Some are beginning to talk of it as the second American revolution. States that have been the spiritual home of the modern Republican party are now within reach of the Democrats. It is a result of shifts in the region's economy and population - and of the huge sums the Obama campaign has poured in as McCain faltersDowntown Charlotte looks like the ultimate modern American city. Towering, glass-clad skyscrapers shoot into the blue North Carolina sky and it is hard to find a building that looks more than a few decades old. Sipping a Starbucks coffee in a city park is Tim Cable, 41, who worked as a consultant with the financial firms that have made this the biggest banking centre in America outside New York. It is a very different scene from the stereotypical southern image of rednecks, pick-up trucks and dusty towns. But then again, so are Cable's politics.
'I am voting for
Obama,' he says. 'I decided that more than a year ago.' More surprisingly, Cable thinks the Democratic candidate could win North Carolina in the November election. That would turn this red state blue, and perhaps herald a huge change in American politics. 'Places like Charlotte are changing the face of the South,' Cable said.
It is no pipe dream. In a potentially momentous shift, Obama's campaign to become America's first black President has made remarkable strides in the South. He has built up a firm lead in Virginia, which has not voted for a Democrat for President since 1964. He has opened up a narrow gap in North Carolina and is ahead in Florida. Across Dixieland, from Texas to Kentucky to the Carolina coast, Republican stalwarts are running up against a surging tide of Democratic party support.
Obama's campaign has opened scores of offices across the South, often outnumbering the Republicans on their own turf. John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, have been forced to campaign here, diverting them from the battleground of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Obama's performance in the South could mark a new phase in American politics. The South has been the modern Republican party's spiritual home. The social conservative revolution was born here. It is the land of the Bible Belt and social values. Yet the Republican party is facing a serious challenge here for the first time since Bill Clinton.
And Obama is no southern white conservative governor like Clinton. He is a liberal black senator from Chicago. If he wins even three of the traditionally Republican southern states, it might be heralded as the start of something almost revolutionary. 'The symbolic importance of electing an African-American is going to be immense,' said Professor Shawn Bowler, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside.
more:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/19/obama-democrats-carolina-charlotte
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