I know you've all been wondering why the Serious Bastard hasn't been pumping out the hits, day after day. It all goes back to last Monday (March 9th) when James Taranto wrote an opinion editorial titled Why do Dems Lose in the South? Don't Blame Civil Rights for The Wall Street Journal. This gets all so complicated because Mr. Taranto has no simple explanation for "Why do dems lose in the south?", and as most of you are probably aware, complexity finds no friend in the world of the weblogger.

Vague Summary Follows: LBJ signs Civil Rights Act of 1964, turns South over to Republicans until 1976. That year, Jimmy Carter wins the entire South minus Virginia. The Confederacy := Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. The South := Kentucky + The Confederacy. Later in life, segregationist politicians like Strom Thurmond change their views. Mr. Taranto then states it would be absurd to think that anger over Civil Rights compels Southerners to vote Republican even after 40 years. So why? First, he says defense and national security. Then, he says social issues like abortion, guns, gays, welfare and crime. He mentions Bill Clinton losing most of the South in 1992 and 1996 (well, he won 5 states out of 12). Then he closes by suggesting that the South stepped into the American mainstream following the Civil Rights Act. :End Vague Summary

It is much more confusing than that so don't blame me for your inability to process it. Here's a nice picture of the 1996 electoral distribution. Stare at that. Now, stare at this. So, what seperates the Democratic and Republican states? Progressive politics and paternalism with a dash of moral indignancy. It really is about "States' Rights" in some twisted way. Progressive politics always requires a little bit of paternalistic leadership, guiding the people down the right path. The average Republican voter doesn't want a great big federal grand pappie on the hill. They want someone to shake a stick at the boogieman to keep him away while waving some flags and sneering at morally ambivalent progressives. Now, the terror is that California may be swinging this direction. Governor Schwarzenegger is showing off the more attractive aspects of the Republican ideals (give money back to citizens, clean up government waste) while masking the more worrisome ones (prescriptive moral behavior, intolerance and the like). In eight months, will California be massaged into a swing state? Fifty dollars says "No", but it seems like a possibility.