Question: If Howard Dean Was a Southerner...

[Yavin4]

if he was governor of Mississippi instead of Vermont, how would the media treat his campaign? Would it be more or less favorable? If more favorable, why do you think so? Do you think that Southern politicians have an advantage in national elections? The last three elected Democratic presidents have all been from the South, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton. Why is being from the North, esp. the Northeast, considered a political liability?

[La_Serpiente]

1. the media would look at his case

as a another Southern Presidential Contender and would fit the same characterizations of all the others that preceded him.

[Capn Sunshine]

2. Despite being southerners

All three were elected. It could be viewed as baggage they overcame. After all , an overwhelming amount of LOSING candidates came from the south.

It's just a matter of perspective.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. What Losing Candidates

The last four southerners to run in the modern era have either received a plurality or majority of the popular vote for president?

[Bandit]

3. I think Dean needs a Harley and a Black Leather Jacket

America is hung up on Macho Hombres. Dean should play dress-up just like Bush* if he wants the center. Appearance is all that matters with the majority of Americans. Dean needs the Fonz look to go along with his Fonz style rhetoric. He can't dress up military style so he needs to dress up American Tough.

[LoneStarLiberal]

4. Paying For The Civil War

Southerners are stereotyped as being genteel and charismatic and having a natural bond with John and Jane Doe. I don't know if this is because we are all supposed to be poor or if it is because we are all supposed to be self-made millionaires.

Those from the North have a wide variety of stereotypes invoked against them implicitly and explicitly in the South. I've heard Dean refered to as "that shrill little Yankee" and Kerry as "that wealthy chowderhead." Northerners have to pay of the sins of the Union's victory in the Civil War when they campaign in the South.

I don't think the reverse holds true, that Southerners have to bear the burden of the Civil War when they campaign in other areas.

I also don't sense the same inherent antagonism with candidates from the Midwest and West Coast campaigning in the South.

[AP]

5. If they thought that meant he could beat Bush, they'd be harder on him.

However, if his fical conservativism turns any farther to the right they might think there'd be little difference between the two.

[dofus]

6. Quite frankly, the problem is that the south

is, to a large extent, still fighting the Civil War. Not all southerners, but enough to make the entire "Northern candidate vs Southern candidate" silliness. Northerners have long since gotten beyond it.

While region of the country matters to a person's outlook and history, it's not the only thing that shapes anyone. Not to mention, a lot of people have lived in more than one part of the country, and so often have complicated feelings about regional differences.

(Speaking as one who's lived in several different parts of the country)

[TheUnknownPoster]

7. North v. South

I think it matters because the South has undergone such a population explosion in the last fifty years that you can't win the presidency unless you carry at least a few Southern states. Southerners are not only more likely to vote for one of their own, a kind of regionalism that has existed on the national level throughout American history, but also for the kind of moderate Democrat that is a product of a more conservative, Republican region. Northerners are just perceived as more liberal, and therefore less attractive to a Southern voter.