Illinois/Delaware vs Arizona/Alaska.
When’s the last time there was no Southerner in any of the four spots on the national ticket? You have to go back to 1984, and even then, George H.W. Bush claimed a Houston hotel as his legal residence (and tried to sell himself hard as a Texan). Before that, you have to debate whether Maryland counts as the South or not (slave state, lots of Southern cultural influences, but never seceded). If it doesn’t, you’re looking at 1972 (Nixon/Agnew vs. McGovern/Eagleton/Shriver, and no, Eagleton’s 3 days as VP candidate and being from the border state of Missouri doesn’t count). But if it does, then you have to go all the way back to…1944, when FDR (New York) and Truman (from Missouri, but Kansas City which is far from the secessionist regions) squared off against Thomas Dewey (New York) and John Bricker (Ohio).
Obama’s final list seems to have been Biden, Bayh, and Sebelius – Delaware, Indiana and Kansas.
McCain’s final four were Romney (Utah/Massachusetts), Pawlenty (Minnesota), Lieberman (Connecticut) and Palin (Alaska).
Is it possible that for the first time, we might actually be approaching a repudiation of the Confederatist political culture?