"The Ugly Side of the Southern Belle."

An op-ed in the NYT on the occasion of... can you even think what?

"Now the South is becoming isolated again."

"Every demographic and political trend that helped to reëlect Barack Obama runs counter to the region’s self-definition.... The Solid South speaks less and less for America and more and more for itself alone."

Writes some guy from a region where they use umlauts.

Tim Scott "will become the only African-American currently serving in the Senate and the first black Republican to serve in the upper chamber since the 1970s."

Appointed by Nikki Haley to replace Jim DeMint.

Scott was first elected to the House in 2010, winning an open seat after defeating the son of longtime Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), the former segregationist who held the state’s other Senate seat for nearly 50 years until 2003.

He will become just the seventh African-American to serve in the Senate and the first black senator from the South since the 1880s.

Only three black senators have been voted into office by their constituents: Sen. Edward Brooke (R-Mass.), Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) and now-President Barack Obama (D-Ill.). The others were elected by their state legislatures (before direct election of U.S. senators began) or appointed.

DeMint's term runs until 2016, but there will be a special election in 2014, so it remains to be seen whether this black Republican from the South can win a state-wide election.

ADDED: The linked WaPo article identifies Thurmond — "the former segregationist" — as a Republican, but when he was a big-time segregationist, he was a Democrat:

Thurmond represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1954 until 2003, at first as a Democrat and, after 1964, as a Republican....

In opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, he conducted the longest filibuster ever by a lone senator, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length, nonstop. In the 1960s, he opposed the civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965 to end segregation and enforce the voting rights of African-American citizens. He always insisted he had never been a racist, but was opposed to excessive federal authority.

"Nothing bores me more than to be in New York and have a dinner in a big fancy restaurant, where you have to sit for three fucking hours."

"You know and people will have drinks before, wine after, then three courses, then they want coffee and someone is going to ask for a fucking French press and all the rest of this crap. To me my idea of what’s good is to drive here and go to Waffle House, get a couple of eggs and waffle. When I see the first Waffle House, I know I’m in the South. That’s good."

Stephen King, talking to Neil Gaiman. Lots of nice stuff here. (Via Metafilter.)

Clarence Thomas "said he went to a Cracker Barrel restaurant with three non-lawyer buddies for his 60th birthday."

From an article about Justice Thomas's talk at the University of Kentucky.

The justice also had good words for the community in which he grew up. He compared the rural Georgia area to the setting of the movie The Help.

Despite all of the troubles, he wouldn't trade the neighborhood for anything, he said, adding that there was order and peace there.

"I was treated a lot better in the South than I was ever treated in the North," he said. In his high school, where he was the first, or one of the first, black students, "nobody ever said I was inferior."

Thomas described the Supreme Court as a "wonderful place" that "might be better than we deserve." He said the other justices are "good people" and his friends; he's never heard an unkind word among the nine justices when they discuss legal cases.

"The Muslims Are Coming!"

WaPo highlights a comedy tour that's targeting Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee, apparently on the theory that's where the Islamophobes are. They're filming themselves to make a documentary, and as you can see from the glossy clips presented at the linked WaPo page, they've set out to cherry-pick anti-Muslim remarks from the locals... even though they've got almost nothing. (For example, they catch a Southern girl saying she doesn't know what people would think if a mosque opened up in her neighborhood.)

Isn't this all rather Southernophobic? What if 4 comedians from Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee called themselves "The Southerners Are Coming!" and went to New York City — comedians just about exactly as funny and perceptive as the 4 comedians in the WaPo story — and they went around trying to elicit anti-Southern remarks from New Yorkers and cherry-picked the meanest/stupidest things people said. I have 2 questions about that: 1. Would the New Yorkers remarks be worse than what the Southerners said in the "Muslims Are Coming!" video? and 2. Would the Washington Post (or the New York Times) promote these aspiring comedians with a big glossy web page like the one at the link?

Answer questions 1 and 2.
	Yes and no.
	No and yes.
	Yes and yes.
	No and no.
pollcode.com free polls

"Why Do Southerners Call Mormonism a Cult?"

There's some history to it.

It's news — in the NYT — that a lot of black people these days think they'll be better off in the South

It's "an inversion of the so-called Great Migration" — in which black people moved "to the industrializing North to escape prejudice and find work."

About 17 percent of the African-Americans who moved to the South from other states in the past decade came from New York, far more than from any other state, according to census data. Of the 44,474 who left New York State in 2009, more than half, or 22,508, went to the South....

The movement is not limited to New York. The percentage of blacks leaving big cities in the East and in the Midwest and heading to the South is now at the highest levels in decades, demographers say....

“New York has lost some of its cachet for black people,” [said Spencer Crew, a history professor at George Mason University who was the curator of a prominent exhibit on the Great Migration at the Smithsonian Institution]. “During the Great Migration, blacks went north because you could find work if you were willing to hustle. But today, there is less of a struggle to survive in the South than in New York. Many blacks also have emotional and spiritual roots in the South. It is like returning home.”...

The Rev. Floyd H. Flake, pastor of the 23,000-member Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal Cathedral in Jamaica, Queens, said he was losing hundreds of congregants yearly to Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.

“For decades, Queens has been the place where the African-American middle class went to buy their first home and raise a family,” Mr. Flake said. “But now, we are seeing a reversal of this as African-Americans feel this is no longer as easy to achieve and that the South is more benevolent than New York.”

The South is more benevolent than New York.

"People grew up in church, so a lot of us lived in shame."

"What did we do? We wandered around lost. We married men, and then couldn’t understand why every night we had a headache."

From a NYT article about how it's a lot easier to be gay in the South than it used to be — with special attention to gay people with children:

A large number of gay couples, possibly a majority, entered into their current relationship after first having children with partners in heterosexual relationships, [demographer Gary] Gates said. That seemed to be the case for many blacks and Latinos in Jacksonville, for whom church disapproval weighed heavily.

Sometimes a watermelon is just a watermelon.

Poor Dan Rather. Don't you feel sorry for him? Look at the ridicule:

"[H]e couldn't sell watermelons to" who?  A state trooper?  He couldn't sell watermelons on a highway?  Yeah, the rest of it is "if a state trooper is flagging down the traffic on a highway, Obama couldn't sell watermelons," and Chris Matthews says, "Well, whoa! (muttering) I didn't think you meant that."  I'll tell you (laughing) from Massa describing Rahm Emanuel walking in a House shower with no curtains stark naked poking him in the chest and yelling at him about health care, to Dan Rather saying Obama "couldn't sell watermelons on a highway with a state trooper flagging down traffic," (laughing) I'm telling you, folks, they are falling apart. (interruption) No, it's no longer Black History Month.  If this had happened Black History Month, Oh.  Well, I don't know the menu was still up there or not, but this is hilarious.  Dan Rather! (laughing) "He couldn't sell watermelons..."  (laughing)...

... [Y]eah, some of you have written me notes.  "Don't you understand that Rather is saying this is what Republicans would say?" Of course he said Republicans are going to say this.  It doesn't matter.  Republicans have not said it.  Dan Rather did.

Now, you know darned well that if the racial slur conventionally perceived in "watermelons" had flashed through Dan Rather's still-flickering brain, he wouldn't have indulged in that particular Southernism. Rather has been dribbling Southernisms for decades and his enablers have petted him affectionately for being so darned sweet and cute and down-home. I'm sure this one was just a way of expressing the notion of incompetence — quite apart from race. It's meant to conjure up an image of someone unable to sell something that people really love even under really favorable selling conditions. The state troopers are there because you're supposed to picture the roadside stand, where the popular product alone is normally enough to lure drivers to stop. The troopers are providing even more help. They're flagging people down. That's all Rather meant. People are going to say Obama can't get anything done. That's it. If he'd have thought about race, he'd have censored "watermelons."

So I'll give Dan Rather a pass. But if we give Dan Rather a pass for the accidental appearance of racism, will anyone who isn't liberal be given a pass? I know they won't. That's the way it is.

"Screw 'em," Hillary said about working-class white southerners.

"You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."

"We're still on our feet, and much to the amazement of many, we're getting there, folks, we're getting there."

Huckabee reemerges.

He won the South. Did he win it because of something about the South, or because he has so little money that he had to concentrate it somewhere?

Ed Rollins, Huckabee's chief political strategist, said he would be astonished if Huckabee has spent more than $10 million on his candidacy....

But Huckabee focused his limited resources almost exclusively on the Southeast, with old-fashioned, retail politicking. He presented himself as the only true social conservative in the race, jabbing at Romney as a flip-flopper as he pulled conservatives disenchanted with McCain into his orbit.

"Conservatives had the opportunity to pick a real conservative in the South," Rollins said. "And they did."

Even as McCain was claiming the mantle of front-runner in his victory speech last night, he was compelled to congratulate Huckabee on his sweep of the South. "Not for the first time, he surprised the rest of us," McCain said.

So McCain is handling this gracefully. Meanwhile, Romney has been a clod about Huckabee:

Over the past weeks, Romney has said repeatedly that Huckabee was more a nuisance than a threat, a candidate who should drop out of the race and leave it to the only two Republicans who could reasonably claim to be contenders for the nomination. Huckabee complained during last week's California debate that he was being treated as a third wheel....

Romney supporters and aides continued to show Huckabee little respect despite the Super Tuesday victories....

"He deserves credit for hanging in there and being the winsome personality he's been. We've all enjoyed him," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a Romney backer. "But everybody knows Mike is not going to be in the final two. That hasn't changed."

Coming from a campaign that isn't doing very well, that haughtiness is ridiculous. "We've all enjoyed him"? That's so patronizing. It's got to push the religious conservatives even more strongly toward Huckabee. And it gives Huckabee more material for his folksy jokiness:

"I've got to say that Mitt Romney was right about one thing — this is a two-man race. He was just wrong about who the other man in the race was. It's me, not him."

"Not only will I won’t quit, I can’t.”

Not only will I won't make fun of Huckabee talk, I don't want to. I think it's cool... and probably Southern, and I'm guessing Southerners will won't appreciate it.

Another debate? Democrats... CNN...

Wolf Blitzer is still blabbing... 8 minutes into it! He's stumbling oddly. What the hell?

8:23 ET: Clinton sounds stressed and intense. When Obama speaks, she turns and faces him, as if her sheer presence might intimidate him. When it's her turn, she challenges him on multiple grounds, including his recent praise of Reagan.

8:26: Obama tries to respond, and Hillary interrupts him and denies that she referred to his statement about Reagan. She's trying to throw him off and make him lose his cool. He'd started out the debate seeming quite relaxed, maybe too relaxed. Now, he's sizzling. Edwards is begging to get a chance to speak. But Hillary has been attacked, so she has the right to respond. "We're just getting warmed up," she says with some relish. It gets very tense, but at some point both Hillary and Obama are saying that Reagan's ideas may have been distinctive and transformative, but they were bad ideas. Shaking things up, Hillary throws in the charge that Obama represented a "slum landlord" in Chicago. Obama fails to insist on his right to respond, and Blitzer picks this point to let Edwards in. Obama was wronged there, I think.

8:39: Lots of talk about the mortgage problems, and then Blitzer goes back to the "slum landlord" issue and gives Obama a chance to respond. (Not that he has much to say about it... which is perhaps why he didn't demand response time earlier.)

8:43: "You never take responsibility for any vote," says Hillary to Obama. She keeps up the pressure, accusing him of always having an "explanation" for his bad votes. There are all those "present" votes, she says, and we need a straight answer. Hillary came into this debate well-armed, and she's succeeding in throwing him off. Obama is sweating visibly.

9:04: "Of course, the surge was able to pacify some parts of Iraq" — Hillary slips in the concession that the surge worked, even as she is saying that there is no military solution. It just goes to show you can say everything if you really try.

9:07: Edwards wants to know if the others will commit — as he has — to removing all combat troops from Iraq in their first year. Obama goes first and blows a lot of smoke. I don't hear a "yes." Blitzer doesn't pin him down. Was that a yes or a no? Now, it's Hillary's turn, and she waffles too. But, to me, Edwards is the one with the worst substantive position here. Nevertheless, I must say that Obama and Hillary were asked a simple question, neither answered, and they got away with it.

9:11: After the break: Fisticuffs!

9:15: We return from commercials to see that they are rearranging the furniture. Wolf Blitzer informs us that they are rearranging the furniture. I'm annoyed. They had plenty of time to rearrange the furniture during the commercials. Why am I supposed to watch them rearrange furniture? Of course, the break isn't over. This was pure fakery. We're supposed to be titillated by Wolf's repeated assertions that after the break there will be no rules. So put up with some more break, will you?

9:23: Hillary says she's on a "mission." I think the other 2 said they were on a mission as well. This "no rules" part of the debate seems like squishy blather. Or is it me, losing my focus?

9:28: "A race where you've got an African American, a woman... and John."

9:31: "Do you think Bill Clinton was our first black President?" Funny to hear Obama asked that straight out. Bill Clinton had a great "affinity" for black people, he says. He goes on about white southern men, growing up through changing times in the south. Hillary nods knowingly in the background. Obama: "I would have to investigate more Bill's dancing abilities... before I could accurately judge whether he is in fact a brother."

9:40: Is Bill Clinton too big of a presence in Hillary's campaign? Blah, blah, blah, "at the end of the day," blah, blah, blah, she's the one who is running for President. And "ultimately, it's really not about any of us"... it's about people... and their stories... Total non-answer. Ridiculous.

9:47: Edwards: Who will be tough enough and strong enough? Who can go everywhere in America and compete — head to head — with John McCain? I give him credit for trying. In this context, how is he supposed to say the white man is the best bet?

9:51: Obama says he can beat John McCain too. He can "attract independents and some Republicans." Yeah! Obama is the one of the 3 who's most likely to interest non-Democrats, because he's a different kind of candidate. And Hillary can get some because she's more of a centrist. Edwards is the least likely to get them, I think. For some reason, Obama announces that he's "a proud Christian" and gets big applause. "A proud Christian" — is that a good phrase? I thought "pride" was a sin.

10:00: Doesn't this thing end after 2 hours? One more question... "on this important day." Why would Martin Luther King — if he were alive today, and unfortunately he's not — vote for you? Edwards: poverty, poverty, poverty. This question provided on more opportunity for Edwards to say "poverty." Obama: "I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us." I like that. Hillary: change, values, blah, blah... And it's over.

POST-DEBATE UPDATE: Here's video — via Instapundit — of that first big interchange between Hillary and Obama:



Obama quote I noticed this time: "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes." This was after Hillary claimed she never mentioned Ronald Reagan and brushed off whatever Bill may have said.

"If you’re a southern conservative and you can’t make it in South Carolina, it’s over."

Said Bill Bennett on CNN, bullying Fred Thompson, who might say that lumbering to a slow start is the right way for an adult to handle a campaign.

Why were the polls so wrong? Did people lie about voting for Obama?

Was it "the Bradley effect"?

ADDED: Mickey Kaus considers the Bradley effect + 3 other theories:

2. Lazio Effect. No ganging up on the girl! First, Edwards turns on her in the debate. Then Obama says she's merely "likeable enough." Then the press disparages her anger, mocks her campaign and gloats over its troubles. They made her cry! And then that mean macho John Edwards goes and says the crying makes her unfit to be president...

And she was also mocked — I heard it on Rush Limbaugh — for trying to get the Lazio effect going. Which would be a veritable Lazio vortex.

3. Feiler/Skurnik Effect: ... The familiar Feiler Faster Thesis holds that voters are comfortable processing information at the vastly increased speed it can come at them. Jerry Skurnik's "Two Electorate" theory holds that voters who don't follow politics are much less informed than they used to be, which causes polls to shift rapidly when they do inform themselves. Put these two together...

The Feiler/Skurnik Effect magnifies the significance of any events that occur in the final day or two of the campaign.

If this theory is true — or even if the campaigns think it's true — look out! (Good for blogging, though.)

4) The Congestion Alert Effect: I remember when the Southern California transportation authorities installed a state-of-the-art series of electronic signs alongside the freeways to give motorists instantaneous warnings of traffic delays. The signs don't do that any more. Why? It turned out that when you warned drivers of congestion on Route A, they all took Route B, leading the latter to become congested instead of the former. Similarly, independent voters in N.H. were told by the press that the Democratic race was a done deal--so they voted in the closer, more exciting Republican race....

A primary is not an election, so this kind of funny business is always part of the mix. I remember when my father voted for McGovern. He was damned pleased about it and assured me that's what everyone was doing. And here's the final electoral map for 1972. I was crushed. How dishonest!

Let's talk about the New Hampshire primary.

Are you watching the results on TV? What channel? I'm hanging out on MSNBC at the moment. I knocked NBC the other day, so I want to make a point of saying I love listening to Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw, who are on Chris Matthews' show right now. I was doing a little CNN before, but it got a little too Lou Dobbsy, so I changed channels. And let's give Fox News equal time. (I'm back in New York City, and I had a hard time finding Fox News, which isn't clustered with the other news channels the way it is in Madison. The New York cable channels are annoyingly jumbled.)

Anyway, the polls close soon. Are you all excited?

ADDED: Hmmm... Mitt Romney was arrested long ago for sledding on an ice block on a golf course. And he was once in a car accident in Paris in which some French cop wrote "Il est mort" on his passport. (Source: Fox News.)

AND: Fox News is saying Obama wins, but it's not a blowout, so Hillary can claim some species of victory. And McCain over Romney, but "too close to call."

MORE: Zombie! Will Hillary fight her way back?

AND: MSNBC calls the Republican contest for McCain, while the Democratic race is too close to call! Ooooo!

AND: Mitt: "Another silver." He wants the gold, but who's done better than 2 silvers (and Wyoming gold)?

MORE: Wow! What a disappointment for Obama-lovers. Can it be that Hillary and her crying turned things around? Did people see how much Bill Clinton wanted to keep going and feel sympathy? Or is it a case of: New Hampshire voters not wanting to be told what to do? But when I read of the huge turnout, I assumed a big Obama victory. I guess her collapse was quite odd, and the news that it wasn't real makes sense.

AND: Huckabee speaks. Expresses enthusiasm at doing at all well. "This ole southern boy... in New England...."

AND: McCain speaks. The chant is "Mac is back." He can't call himself "The Comeback Kid," because he's not a kid. But it's a great comeback. "I'm going to New Hampshire, and I'm going to tell you the truth.... I talked to the people of New Hampshire. I reasoned with you." Did anyone ever concede like that before? I reasoned with you. Beautiful. [ADDED: Mmmm.... "concede" isn't quite the right word!]

AND: Uuuuggghhhh.... I'm reeling in shock! Hillary overcame The God Obama? Noooooooo!

AND: Did people just get disgusted with the hype?

"Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

Mike Huckabee asks the NYT reporter. The reporter, Zev Chafets, portrays Huckabee as rather sly:

Romney, a Mormon, had promised that he would be addressing the subject of his religion a few days later. I asked Huckabee, who describes himself as the only Republican candidate with a degree in theology, if he considered Mormonism a cult or a religion. ‘‘I think it’s a religion,’’ he said. ‘‘I really don’t know much about it.’’

I was about to jot down this piece of boilerplate when Huckabee surprised me with a question of his own: ‘‘Don’t Mormons,’’ he asked in an innocent voice, ‘‘believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?’’

Earlier in the article, Chafets also references the devil — who, I think, appalls most NYT readers not because they fear Hell but because they fear those who concern themselves with the famous old supernatural malefactor. The context is that Huckabee is glowing over the endorsement of Tim LaHaye, author of the ‘‘Left Behind’’ series:

Recently [LaHaye] donated a hockey rink to Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, although some members of the faculty there deride ‘‘Left Behind’’ as science fiction. Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, has no such reservations. He considers the ‘‘Left Behind’’ books, in which the world comes to a violent end as Jesus triumphs over Satan, a ‘‘compelling story written for nontheologians.’’

Is Chafets trying to get readers to think that Huckabee is more benighted than a Liberty University professor? What actually is the difference between viewing the books as "science fiction" or as a "story for nontheologians"? Is it that those faculty members "deride" the story while Huckabee finds it "compelling"? But those unnamed faculty members don't stand to benefit from the endorsement of a very popular author, and there's actually nothing inconsistent between ridiculing the scenario in those books and acknowledging that the story works very well to engage some people in thinking about religion.

Satan horns his way into the article again when Chafets sits down to lunch with Huckabee:

Lunch with Mike Huckabee is a study in faith-based dieting. He has lost 110 pounds in recent years, a feat he chronicled in a book, ‘‘Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.’’ This has given Huckabee something to talk about on daytime television. More important, it has lent him evangelical street cred. An important part of the evangelical narrative is overcoming the devil. But Huckabee was seemingly born born-again. Luckily for him, gluttony counts as a sin, Crisco as a Christian chemical dependency. By the time he reached 40, Huckabee had packed more than 300 pounds onto his 5-foot-11 frame. Then he began wrestling, calorie by calorie, with Satan.

Huckabee ordered soup and a sandwich without drama or comment and began talking about rock ’n’ roll.

Damn! Why won't Huck give Chafets the religious nuggets he so craves?

This is his regular warm-up gambit with reporters of a certain age, meant to convey that he is a cool guy for a Baptist preacher. Naturally I fell for it...

... but not hard enough to resist adding Satan! to the text of the article even though Huckabee apparently hadn't even mentioned religion at this point.

... and asked who he would like to play at his inaugural. ‘‘I’ve got to start with the Stones,’’ Huckabee said. The governor regards 1968 as the dawning of ‘‘the age of the birth-control pill, free love, gay sex, the drug culture and reckless disregard for standards.’’ The Rolling Stones album ‘‘Their Satanic Majesties Request’’ provided the soundtrack for that annus terribilis.

Satan again! Is Satan tempting Chafets? And why not tell us about "Sympathy for the Devil"? That came out in 1968. "Satanic Majesties Request" was released in 1967 and contained candyass songs like "She's a Rainbow." Maybe the editor decided it was high time to strike one Satan reference.

But Mike Huckabee wanted me to know that he believes in the separation of church and stage.

"Church and stage"? Oh, so that's not a typo? It's a Huckabee joke that's been processed into near imperceptibility.

You put all that Satan into the article and then you don't let us get the feeling for how he really talks about Satan? And the big quote everyone's going to get from the article is the one I've put in the title to this post, which leaves Huckabee — perhaps a kindly and humorous guy — looking... devilish.

"Mitt Romney stood up, and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens, opposed driver's licenses for illegals."

"Mike Huckabee? Supported in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. Huckabee even supported taxpayer-funded college scholarships for illegal aliens."

That's Mitt Romney's new ad.

Meanwhile, Ryan Lizza has this big piece in The New Yorker about the Republican Party's embrace of "nativism." Excerpt:

“[Immigration] does appear to be the issue out here wherever we are,” [Mike Huckabee] told me. “Nobody’s asked about Iraq—doesn’t ever come up. The first question out of the box, everywhere I go—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, it doesn’t matter—is immigration. It’s just red hot, and I don’t fully understand it.”

Romney has not been similarly reflective in trying to discern the source of the issue’s power. Rather, he has quickly and easily adopted the negative code words of the anti-immigration movement—“sanctuary cities,” “amnesty”—and has tried to attach them to Giuliani and Huckabee. In doing so, he became the first top-tier candidate to seize the Tancredo mantle. My own sense, from talking to Huckabee, a Southern populist, and McCain, a border-state senator, is that they are genuinely appalled by Romney’s tactics, not only because of the damage to their campaigns but also because of the damage they believe he’s doing to the Party’s image....

[L]ast week, Huckabee, too, found his inner Tancredo: he announced the Secure America Plan, which included tough language about enforcement and pressuring illegal immigrants to return home. This leaves McCain as the only Republican candidate who hasn’t folded in the face of Romney’s attacks. At the press lunch in Virginia, after McCain had discussed his warm relations with several candidates, a reporter asked about Romney. “I’ve never known him,” McCain said icily. “I’ve never had a relationship with him.”

Obama's "The One," says Oprah.

"Apathy is the attitude that disappointment is normal." That's a quote that stood out for me, listening to Oprah Winfrey introducing Barack Obama in South Carolina. I'm watching the video at that link and thinking about how well the familiar Oprah style translates into the political setting.

At first, Oprah sounds hoarse and yells too much, but she settles into things by saying "South Carolina" over and over, talking about her own southern roots, thickening her southern accent, and confessing that she's leaving her comfort zone — "stepping out of my pew." That's an image that combines her beloved TV show and her roots in southern religion. She deftly unites modern TV-pop psychology and old-time religion.

She eases into talking politics. She's never done this before. She's stayed away from politics. She's had apathy, she says, but now she's inspired. To say that is to unite psychology and religion and politics. She increases the sound of the southern preacher in her voice so it makes you start thinking of Martin Luther King just before she says, "You know, Dr. King dreamed the dream." The audience responds with a churchly "Yeah." But we don't have to merely dream anymore. "We get to vote that dream into reality." She still hasn't said the name "Barack Obama," but the listener is on edge expecting the invocation of the name. "The reason I support Barack Obama is because he speaks to the potential inside every one of us."

Thus she presents Obama as an embodiment of our political, religious, and psychological needs. I'm saying "our," even though the presentation is strongly aimed at black people, because I don't lose the sense that she is speaking to the country as a whole. She ends with an image from the old television movie "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," in which the ancient black woman is asking one young black person after another, "Are you The One?" This too combines the psychological, the political, and the religious — religious, because who is "The One" but the savior of mankind?

She tells us some people think that Barack Obama ought to wait. She equates that with the old message that black people ought to have waited for equality. In this rhetoric, to tell him he should wait feels racist. But Oprah never accuses anyone of racism. She never even mentions the name of the rival who wants us to think that she is ahead of him in line. Oprah keeps the positive message in front. This is inspirational. Barack Obama is The One, so allow him to emerge into his rightful place, and we will all be fulfilled, saved... and — why not? — well governed.

ADDED: The photo at the link — to the NYT — says a lot. Oprah and Michelle Obama are standing together under a sign that, cropped, reads "We can believe in." Barack Obama is pointing at them with an active gesture that makes me think he's using his miraculous powers to unite the two women — to unite us all. Believe!