Whistling past North Carolina, part II

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:03:09 -0500

Not surprisingly, Thomas Schaller was surprised he was wrong.

The author of "Whistling Past Dixie" wrote on Salon Monday that he was "somewhat surprised" that Barack Obama won North Carolina, a state he had earlier urged the Democrat to ignore.

"It's clear that the 'new South' is arriving faster than I anticipated, or perhaps more accurately, that Obama was able to deliver it faster," he writes.

He also noted that the three Southern states Obama won were among those with the highest median incomes for the region, except for Georgia. He also notes that the 22 counties where Obama did less well than John Kerry were in the rural and Appalachian South.

"It was a 'new South' victory won on the backs of votes cast by a lot of non-native Southern transplants," he writes. "It was not a rural Southern victory."

Next, we talk to Schaller directly.

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Whistling past North Carolina, part II