Look away, from Dixieland

The GOP's carnival marches through the Deep South today with primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, two states that continue to embarrass this country nearly 150 years after the end of slavery.

The intelligence of Southerners has always been questioned. A recent poll confirms the worst about white, racist Republicans.

In Mississippi, when Republicans were asked if Barack Obama is a Christian or a Muslim or are you not sure, the results were disturbing:

Christian - 12%
Muslim - 52%
Not sure - 36%

Alabama, by comparison, showed enlightenment on this question. Republican respondents there thought Obama was:

Christian - 14%
Muslim - 45%
Not sure - 42%

Then, of course, these Southerners were asked if they believed in evolution or not.

Their responses indicate they have not evolved as much as most educated people in the world.

In Mississippi, respondents:

Believe in evolution - 22%
Do not - 66%
Not sure - 11%

In Alabama, respondents:

Believe in evolution - 26%
Do not - 60%
Not sure - 13%

It was always humiliating that the South was reliably Democratic until the mid-1960s when President Johnson signed Civil Rights legislation.

Giving up the South, though, ensured that Democrats would lose many presidential elections in the following decades because it no longer catered to racists.

Richard Nixon saw the opening and seized it in 1968 and 1972.

Ronald Reagan put his arm around the Southern racists in 1980 and brought them fully home to the GOP.

Good riddance. You can have the ignorant racists.

President Obama will win re-election without them.