The worst part of the Old South is clearly dead when an Indian-American is elected Governor of Louisiana by a landslide and a woman, Hillary Clinton, and a black male with a white mother and an African father, Barack Obama, are the front runners in the Southern states even when their main opponent is a white Southern male from North Carolina.
Now this, of course, is hardly the end of racism, but it is hard to imagine anyone believing even four years ago the above statement could be made today.
Louisiana elects young, Indian-American governor
Republican Bobby Jindal, 36, will be the first nonwhite to hold the state's top spot since Reconstruction.
By Miguel Bustillo Los Angeles Times Staff Writer October 21, 2007
Republican Bobby Jindal won election as Louisiana governor Saturday, setting a string of firsts and leaving no doubt that the state's voters strongly desire new leadership two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Jindal, 36, will be the nation's youngest sitting governor.
The son of Indian immigrants, he will also be the first Indian American governor in U.S. history, and the first nonwhite to hold the job in Louisiana since Reconstruction.
The election of Jindal, who is a conservative, underscores the fast-fading fortunes of the Democratic Party in Louisiana after the hurricanes.
Under Louisiana's wide-open "jungle primary" format, Jindal had a chance Saturday to win the race outright if he could capture more than half the votes in a field of 12 candidates.
He did. With nearly all precincts counted, he held 54% of the vote.
The next closest competitor, Democrat Walter J. Boasso, had 18%. Independent John Georges had 14%; Democrat Foster Campbell had 13%.
And within the Democratic primary race, even in South Carolina - one of the more conservative states even in the South - and directly next door to Edward's home state of North Carolina - John Edwards at 8% badly trails both Clinton at 39% and Obama at 25%.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/sc/south_carolina_democratic_primary-234.html
Even a year ago - those poll results would have been an unimaginable. And when one factors in the differences between younger and older voters when it comes to race and gender, in not so many years, even in the Old South, a person's race or gender will be the least most important factor in choosing the leader of our nation.
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