Government and the Common Good

By and large, progressives have responded to the decades-long conservative assault on the idea that government can serve a positive function by defending particular programs and railing against efforts to strip government of the revenues needed for essential investments. Yet progressives seldom "speak out for the beneficial role of government as a whole."

This silence and the reasons for breaking it are the subject of a recent op-ed by Michael Lipsky and Dianne Stewart of Demos, a public policy organization in New York, in The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Lipsky and Stewart contend that today's public debate lacks advocates committed to "defending the government institutions on which we depend - those that provide for the common good, finance crucial services, protect us from threats we cannot avoid ourselves, undergird commercial transactions, and plan for the future."

Philanthropic and nonprofit advocacy groups are, in the authors' opinion, ideally suited to help restore respect for government and show how it "is the place where Americans come together to solve our most pressing problems."

Doing this, however, will require progressive groups to rethink traditional ways of behaving. For example, single issue groups must learn to cooperate with other kinds of progressive organizations, and foundations must not be so wary of grantees making political waves and stirring up public debate, especially in statehouses.

Instead of defending narrow interests and trying slowly to stave off the gutting of the public sector, progressive groups must articulate why government matters and how it can be a positive force that allows society to "best deploy national resources for the common good."

Values summit to be held March 3 at Duke

The American Values Summit on March 3 at Duke University in Durham, N.C., will feature nationally-known speaker Jim Wallis and others who seek "to promote public discourse encompassing a broad spectrum of moral values through collaboration with organizations in communities across the South."

The mission of the conference is:

Because morality is central to public policy decisions, and because one extreme end of the political spectrum has dominated American public discourse on morality for many years, we are bringing together a nonpartisan group of students, community leaders & faith leaders to explore how a broader conception of morality can reshape local, state and national public policy. We are driven by the conviction that many moral issues resonate in America , and discussions of faith and morality should address overlooked areas such as poverty, civil rights, ecology, health care, and education.

To learn more, visit American Values Summit.

N.C. vs T.V.A.

This week in the Charlotte Observer the chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Bill Baxter, responds to North Carolina State Attorney General Roy Cooper’s column and lawsuit against the TVA. Cooper claims that Western North Carolina suffers from being upwind of neighboring TVA utilities in Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee. He cites air pollution as contributing to rising healthcare costs for western North Carolinians and a decline in the regionally vital tourism industry. Cooper writes,

Our analysis shows that TVA is one of the largest contributors to air pollution in North Carolina. In the Eastern U.S., TVA emissions account for almost 900 deaths annually. Coal-fired plants that make electricity are the largest source of air pollution. In just our state the emissions are responsible for more than 15,000 illnesses and hundreds of emergency room visits and deaths each year.

Baxter’s response to Cooper’s allegations and lawsuit is informative to say the least. He counters by placing the majority of the blame on North Carolina utilities.

North Carolina utilities now emit more sulfur dioxide than every other state in the southeast except for Georgia, where TVA has no plants. They emit more SO{-2} than utilities in Alabama and Kentucky, where TVA and other utilities have plants, and twice as much as Tennessee, where seven of TVA's plants are located.

Baxter continues,

TVA has tried to meet with Mr. Cooper to discuss his concerns, twice. He refused to meet and instead chose litigation over discussion. Now matters will run their course. North Carolina taxpayers and TVA ratepayers will foot the legal bills. Be assured, however, our commitment to clean air continues, and we will continue to reduce emissions even more than we already have.

Baxter’s claims about Cooper’s cooperation are disturbing if true. Many in North Carolina see Cooper as a viable gubernatorial candidate in 2008. We can hope his actions are solely altruistic and not a regionally divisive ploy to gain positive press. Baxter concludes his piece with an appeal for regional cooperation, a course that all Southerners should encourage.

The most effective way to improve regional air quality is through regional solutions, such as EPA's 2005 Clean Air Interstate Rule, which requires utilities to reduce both SO{-2} and NOx emissions beyond levels required by North Carolina's Smokestacks Act. TVA is now planning a new emission reduction effort that will cost TVA and its ratepayers, including those in Western North Carolina, $3 billion to $3.5 billion on top of the $5.7 billion we are already spending.

Filing a unilateral lawsuit against one utility will not make the air cleaner. The actions TVA has taken thus far are what make the air cleaner, and TVA is committed to further reduce those emissions while providing reliable, affordable electricity to the 8.6 million consumers we serve.

TVA pollution is not just a problem for North Carolina. Southern states need to work together to solve common problems. The people, states, and regions affected by TVA have similar interests and problems. The last thing we need is infighting among neighbors, especially if it’s politically motivated.

Social Security: A state issue?

During a speech in Northwest Arkansas yesterday, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, Bill Halter, brought up the topic of Social Security privatization:

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Halter contends privatizing Social Security would hurt Arkansas, where beneficiaries draw about $1 billion more money annually than Arkansans pay into the program.

As governor, Halter said Tuesday, he would use the “bully pulpit” to fight privatization of Social Security. ...

He noted that Bush recently resurrected his Social Security plan in his proposed budget. If successful, the president’s proposal could hurt not just individual beneficiaries, but cost Arkansas as a whole, Halter said.

Afterward, Halter said in an interview that he arrived at his economic benefit figure by comparing the aggregate amount that Arkansas workers pay into Social Security through payroll taxes with the aggregate amount that the state’s Social Security beneficiaries draw from the program.

In 2003, Arkansans received roughly $5 billion in benefits, compared with about $4 billion the program gleaned in Social Security taxes in Arkansas, according to statistics from the Social Security Administration’s press office and Web site.

“There are counties [in Arkansas ] where as much as 9 percent of the income was from Social Security,” Halter said, referring to total incomes from salaries, wages and benefits.

This is notable because other Southern states are surely in the same position as Arkansas, drawing disproportionate benefits and income from Social Security.

With this being the first major election year since President Bush introduced his privatization proposal, could we see other Southern candidates raising Social Security as a state issue?

Katrina's ongoing toll

Along with a group of members of the National Conference of Editorial Writers, I spent much of last week touring the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Folks along the Mississippi and Louisiana coast are worried. They fear an "out of sight, out of mind" notion is infecting the rest of the nation. Six months after the hurricane, they worry that most Americans are moving on in the mistaken belief that the worst is behind us.

Having toured New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I can assure you that the recovery is nowhere near complete. One newspaper editor in New Orleans told me that he believed it what be five years before the Times-Picayune didn't have some mention of the Aug. 29 hurricane and its horrible aftermath.

Click here for a link to photos taken in and above New Orleans. You can read more here, here and here.

Gay Marriage Ban Advances in Virginia, Could the US be Next?

As the so-called Culture Wars heat up, the issue of gay marriage continues to be a major battleground in various states. In Virginia, a move to embed laws banning the legal sanctioning of both “gay marriage” and “civil union” relationships has taken another step toward reality as the state Senate voted to include the full wording of the proposed amendment on the ballot in November. Typically, statewide referenda and constitutional amendments are only summarized. However, given the contentiousness of this issue, the state senator shepherding the amendment says, “I don’t want to hide anything.”

If the House of Delegates approves the bill as voted on by the Senate, the language will go to the voters for final approval, and will become part of Virginia’s fundamental law. As the Richmond Times-Dispatch notes, “Although Virginia law already bans gay marriages, proponents of the amendment say a constitutional ban is needed to prevent ‘activist judges’ from overturning the state law.” While the proposed law does just that, the language used is broad and sweeping, thus running the risk of outlawing numerous legal arrangements between individuals, regardless of sexual orientation or relationship status, that currently exist. Though the amendment received bipartisan support, opponents of the amendment, gay and straight, are planning a massive voter outreach campaign to fight against it.

If the ban passes, Virginia will be among the 40 or so states to make such provisions part of state statutes, and among a sizable minority to include such laws in the state constitution. That so many states have gone down that road is important as only 38 are necessary to get to the ¾ target set forth in the United States constitution for approval of amendments. As such, the Commonwealth's voters may give advocates of the Federal Marriage Amendment even more ammunition for their fight.

NC's Unfinished Transformation

Although North Carolina has undergone a remarkable economic transformation over the past half century, the state's newfound prosperity has bypassed low-income working families. One-third of North Carolina's working families earn low incomes, meaning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line (or roughly $37,000 a year for a four-person family).

This finding comes from a new report released by the NC Budget & Tax Center. The study assesses the conditions of North Carolina's low-income working families and explores the degree to which the state's workforce development system helps low-income working families succeed in the modern economy.

A key finding is that educational deficiencies hold back many of North Carolina's low-income working families. One-third of such families contain at least one-parent without a high school diploma or GED credential, and 55 percent have no parent with any type of post-secondary credential.

Fortunately, North Carolina has a strong workforce development system comprised of post-secondary education and training programs for adults, economic development policies and work support programs like subsidized childcare. North Carolina is especially lucky to have a highly successful community college system at the center of its workforce development system.

The full report puts forth a detailed policy agenda that shows how North Carolina's workforce development system can be strengthened to better serve the needs of low-income working families. Special attention is given to policies that can help low-income working families access and afford educational opportunities.

The report was sponsored by the Working Poor Families Project, a national project designed to help low-income working families succeed in the labor market. Other Southern states that have participated in this project include Florida, Texas, Arkansas and Kentucky. Mississippi also will be releasing a report in late 2006. Click here to see the reports from other Southern states.

Poverty In N.C.

In the News and Observer, Rob Christensen writes an article about the income disparity in North Carolina. He cites a study released by the N.C. Budget and Tax Center that shows a growing disparity between the rich and poor in North Carolina.

In the early 2000s, the top 5 percent of North Carolina families had an average income of $183,253. The poorest 20 percent had an average annual income of $14,884.
Those figures are from a new study that shows the gap between North Carolina's rich and the poor is widening.

Christensen quotes fellow blogger John Quinterno,

"When the benefits of growth are concentrated among a few families, others have a much harder time providing for their basic needs, moving out of poverty, building wealth and providing opportunities for their children,"

Income disparity is one of the most important issues for Southern progressives. The South consistently has the highest poverty rate in the country. Christensen does not simply pass the buck to conservative fiscal policies.

Although Democrats often blame Republican tax cuts for the growing inequality -- and assuredly the cuts have played some small role -- most economists think that the trend is being driven by rising wages for skilled workers and lower wages for unskilled workers.
After all, the gap between the rich and the poor is growing all over the world -- and you can't blame that on George W. Bush.

Far more worrisome than inequality is the steady proportion of North Carolinians living in poverty: a family of two making less than $13,078 per year. The rate has remained stuck at 12.9 percent for the past 16 years.

Quinterno has a point when he says, "There are two North Carolinas -- one for the state's richest families and another for the rest."

But that may be a problem of poverty, not one of inequality.

Sale of national forests has opposition

The Bush administration has proposed selling off more than 300,000 acres of national forest and other government lands -- the biggest auction of public forest in decades. The idea is that the $800 million that is expected to raised from the sale will be used to better the roads and schools in the rural areas.

Both The (Louisville, KY) Courier-Journal and The Bristol (TN) Herald Courier recently ran opinions opposed the plan.

From The Courier-Journal's op-ed:

The... proposal is supposed to raise $800 million for rural schools and roads, nationally, over the next five years, but such Forest Service payments, especially in the East, often end up inconsequential: $8,000 for Lee County this fiscal year.

When these and other local specifics of the sell-off are brought to light, the public should make its objections heard.

And, from The Bristol Herald Courier's op-ed:

The national forests are a treasure worth preserving for future generations, not an asset to be sold for quick cash....Schools and roads are important, but selling public lands isn’t a sound way to pay for them. Congress should pronounce this proposal dead on arrival....[T]he proportionally small size of this initial sale doesn’t make it a good idea. Similarly, the money’s purpose doesn’t justify the means proposed to raise it. Once the nation starts down the path of satisfying short-term financial needs by selling public land, where will it end? Can this Pandora’s box be closed?

A place called Hope

Here in Arkansas, we're shaking our heads over the 10,000 FEMA trailers that are going unused in Hope instead of housing displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Just this week, FEMA announced it would no longer pay for the hotel rooms where many of those homeless people have been living. And not only are the Hope trailers sitting empty -- they may never be alloted to the Katrina victims, according to the New York Times:

Only about 2,700 of the 25,000 mobile homes ordered at a cost of $850 million have been installed, and at least 10,000 are sitting in Hope, Ark., according to documents and statements from Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. Though about 55,000 Louisiana families are still waiting for a manufactured housing unit, the mobile homes may never be used because FEMA regulations prohibit them from being installed in flood-prone coastal areas, federal officials said.

The effects of this incompetence are not abstract. Katrina victims and the affected region continue to suffer enormously as a result.

Better South profiled on Virginia blog

Center for a Better South President Andy Brack today outlined how the organization is run as a non-partisan organization on South of the James, an independent, nonpartisan Virginia weblog and online journal.

"Our goal is to provide ideas to help move the debate forward. As we've described to reporters in the past, the Center is kind of like a policy baseball pitcher that throws "idea strikes" over the plate. We don't really care who is batting - - or who hits the ball out of the park. But we want to provide the pitch that allows them to score that home run."

The interview by blog author Conaway Haskins of Chesterfield, Va., showcases the Center's roots in the progressive tradition of the LQC Lamar Society and provides an overview of how it hopes to impact policy debates with good ideas.

Many thanks to Conaway for the opportunity to talk with folks throughout Virginia and the South.

EITC Receipt Rises in the South

The proportion of tax filers claiming the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is higher in the South than in any other part of the country. Moreover, Southern metropolitan areas posted the nation's most rapid increases in EITC receipt between 2000 and 2003. These findings come from a new analysis of the federal EITC published by the Brookings Institution.

A feature of the federal tax code, the EITC is a refundable tax credit and wage subsidy generally targeted to low-income working families (those with incomes below $35,000). First enacted during the 1970s and expanded significantly during the 1990s, the EITC has become America's most effective anti-poverty program.

Perhaps the report's most alarming finding pertains to recent trends. Between 2000 and 2003, both the absolute number and proportion of taxpayers receiving the EITC rose. In 2003, 16.9 percent of all tax filers in the U.S. received the EITC, up from 14.9 percent in 2000. The Brookings study finds that this increase was attributable primarily to worsening economic conditions that made more families eligible for the EITC.

Southern metropolitan areas contain large concentrations of EITC recipients. In New Orleans, for instance, 38.5 percent of taxpayers received the EITC in 2003 -- the highest proportion in the nation. Similarly, six of the 10 American cities with the highest proportion of taxpayers receiving the EITC were Southern.

The Brookings' report outline changes that could be made on the federal level to strengthen the EITC. However, policy options also are available to state leaders across the South. First, Southern leaders can support outreach efforts designed to help qualified taxpayers claim the federal EITC. One such initiative is the EITC Carolinas program run by MDC, Inc. in Chapel Hill. Second, Southern legislators can help reward work by implementing state-level EITC programs linked to the federal one. In 2006, Virginia will become the first Southern state to add an EITC to its tax code.

Agriculture in North Carolina

An often overlooked aspect of the Southern rural economy is the role of government subsidies in farming. This week the News and Observer reports on the Congressional Committee on Agriculture’s public hearings in North Carolina. North Carolina farmers came out to voice their concerns regarding government assistance.

Growers of traditional crops such as cotton, corn and soybeans said they cannot stay in business if the government cuts payments that make up for low market prices. They pointed out that farm money makes up less than 1 percent of the national budget.

"Without a strong farm program, our rural economy and the backbone of our nation will suffer," said Bo Stone, a soybean, corn and livestock producer from Rowland.

With the growing federal deficit and the Bush administration’s new budget, farmers want to guarantee government support for their way of life. With the decline of tobacco, new crops are becoming more important to the agricultural economy of North Carolina.

From grape growers to watermelon farmers, most said that the government should fund new research into specialty crops and provide insurance to growers of those crops.

Government support for new crops and agricultural practices is important for all farmers, especially those in the South. As rural areas become increasingly impoverished, investment in the agrarian economy is vital to the health and success of the South’s suffering regions.

Webb's Impending Run for US Senate has Ramifications Beyond Virginia

Former Reagan Administration Navy Secretary James Webb has signaled his intention to run for the 2006 Democratic nomination for Virginia's US Senate seat, which is now held by presumptive 2008 GOP presidential candidate George Allen. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Webb, a political neophyte, says that “he will file papers this week to seek the Democratic nomination to run for the U.S. Senate this year.” Webb will now face former technology industry lobbyist Harris Miller for the party’s nod.

The Washington Post quotes Webb as saying that his campaign would "look very hard at all the notions of fairness in our society" in addition to foreign and national security policy issues. A Naval Academy graduate and decorated Marine who opposed the Iraq War, he earned a law degree from Georgetown and has written seven critically-acclaimed books. He resigned his Reagan-era Pentagon post over disagreements with the Administration on force reductions, and in subsequent years, Webb supported both Democratic and Republican candidates for various offices.

Several elements of this race should be of interest to observers of Southern politics. First, Democratic activists around Virginia have pushed hard for Webb's candidacy for months, and they initiated a “Draft James Webb” effort. The Raising Kaine blog, which helped elect Virginia’s new Democratic governor, spent significant amounts of time and energy promoting Webb. Says Raising Kaine writer & strategist Josh Chernila, "we pulled together thousands of dollars in pledges, and over a thousand signatures encouraging Mr. Webb to take up the banner." Now that these efforts have seemingly paid off, they continue to demonstrate the growing power of Internet-based movements to influence political variables and even candidates. Such initiatives could become difference-makers in the South, a region without hegemonic traditional media outlets.

Second, what could be the most fascinating aspect of the Webb candidacy is its potential to shift the racial politics of the former states of the Confederacy. In a 2004 Wall Street Journal article, Webb posited a politically-potent theory about uniting the South’s two major cultural groups. He says, "in fact the greatest realignment in modern politics would take place rather quickly if the right national leader found a way to bring the Scots-Irish and African Americans to the same table, and so to redefine a formula that has consciously set them apart for the past two centuries."

With Webb’s official announcement coming soon, what looked to be a shoo-in for Senator Allen is turning into a competitive and intriguing race.

Environmentalism by the Book

Not long ago, we mentioned in this space the involvement of religious groups and church leaders across the South in state-by-state efforts to increase the minimum wage. The idea, of course, is that extending a hand to the impoverished is a moral imperative encouraged by most religious teachings.

Now, according to today's New York Times, the same logic is being applied to the crusade against global warming. Evangelical Christians are getting involved and targeting Southern states with television advertsing that communicates their message.

Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors." ...

"For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority," the statement said. "Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough." ...

The television spot links images of drought, starvation and Hurricane Katrina to global warming. In it, the Rev. Joel Hunter, pastor of a megachurch in Longwood, Fla., says: "As Christians, our faith in Jesus Christ compels us to love our neighbors and to be stewards of God's creation. The good news is that with God's help, we can stop global warming, for our kids, our world and for the Lord."

The advertisements are to be shown in Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia.

Church fires in Alabama

A member of a burned-out church in West Alabama may have best captured the mood Southerners are feeling as they watch and hear about a rash of churches being set ablaze across a rural section of Alabama.

"I don't know what's going on," Johnny Archibold told the Associated Press. "It's just sickness."

Tuesday's four church fires bring the total to nine across West Alabama in less than a week. That's big news as evidenced by news reports here, here and here.

Most Southerners, black and white, feel a special closeness to their church. That may not be unique, but it appears to be more fervent in the South. These most recent fires were near my hometown, Aliceville, Ala., a place like many across the South where church is more than a structure. That makes the recent rash of church fires all the more disturbing and painful. Church is so closely tied to community life that you can't harm one without inflicting pain on the other.

Regardless of whether the arsonists are pranksters or folks with a more deep-seated intent, members of the smoldering structures are hurting, as are their neighbors, who realize their church may be next.

The words of Austin Banks, a federal agent looking into the blazes, might bring comfort to parishioners.

"It's a sad sight to see a smoldering church, particularly when it doesn't have a rich congregation. ... This is going to be our top priority until we put someone in jail."

Financing NC's Future

The issue of how to modernize North Carolina's tax system will take center stage this week at the Emerging Issues Forum in Raleigh, NC. Sponsored by the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State University, the 2006 forum will explore how North Carolina can change its tax system to adequately and fairly fund public services.

Like many states, North Carolina relies upon a tax system designed for a manufacturing economy to generate the revenues needed to meet the needs of a knowledge economy. As a result, North Carolina's budget has become structurally unsound, meaning that the state fails to collect enough tax revenues to meet its spending obligations, especially in the areas of public education and health care.

Although many people believe that North Carolina's current tax system is flawed, little agreement exists over how to respond. Should government cut spending to match current revenues, lower taxes in an attempt to encourage growth, raise or restructure existing taxes, or move to a totally new revenue system like the taxation of consumption? All of these possibilities are described in a series of working papers prepared for the forum.

While tax reform may seem like a dry or technical issue, it is one that should be of vital interest to progressives. The tax system is the financial mechanism responsible for supporting a wealth of public services. Decisions about the structure of the tax system touch on fundamental issues of the role and scope of government as well as financial and social fairness. As a result, progressives across the South should pay careful attention to the discussions scheduled to take place this week in Raleigh.

New Leader In North Carolina

The cover story of the Independent Weekly out of Durham focuses on the newly elected president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. Outspoken and fiery Rev. William J. Barber II hopes to reinvigorate the almost 100 year-old Civil Rights organization.

In his campaign, Barber criticized the number of inactive branches around the state, the dearth of youth involvement and a banqueting and socializing culture that he felt had lost touch with the organization's mission. "The banqueting ought to be a time of reflection," he says. "We need this if we're really truly fighting for justice. But what we can't do is simply banquet alone."

Besides trying to get the NAACP more active on the grassroots level and increasing involvement in inactive chapters, Barber is most passionate about the resegregation of black school children. White-flight and the resegregation of rural and inner city schools are some of the most important problems facing Southern Progressives today. The article highlights the problem of resegregation in Wayne County schools.

The statistics in Goldsboro are startling. The city is the seat of Wayne County and home to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Like much of the state and nation Barber hopes to change, the city is predominantly black and the surrounding suburbs mostly white. In the more than 30 years since integration, Wayne County's urban schools have shown a steady decline in population. Dr. Craig McFadden, assistant superintendent for accountability, said there were 8,000 students in the six central schools in 1970. When the city and county school systems merged in 1992, 5,000 students were registered. Today, that number is 2,659. Of those, 2,478 are black, 50 are white, and 131 are other races. Overall, the six city schools have a racial breakdown that is 93.2 percent black, 1.8 percent white, 5 percent other races.

"It's clearly systemic racism, but now it's also classism. Racism is not just somebody putting on a white sheet or burning a cross," Barber says. "It doesn't matter to me that in Goldsboro, or anywhere else in the state, folks don't sit around and say, 'We deliberately took these kids out and put them over there,' though I believe some of that goes on. When you implement policies that in fact make that happen, it still has the consequence of racism." The leadership built schools just outside of the city limits and started grafting off parts of the city, Barber says.

Barber’s statement highlights one of the most serious problems facing schools across the South. Hopefully, with his astute insights and charismatic leadership, he can lead a movement toward a greater understanding and solution to the unfortunate pattern.

We All Mourn a True Southern Lady

Born in Marion, Alabama and educated in Ohio and Boston, a young Coretta Scott envisioned a career in music and education. Yet, through a fateful courtship with a bright, young theologian from Atlanta, life took her far from that path and into legendary heights as the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. Coretta Scott King may have died Monday night in Mexico, yet her legacy as the keeper of her husband’s dream of freedom and equality for African Americans and all of humanity, will be as eternal as the flame that burns at their tombs. Mrs. King was an equal partner to her husband, and she emerged as a forceful speaker for truth and justice, founding the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change shortly after his assassination.

Without a doubt, the intellectual progenitors of the Center for a Better South were influenced by the work of Dr. and Mrs. King, and today, those of us, black and white, who dare to think that what we do will make a difference in the lives of our fellow Southerners owe the King family a debt of gratitude for blazing the trails before us. Coretta Scott King's grace in first fighting segregation and then fostering racial reconciliation and harmony cast a wide shadow over the states of the former Confederacy, and her work helped make the notion of a progressive South a reality. In sacrificing her own self-interest and sharing her dear husband’s life with the world, Mrs. King set a pristine example of forgiveness, love and hope which will make the South, and the US, whole for all of its citizens one day. So, as she will now lay in eternal rest, let each of us commit to doing what is needed and what is right to keep her dream alive for posterity.

2008 hinges on the South

This got my attention because of my interest in Arkansas politics, but it's really a statement about the evolution of Southern politics and the prominent role Southern states have assumed in presidential elections.

An article in the new edition of The Forum, a politics journal, says Southern states comprise six of the ten most critical presidential battlegrounds.

These ten states, pure and simple, hold the keys to victory in 2008 and beyond. ... Of these ten states, at least three—Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee—might be characterized as states that, historically, have been Republican at the presidential level, then moved away from those leanings in the 1990s to support Democratic nominees who hailed from those states (or nearby), and now have moved back to their more typical patterns of Republican voting in the last two presidential elections. ...

Democrats are competitive in Arkansas because, in contrast to most all other southern states, white voters have not completely written them off. Kerry lost white voters here 36%-63%, but that 63% for Bush was one of his lowest percentages in the region. Compared to Mississippi (where whites gave Bush 85% of their votes), Alabama (80%), South Carolina (78%), Georgia (76%), and Louisiana (75%), Arkansas whites are far more receptive to Democrats than most of the rest of the south, which is why Republicans have such a lock on those states. Arkansas remains a possibility for Democrats in 2008 and beyond if they can win a solid majority of women, maintain their overwhelming margins among black voters, and can hold down Republican margins among white voters. These are large “ifs,” to be sure. The results of the last two elections may signal that Arkansas—after the Clinton hiatus—is returning to its Republican presidential loyalties. But if Democrats are to pick off a state or two in the South, this remains one of their best opportunities.