The Georgia switch

Since the election, there have been a raft of party changes from Democrat to Republican across the South. In the election, the last vestiges of the Solid South were wiped away. Democrats at the state and local level who had survived decades of Republican dominance in the national elections in the South were defeated. Those Democrats who remained are now abandoning a sinking ship. Big news has come out of Georgia now that is truly important. Two state African American state senators have switched from Democrat to Republican. Both say that the reason is that there is no place for a conservative in the Democrat party. For the last 50 years, the African American vote has been completely owned by the Democrats. This year, there were balck Republicans elected to Congress and state legislatures, and now there are switches from Democrat to Republican. No one thinks that this presages a majority vote by blacks for the GOP; however, if even 20% of the balck vote were to go for the Republicans, it would come close to crippling any chance for a victory by Democrats in most sections of the country.