The most remarkable change in American politics in recent generations has been the emergence of partisan competition that has transformed the once solidly Democratic South. After almost a century of unswerving Democratic loyalty, the South gave near unanimous support to GOP presidential nominees in four of five elections between 1972 and 1988 which gave rise to the belief that the GOP had a lock on the region's electoral votes (Black and Black 1992). In 1992, Bill Clinton picked the lock and made off with four states; however, the South remained George Bush's strongest region. Nonetheless, 1992 was the best presidential year for Democrats since 1976 when Georgian Jimmy Carter carried the region, except for Virginia.

Beneath the tidal wave that saw Democrats win only 51 of 553 electoral votes from the 11 southern states from 1980 through 1992, are several currents. One element has been the seeping of GOP influence further down the ticket. Initial Republican successes in the South came in voting for president even as most southerners steadfastly supported state and local Democrats. No longer, however, do GOP presidential nominees like Richard Nixon sweep the South's electoral votes while Republicans manage to win only a third of the congressional seats and half as many state legislative seats. Nonetheless differences remain in the success of the GOP for various levels of offices and variations persist in the degree of support given the two parties by different groups in the South.

The cry of “Black Power” shook American society three decades ago. “Black Power” was a slogan that energized a generation of young African Americans, troubled their elders such as Dr. King (who agreed with many of the goals, but saw the slogan itself as divisive), and appalled the great majority of whites. As seriously as the slogan divided blacks, the intra-racial gap was small compared to the inter-racial gap as Aberbach and Walker documented in the pages of the APSR decades ago (1970). Blacks and whites understood black power to represent very different concepts. Where blacks understood the concept to mean either fairness or black unity, whites saw the slogan as representing blacks' demand that white supremacy be replaced with black supremacy.

It has been nearly thirty years since our colleague Charles V. Hamilton co-authored the extremely influential Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America with Stokely Charmichael (1967). They forcibly argued that “before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks.” (Charmichael and Hamilton 1967, 44, emphasis in original). However, blacks generally rejected nationalist programs and opted as they had in the past for what many such as Guinier have labeled a civil rights agenda (Guinier 1994). Instead of rejecting traditional politics, black empowerment strategies embraced during the 1970s by both integrationist and nationalist forces concentrated on the electoral arena. Black power moved from confrontations in the streets and on college campuses into the electoral arena during this period. This “New Black Politics” was celebrated by many blacks and whites inside the academy. The “new” electoral successes were heralded as representing true black power, the institutionalization of the mass movement, the exercise of power in the real policy forums of the nation.

A recent essay by Ralph Reed (19%), Executive Director of the Christian Coalition, proves that religious conservatives are still divided over the propriety of political activism, nearly two decades after the rise of the Christian Right. Reed's principal message is that the Christian Right must be willing to compromise to retain its political relevance, but his admonition at the end is that “at heart, what America needs is not political revolution but spiritual renewal.” Which matters more, collective political goals or individual spiritual commitment? Which better serves religious conservatives, practicing or eschewing politics? Those questions have bedeviled religious conservatives throughout the 20th century, (Jelen 1991; Wilcox 1992) with the theological fault line running so deep that Christian-Right leaders still straddle the fissure.

Reed's essay also illuminates some of the political tensions within the Christian Right. He argues for a pragmatic approach to politics, criticizing “purists” for their exclusionary language, inflammatory rhetoric on the social issues, and immutable goals in the face of certain defeat. He suggests “the religious right must give ground or risk irrelevance,” calling for language in the 1996 Republican Party platform that stresses the moral dimension of abortion, but drops the long-standing plank calling for a constitutional amendment banning the procedure.

Will Latin American migrants bring with them the tradition of the “mordida,” the lack of involvement in public affairs, etc.? … ‘Gobernar es poblar’ … Can ‘homo contraceptivus’ compete with ‘homo progenetiva’ if borders aren't controlled?.…perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down!…

(John Tanton, founder of the interest groups FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), U.S. English, and ZPG (Zero Population Growth), 1988)

Clearly, Latino population growth has made its presence known among those who concern themselves with U.S. political culture. With half of the Latino population boom attributable to international migration, the Latino foreign-born have come under particular fire. John Tanton, a Michigan opthamologist and outspoken policy activist, served as the 1980s prelude to equally-heated debates throughout the 1990s—debates that engaged far more formidable political and policy figures, from the immigration restrictionism of California governor Pete Wilson and economist George Borjas to the immigration advocacy of National Council of La Raza director Raul Yzaguirre and economist Julian Simon.

At the core of Tanton's “warnings” in the 1980s are a provocative mix of half-truths. It is a fact that Latino population growth has outstripped that of non-Hispanic whites since 1980—by a factor of nine, to be precise. By the turn of the 21st century, one in ten U.S. residents will be Latino-origin (Baker 1996). It is a fallacy, however, that this burgeoning population growth presages a new millenium in which “lack of involvement in public affairs” will characterize the Latino contribution to politics in America. That fallacy is revealed most succinctly in the slogan of the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, launched in 1974 in San Antonio, Texas: “Su voto es su voz” (Your vote is your voice). The operational result of that principle, backed up by decades of diligent voter registration training in towns and cities across the United States, has been the registration of over 2 million Latino voters and consistent increases in both registration and turnout over time, relative to African-American and non-Hispanic white voting patterns (Southwest Voter Research Institute 1996).