to northeastern Iowa.  I remember well how the locals would comment on how I "talk funny, like you ain't from 'round here" and such.  And so I dare say I am at least as well versed on the eccentricities and peculiarities of Southerners as you are, even though you, technically, live in the South and I do not, owing to the fact that I spent three years in what we could probably agree upon is in the Deep South.  I remember the cats.  Oh, the cats.  Here, in the midwest, dogs seem to be the favorite choice of the locals, but in Columbus it was the cats.  Oh, how I learned to hate cats when I lived in Columbus.  Since moving to the upper midwest, I have learned to hate dogs just as much.  But I digress.

The point of the thread may or may not be misplaced.  I won't comment on the misguidedness of the bigotry.  Especially from Democrats.  Whether directed toward Blacks, Jews, Catholics, Southerners, or whomever, they certainly haven't changed in that aspect of their party's character over the years.  And I don't necessarily feel compelled to point out how misguided the idea that a southerner can't be a good president or cabinet member.  After all, we have so many counterexamples.  Consider only the last two presidents.  One a Connecticut-born, Connecticut private schooled, Yale educated son of the son of a well-connected New England Senator from Connecticut.  The other a mountain man from Western Arkansas, town called Hope.  Redneck through and through.  Raised by a single mother and probably didn't know whom his father was.  But surely it's no secret that the Connecticut yankee just finishing office has dismal approval ratings not just at home but around the world as well, while the Arkansan with a fierce southern drawl is generally respected as a centrist at home and as a pragmatist around the world.  So surely the bigotry espoused by many (mostly Democrats, no surprise) against some is unjustified.  Just as all bigotry is unjustified.  Your need to feel "superior to" some shouldn't be lessened by the fact that you live, technically, in The South.  You are certainly allowed to feel superior to anyone.  Black, Jew, or Southerner who is more Southerner than you are. 

But my point that a Democrat has emerged--for the first time in my lifetime, and probably since before my lifetime began--with no southerner on his cabinet is interesting.  Not because you are now somehow no longer allowed to feel superior to some of his cabinet members, and not because some Southerners may have had their feelings hurt (and yes, some will.  As I said, I learned first hand how fiercely territorial they can be).  But precisely because it represents a break with the former political alliances and former status quo.  Sure, bigotries will still be there.  I would like to think we're past all that.  After all, we elected a negro didn't we?  But regional and religious bigotry still exists.  And in the past weeks we have seen evidence that so does ethnic and racial bigotry.  Although the latter is less harmful because in today's climate it goes punished by ostracism.  Wouldn't you agree?  But the regional and religious bigotries coming out in this thread are quite shocking.  Not existentially, but in the fact that we somehow accept them as proper manifestations of an enlightened society. 

So, Hope really is Audacious, isn't it?  But that's okay, I still hope.  (And yes, I have visited the hilltown in Western Arkansas by the same name.  It has a huge billboard with a 30-foot-diameter likeness of Clinton's face and a welcome to Hope, the "home of America's 39th President, Bill Clinton."  It's as tacky as a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn.  And just as kitschy as a pink flamingo on the lawn.  But it's as American as Apple Pie, Mom, Hot Dogs, and a twenty-billion dollar, government-secured loan to save Chevrolet.)

[Wiz in Wis]

Not that I really care too much, but I think our understanding of this is kinda flawed. In what world would Obama appoint a gun-totin, redneck, bible thumper to his Cabinet. Steven Chu has a nobel for goodness sakes. Of course the South is shut out... but certain segments of its population, such as AA's, hispanics, progressives from Raliegh or Orlando, would understandably make the cut.

Though I will vent for one moment:

Everyone bashing southerners for being southern need to stfu and kiss my grits.

With that attitude, GTFO of Wisconsin!!

[angus]

In what world would Obama appoint a gun-totin, redneck, bible thumper to his Cabinet.

Does appointing the wife of one count? 

Okay, now I'm thinking we may all just be on the same frequency, but using radically different ideas and metaphors to make the point.  And maybe no one's understanding is flawed, after all.  Audaciously hopeful, I realize, but I know that sometimes it's okay to laugh at diseased, starving Ethiopian children with distended bellies and no formal education, and their interactions with overfed, overprotected, irreverent American children.  You just gotta make sure everyone understands when you're joking and when you're not, I suppose.  Maybe that's the essence communication nowadays.  Emoticons just seem so vulgar to me.  Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way.

[Beet]

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I was being facetious there, angus. But really, feeling superior to someone else is a Republican thing, so it is no surprise that so many Northerners here feel that way. I'm sure just as many Southerners feel victimized (see Gone With the Wind, etc.), and that's a Democratic thing. So in some respects, the old order still lives.

But my point that a Democrat has emerged--for the first time in my lifetime, and probably since before my lifetime began--with no southerner on his cabinet is interesting.  Not because you are now somehow no longer allowed to feel superior to some of his cabinet members, and not because some Southerners may have had their feelings hurt (and yes, some will.  As I said, I learned first hand how fiercely territorial they can be).  But precisely because it represents a break with the former political alliances and former status quo.  Sure, bigotries will still be there.  I would like to think we're past all that.  After all, we elected a negro didn't we?  But regional and religious bigotry still exists.  And in the past weeks we have seen evidence that so does ethnic and racial bigotry.  Although the latter is less harmful because in today's climate it goes punished by ostracism.  Wouldn't you agree?  But the regional and religious bigotries coming out in this thread are quite shocking.  Not existentially, but in the fact that we somehow accept them as proper manifestations of an enlightened society.

True... and perhaps the thing I was describing in my last post is a part of the problem; the tendency to associate region automatically with culture and stereotype. The notion that all southerners are "gun-totin, redneck, bible thumpers" or that all "gun-totin, redneck bible thumpers" share the politics and persona of George W. Bush.

Really, it's interesting that the South doesn't hold more romantic appeal for leftists. After all, this is the region that gave us our first non-aristocrat President, it is home of most poors and most minorities, and spokespersons for Southern culture often label themselves for the common man more often than any other region.