Southern Cabinet
I hope to never address this issue again, but I can’t help but notice that for an administration that allegedly contains no Southerners, Barack Obama’s administration contains an awful lot of people with significant ties to the south.
The Secretary of State lived in Arkansas for 26 years, including over ten years as First Lady of that state. The Secretary of Defense lived in Texas for seven years, including time spent as president of Texas A&M University. The Press Secretary is from North Carolina. The “climate czar” is from Florida and spent many years working in Florida politics. And the US Trade Representative is from Texas and served as mayor of a major southern city.
But apparently things like “being from the south” or “living in the south” or “working in the south” or “heading major southern institutions” doesn’t count as being a southerner. It’s Trent Lott or bust!
49 Responses to “Southern Cabinet”
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December 21st, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Paula Deen and the Rathbun brothers for White House chefs, baby.
As a Southerner, I could not give less of a sh*t about this. After the last 30 odd years of Republican fetishism of reactionary white Southern rural conservatives as the only ‘real’ Americans, I could do with a break.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
As far as Florida goes, it’s a case of the farther south you go, the more north you get, and more so every day. Florida is kind of outlier in The South, like southern Indiana. It sure ain’t ‘Bama or Missssippi [sic] or the hollers of Tennessee.
As far is Hillary goes, she might have lived there for a quarter century but they don’t seem to have been very impressionable years.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:05 pm
How about if he promises to drink only from Dixie cups? Will that cover it?
December 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
The Climate Czar and the Trade Representative and the Press Secretary are not members of the Cabinet. Nobody said the administration contains no southerners, just that the cabinet has none.
Hillary Clinton grew up in Illinois and is a Senator from New York.
You have a case about Gates, I think, although his association with Texas appears to have begun at the age of 56, which is rather old to make someone a southerner.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
One might add that there are numerous southerners who might have gotten administration jobs who are not Trent Lott.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
“How about if he promises to drink only from Dixie cups?”
Dixie cups are made in Easton, PA and are a Northern invention. So that might not help. I do appreciate the irony of conservative Southerners insisting on a quota system, however. Discrimination never seemed to be a problem when they were doing the discriminating.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:40 pm
What if Obama promises to regularly use the phrases “might could” and “fixin’ to”?
December 21st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Your math is off regarding HRC. She moved to Arkansas in August 1974, and moved to Washington DC in January 1993. That’s a little over 18 years. Still, a fine point.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Maybe I’ve missed it, but no one seems to be providing the names of Southerners Obama should have picked. Certainly, I don’t think anyone has made the case that a particular Southerner is better than one of the people Obama has picked.
The Republicans dominate the South, so there is not a ton of political talent to pick from. More importantly, any Democrat who does manage to win in the South needs to stay and keep winning. You can pick an Iowan or a Coloradan or a Californian and know there is a deep Democratic bench to fill their shoes. Any Democratic Southerner with state-wide appeal in the “real” South needs to stay and keep building the party.
A long-winded way of saying, no real controversy here.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:54 pm
What Rarely Posts said.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Fuck southerners, says this southerner.
December 21st, 2008 at 4:58 pm
The Cabinet contains no southerners because there is no strong current of reasoned liberalism in the South. There’s either conservative populism or liberal populism, and Obama obviously endorses neither of those. Jim Hightower wouldn’t be Obama material any more than Huckabee.
December 21st, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Tom Daschle is from South
Dakota. What more do these people want?
December 21st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The best news about the cabinet is that no one’s from Texas. Let’s make that a habit, shall we?
December 21st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
14 – as Matt notes, Gates was President of Texas A&M, and was probably confirmed as “Robert M. Gates of Texas”. He’s not originally from Texas, though.
December 21st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Uh, how many Southerners does Bush have in his cabinet right now?
By my count, it’s Condi (uh, who spent a LOT of years in the Northeast and CA); Margaret Spellings (who lived in Illinois until 3rd grade), Peake (who was born in St. Louis but may have in fact been an army brat), and Gates.
I guess Bush gets a pass. It’s almost like this outrage isn’t real and serves a political purpose…
December 21st, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Once again, discussions about “Southern politics” limit themselves to talking about white Southerners, and render black Southerners invisible. They don’t exist, aren’t important, aren’t worth discussing.
The fact is, black Southerners have provided some of the Democratic Party’s strongest levels of support since the Voting Rights Act was passed. Black and white Southerners have never voted for the same party in a presidential election. There are a number of black Southern House members who run the ideological gamut just like in white politics; some conservatives like Artur Davis, some establishment players like Jim Clyburn, and some proud progressives like John Lewis.
But in discussions of Southern politics – from people across the spectrum, left, right, and center – it’s only the stereotypical white rural Southerner who gets attention – cynical praise for their “authentic American” qualities from the right, and scorn and derision for their “backwardness” from the left.
But the black descendents of slaves and sharecroppers and factory workers who make up the majority of the Democratic electorate in many Southern states? “Whuh?”
December 21st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
But in discussions of Southern politics – from people across the spectrum, left, right, and center – it’s only the stereotypical white rural Southerner who gets attention
17: You can’t honestly believe this. Did you sleep through the South Carolina Democratic primary? Do you think Obama opened up campaign offices in NC and GA because he was ignoring Southern Blacks?
We all understand that “Southerner” is used as an euphemism for Culturally reactionary whites who identify culturally with the region. The term in this usage doesn’t refer to black southerners but it also doesn’t refer to Suburban Marylanders or folks in NoVA no matter what race they are. Just because we don’t spell out the euphemism every time we talk about it doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about southern blacks.
December 21st, 2008 at 6:25 pm
The Press Secretary is from Alabama, actually. God’s country. Or so I hear.
December 21st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
It gives the media something to talk about, in the mode they love best, a horse race: will Obama’s victory carry through to the future if he doesn’t do X, Y, and Z? It hardly matters to the story that a typical voter, perhaps especially a Southern white male, couldn’t name three cabinet members on a dare, much less would vote on that account.
December 21st, 2008 at 7:00 pm
The Climate Czar and the Trade Representative and the Press Secretary are not members of the Cabinet.
US Trade Representative is a Cabinet-level position (that is, despite being styled Ambassador instead of Secretary, Ron Kirk will be attending cabinet meetings).
December 21st, 2008 at 7:52 pm
As an aside, most Texans do not view themselves as Southerners.
December 21st, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Cabinet level is not quite the same thing as actually in the cabinet.
December 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
MP (#22) is right – you’d be hard-pressed to find a Texan identify as southern. It’s diverse geographically and otherwise: some of it looks like the south, some of it like the southwest, and some of it like nowhere else (the shockingly homely “oil patch,” for instance). Likewise the political make-up, though southern-esque ideology (and demographics of political figures) tends to apply more often than not. So if it’s not the south, or firmly any other distinct region, what is it? It’s the sovereign nation-state of Texas – just ask most any Texan. Why sweat not being part of Obama’s administration when that’s the case?
December 21st, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Cabinet level is not quite the same thing as actually in the cabinet.
How do you mean? They go to Cabinet meetings and have equal diplomatic rank. Are you talking about the constitutional order of succession?
December 21st, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Made up, ginned up issue. There was nothing else to squawk about at the time.
December 21st, 2008 at 10:00 pm
The only thing I’ve found irritating about his appointments, is how many are from Illinois. Now, this is surely a case of choosing known entities who have had a long term relationship with Obama. Nevertheless it surely means that geographic distance does not help a prospective candidates chances.
December 22nd, 2008 at 9:37 am
Traditionally only eastern Texas has really fit in with the “Southern” mold, given its cotton production and slavery. In 1929 eastern Texas was producing just under 4 million bales of cotton.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:54 am
Well, most west Texans don’t. Then again, get far enough West and people relate more to New Mexico. East Texans have much more in common with the South culturally. Then again, there’s also this winnowing practice in which the South doesn’t include Florida (except the panhandle), Texas (too Southwestern), Louisiana (too idiosyncratic), etc.
Whoops, I see El Cid is on top of the East Texas thing. Well then, let me add that Texas A&M is in Brazos county, proximate to the Brazos River Valley, and right in the midst of that former cotton producing land.
December 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 am
You are talking about ‘come heres’. You are not southern unless you are a ‘been here’.
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
For better and for worse, white Southerners are best understood as being members of an ethnic group like the Italian-Americans or the Irish-Americans. Moving to Arkansas as an adult doesn’t make you Southern.
December 22nd, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Sorry, but that logic means my college roommate (from Ohio) would get a pass as an honorary Southerner simply because he roomed with me for four years.
We prefer an administration without a true Southerner to giving faux Southerners undeserved status as sons and daughters of the Confederacy.
December 22nd, 2008 at 4:29 pm
As a white southern progressive, I find it an odd feeling to be on the business end of Yankee progressives’ marginalizing. Since when did being from the South automatically disqualify you from joining the club?
Also, liberal-/progressive-types in the South tend toward populism as a matter of practicality: If we want our populace to start thinking progressively, we have to get them educated and above the poverty line first.
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