New York Times nonsense on the South

There's a lot wrong with an article in today's New York Times. Apparently the southern states aren't politically important anymore.

Here we go..

One reason for that is that the South is no longer a solid voting bloc. Along the Atlantic Coast, parts of the 'suburban South,' notably Virginia and North Carolina, made history last week in breaking from their Confederate past and supporting Mr. Obama. Those states have experienced an influx of better educated and more prosperous voters in recent years, pointing them in a different political direction than states farther west, like Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and Appalachian sections of Kentucky and Tennessee.

...breaking from their Confederate past...Sheesh. The Civil War ended almost 150 years ago. True, the instituional segregation that followed carried on until the 1960s, but Confederate past?
More...

The Republicans, meanwhile, have "become a Southernized party," said Mr. Schaller, who teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "They have completely marginalized themselves to a mostly regional party," he said, pointing out that nearly half of the current Republican House delegation is now Southern.

Although the Plains and Mountain states are for the most part low-growth or no-growth states, they remain, Colorado being an exception, heavily Republican.

The GOP is not just a regional party.

Then there is this:

What may have ended on Election Day, though, is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCain over Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say.

Does that mean their votes don't count?

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