Some Would Write Off a South That Loves GOP

Re Ronald Brownstein’s “In the South, GOP Rides the Wave of Bush’s Popularity,” Nov. 16: I am a pragmatic person. I understand what Brownstein is saying. However, as a true blue-state, big-city liberal, I am tired of having to kowtow politically to the most regressive part of the nation (the South) and defer to its most conservative constituency (white evangelical Christians).

Again, I understand it’s all about numbers (votes and money) -- who has them and who doesn’t. But I consider the analysis of the problem here to be pointing in the wrong direction. The problem isn’t that the moderate and liberal policies of the Democrats do so poorly there; it’s that the retrograde mind-set embraced by the GOP and those voters does so well. As always, the South is an anchor dragging the rest of the country down.

Paul Giorgi

Culver City

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Brownstein discusses the loss of the South to the GOP. Good riddance, I say, until the South escapes its disgusting past. As a longtime liberal who grew up in the Depression and got to vote for FDR, I was always embarrassed by most elected representatives from the South, especially the Dixiecrats. The sad thing is that President Bush is a real mumbling Bubba who attracts the worst of what the South remains.

William Blanchard

Arrowbear