Yes. Compared to previous years, you mean? Well, I've lived all over the
country, you know, in Connecticut and New York and Hawaii and California
and so forth, in the Navy. Virginia. And in the past there has been a
tendency on the part of the rest of the nation to look on the South as
kind of a backward region, as you know, economically. And very
ultraconservative politically. And completely wedded to one basic
political philosophy. Now, I believe an accurate assessment would be
that the rest of the nation, particularly those who are interested in
politics, look on the South as a bellwether portion of the nation. And
consider the average southern voter to be very representative of what
the nation feels about politics on major issues. This is an
all-pervasive belief. And I'll give you an illustration that at least
proves it in my own mind. Without any prior planning at all, both the
national Democratic and Republican Party within the last year have
turned to the Southeast for leadership in an almost
unbelievable degree.
We have eight major positions in the Democratic Party, for instance,
seven of which are filled by people who live in the Southeast. In the
Southern Governors' Conference . . . the Republican Party has ten major
positions in their hierarchy, and out of those ten positions, nine of
them are filled by people from the Southeast. An extraordinary
circumstance. The Republicans have a couple of extra appointments. For
instance, they have a National Women's Chairman, and we don't have that
as far as I know. But I'm the coordinator of a campaign. Bob Strauss is
chairman of the party. Mrs. McCulsky and Terry Sanford are the leaders
of two major party mechanism studies. The chairman of the Senate
Reelection Campaign Committee is Senator Bentsen from down in Texas. The
chairman of the Democratic Governors' Conference is the governor of
Kentucky. And the only exception to the rule is the eighth person, who
happens to be from Ohio, Congressman Wayne Hays, who is chairman of the
election committee for the members of the U.S. Congress. You have an
exactly equivalent position circumstances in the Republican Party.
We also see, in the inclinations of major candidates, when they want to
assess the feeling of the nation, quite often they make a tour through
the South. It may be that I have a parochial perspective on that, in
that other regions receive an equal number of major political visitors,
but I think that Senator Kennedy coming down to Alabama, and President
Nixon on his recent trip, are indicative . . . their actions are
indicative of the inclinations of others, who are looking toward the
1976 elections, that the southern people are very accurate mirrors, in
my opinion, of the average American voter. They are basically
progressive, deeply patriotic, moderate to conservative in political
orientation. I think that they have a basic allegiance to the Democratic
Party, but it can't be taken for granted. They have
a strong and an earliest inclination to exhibit the tendency that I
described yesterday of direct interrelationships with the candidates
themselves. I think they are fully aware of the need for the federal
government to work in harmony with the state and local governments. I
think they are fully conversant with the proper function of the federal
government to meet the legitimate social needs in the field of manpower
training, job opportunities enhancement, vocational and other higher
education, health services, welfare services, these sorts of things.
School lunchroom programs. Many of which have been initiated and
perpetuated by strong southern congressional leaders who would otherwise
be characterized as being very conservative. So, to summarize, there has
been a tremendous shift in attitude of the American people toward the
South, because now the South is looked on as not only a rich repository
of a major political influence, but it's kind of a bellwether region
that accurately represents what I think the majority of Americans on a
nationwide basis believe.