The sad thing is that the South isn't as conservative as it appears; it's just that many potential voters that would vote Democratic don't show up to the polls or register to vote because they feel defeated by the conservative force here in the south. Georgia has been controlled, until 2002, by Democrats at the state level; what I don't understand is why people here trust local Democrats but not national ones.
First of all, welcome to the forum! I hope you stick around.
With regard to your last sentence, I don't quite understand why you don't understand why voters vote the way they do in your state. Since you actually live in the state, I assume you would know better than I do.
I have my ideas on why southerners vote for Democrats for lower local and state-level offices, but not at the national level, which involves the greater emphasis on social issues at the national level (since both major parties are more or less pro-business to most people), which currently best differentiates the national Democratic Party from the Republican Party.
At the state and local levels, it is by and large state and local issues that determine who people vote for, and since southern Democrats tend to be by and large socially conservative and all-round moderates, southerners simply feel more comfortable voting for them. Now, apparently things have changed since the 1990s, since Republicans are increasingly more powerful at even the state and local levels in the South, but Democrats still have a much better chance at winning an electoral office at the state and local level in most southern states than they do at winning a national office.
So, what do you think? What are your ideas?
