Mapping Our Beloved South. We’re Left-Behinds Now.

Here’s a map of how the NYTimes perceived the South as being out of touch, and presumably left behind, from the rest of the nation… in terms of how we voted (markedly differently) on Nov. 4th. And here is the rather condescending analysis from the Damn Yankees too!

The map I want to see is the one displaying broadband access across the United States… overlayed with the how-we-Crackers-voted map. Then we might get a better picture of just how seriously left-behind we really are, in terms of politics now married with technology… and all the implications there.

From the NYTimes today:

Southern counties that voted more heavily Republican this year than in 2004 tended to be poorer, less educated and whiter, a statistical analysis by The New York Times shows. Mr. Obama won in only 44 counties in the Appalachian belt, a stretch of 410 counties that runs from New York to Mississippi. Many of those counties, rural and isolated, have been less exposed to the diversity, educational achievement and economic progress experienced by more prosperous areas.

Could Merle Black of Emory get together with some computation and journalism geeks at Georgia Tech please!

The Political South: My How We’re Changing!

Tom Baxter of Southern Political Report post-morts the post-election southern landscape today. Most  interesting analysis:

Adding further complexity to the picture is the ribbon of blue counties which begin in Charleston, S.C., and thread through the heart of last week’s red states all the way to Chickasaw County, Miss. These counties, which encompass most of the Black Belt, gave Obama some of his biggest majorities anywhere: He garnered 87 percent, the highest county total I could find for either candidate, in Macon County, Ala., and Jefferson County, Miss. They’ve voted solidly Democratic in the past, but never simultaneously with Democratic majorities the size of those in Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Charlotte and other big cities across the South.

All this suggests a South with some familiar landmarks, but also one primed to change very dramatically over the coming decade. It’s easy to imagine, given the herculean challenges facing him, Obama losing the states he won last week in 2012. Given the age of McCain’s core supporters, it’s not inconceivable either that Obama could win states he lost this year.

But the South has shown that in one of the cricitical elections of our history, it was not all of one mind. And it’s unlikely ever to be again.

Full SPR article here. Heck, give a Cracker a laptop, some free broadband out in the scrub pines, and Lordy knows what might happen! From Bloomberg.com:

Obama has also made broader Internet access a goal and insisted that broadcasters focus more on public service. In a statement to the FCC last year, he called for `new rules promoting greater coverage of local issues and greater responsiveness of broadcasters to the communities they operate in.’

The above article in-full here.