Of the several interesting story lines coming out of the post-Super Tuesday South, by far the most striking was former Gov. Mike Huckabee's total sweep of the five Southern Republican primaries.
Despite earlier losses in South Carolina and Florida, Huckabee knew the South was his natural base and he made it a priority, barnstorming through the region. It paid off big time: he locked up 228 delegates* (ED: or not? see below) with victories in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia.
What does this mean for Election '08? For starters, the results have to make Sen. John McCain -- and Republicans nationally -- a bit nervous. Ever since the rise of the Southern Strategy, the South has been the strategic base of the Republican Party -- both as symbol (remember how Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign in Mississippi?) and as a stronghold of electoral clout.
The fact that Republican voters across the South -- a barometer of conservative opinion nationally -- want a candidate (Huckabee) other than the one who will win the nomination (McCain) must be troubling indeed. Disillusionment with McCain might be just strong enough to keep many of the GOP's most reliable voters home in November.
But Tuesday's results also point to a longer-term dilemma for the GOP: a split between its moderate and conservative wings.
For decades, the Republican Party has maintained a fragile alliance between its moderate and libertarian forces on one hand (concentrated in the North and West), and its more conservative and fundamentalist base on the other (strongest in the South and Midwest).
Ronald Reagan and George Bush could hold together the coalition; McCain and Huckabee represent different sides of it, and their candidacies alienate the other side.
One solution -- a McCain/Huckabee ticket -- might help smooth over the differences. But given the vehemence of opposition to McCain from the hard right, it just as easily might draw attention to the fracture, and spin the coalition apart.
President Bush (the current one) used to say "I'm a uniter, not a divider." When it came to GOP politics (if little else), it was true. In McCain, the GOP is nominating a divider -- a development that could spell the end of an era of Republican dominance in U.S. politics.
* UPDATE: The delegate math is proving elusive to many. McCain's people say Huckabee only has 205 delegates total.
Despite earlier losses in South Carolina and Florida, Huckabee knew the South was his natural base and he made it a priority, barnstorming through the region. It paid off big time: he locked up 228 delegates* (ED: or not? see below) with victories in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia.What does this mean for Election '08? For starters, the results have to make Sen. John McCain -- and Republicans nationally -- a bit nervous. Ever since the rise of the Southern Strategy, the South has been the strategic base of the Republican Party -- both as symbol (remember how Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign in Mississippi?) and as a stronghold of electoral clout.
The fact that Republican voters across the South -- a barometer of conservative opinion nationally -- want a candidate (Huckabee) other than the one who will win the nomination (McCain) must be troubling indeed. Disillusionment with McCain might be just strong enough to keep many of the GOP's most reliable voters home in November.
But Tuesday's results also point to a longer-term dilemma for the GOP: a split between its moderate and conservative wings.
For decades, the Republican Party has maintained a fragile alliance between its moderate and libertarian forces on one hand (concentrated in the North and West), and its more conservative and fundamentalist base on the other (strongest in the South and Midwest).
Ronald Reagan and George Bush could hold together the coalition; McCain and Huckabee represent different sides of it, and their candidacies alienate the other side.
One solution -- a McCain/Huckabee ticket -- might help smooth over the differences. But given the vehemence of opposition to McCain from the hard right, it just as easily might draw attention to the fracture, and spin the coalition apart.
President Bush (the current one) used to say "I'm a uniter, not a divider." When it came to GOP politics (if little else), it was true. In McCain, the GOP is nominating a divider -- a development that could spell the end of an era of Republican dominance in U.S. politics.
* UPDATE: The delegate math is proving elusive to many. McCain's people say Huckabee only has 205 delegates total.
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