My take on the "Does The South Control Politics" debate: I'm not sure we can make too much from the argument that the country has chosen the Southerner five times out of seven in the modern era. Seven is a very small sample! And several of the examples -- like when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford in 1976 -- are much more easily attributed to historical context. (For years later, Carter lost to a Californian. With an independent in the race picking off votes in mostly Dem states.
Then there is the equation, as Paul Waldman writes, of Southernness with authenticity, which is, I would argue, actually an equation of rural life with the "authentic" American experience. In the popular imagination, Southerness is equivalent to temperamental conservatism; and historically, with anti-elitism; even conservatives can't deny that a primary motivator of Republican base voters in cycles past has been their disgust at coastal, megalopolisial elites. I often think that political folks confuse the geographic South with the cultural Souths, plural; the go-getter urbanity of Atlanta and Louisville, small towns in Southern Illinois, deep rural North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida -- it's very hard to reduce the essence of these variable regions to a few specific traits.
Also, as Dan Larison notes, there is the brute fact that the South (and Southwest) have been growing more rapidly than the rest of the country. That's why the number of Southern congressional seats relative to the Northeast has risen over 30 years.
I'm interested in the question of just what in Southern states' political culture produces a brand of presidential nominee that others find attractive. It may be how much control they have over their states: southern states tend to have stronger executive branches than Northern states - think of Florida and Mississippi as compared to New Jersey.
Finally, as to the question of whether Northerners condescend to Southerners in politics: yes -- in the same way that Southerners condescend to Northerners. But I'd bet you'd find that the attitudes of urban dwellers in Raleigh are more similar to urban dwellers in Boston than they are to, say, residents in the exurbs of Orangeburg, SC.
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