What I Have Said Before

http://davesaunders.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/nascar/
 http://fairtopartlymoderate.blogspot.com/2011/05/book-review-blue-dixie.html
 http://fairtopartlymoderate.blogspot.com/2012/03/look-at-how-far-they-have-come.html
 http://fairtopartlymoderate.blogspot.com/2012/03/so-goes-tennessee-so-goes-country.html


I have long said that the south is a valuable commodity in national politics despite what the Electoral College and nation pundits say. The south itself have been the hardest hit in the Great Recession and represents modern industrialization gone to the birds.   That aside Romney faces two nearly insurmountable battles in the South

First, what Mudcat is saying is true.  If southerners do not like something, then it is probly not worth liking.  Romney cannot get the rural vote no matter what he does.  He is not well liked here, and what he stands for does not resonate with Southerners.  Plus there is no one in the VP stakes that will come close to the rural vote much less beating the creditablity Vice President Biden has earned over the past five or so years. By the way the only group smaller that real candidates that could win Romney the rural vote is the group that wants to be Romney's VP anyway.  The lack of a viable VP candidate is but the first one Romney's many problems here in rural land

A factor that Mr. Saunders forgets, and may reasonably not mention in a national interview is the dark horse in the race..the white elephant that may well leave a terd in the punch bowl at the failed Republican victory party.  Who is this masked marauder that poses a real threat to the Republican base?  Who is this threat to all things holy in the last Republican bastion?  Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia.  Goode can play the Guns, God, Gays ballad all day long, and plans to do so.  Goode won't take Virginia (or any other states for that matter) but I would bet Mudcat a meal at Texas Tavern he will put a dent in the Republican vote.  Virginia was a battleground state in the truest sense in 2008.  The Commonwealth put a Democrats in the Senate and House, but went to Obama.  (Bi-partisan or Bi-polar..you be the judge) Any slice out of the razor thin majority Republican hope they have in Virginia is a death keel.  Goode is just such a slice.

Romney has an uphill battle no matter what Republicans think.  The south and those who care about the three G's don't like Romney and why should they.  He isn't one of them, and he certainlly doesn't know how to deal with them. That fact alone is not going to be repaired by a strong VP candidate (even though that has happened with OB