'Long ago, A.J. Liebling wrote a wonderful book on Earl Long called The Earl of Louisiana. The first sentences of the book are pricelessly memorable: "Southern political personalities, like sweet corn, travel badly. They lose flavor with every hundred yards away from the patch. By the time they reach New York, they are like Golden Bantam that has been trucked up from Texas -- stale and unprofitable. The consumer forgets that corn tastes different where it grows."
'Liebling wrote those graceful sentences around 1959, and who would have argued, then, with their truth? Two Texans, Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn, may have risen to head both branches of Congress; but their success was owed to the peculiar power structure of that institution, not the preferences of the American people. Americans did not want southerners running things then. (Yes, Eisenhower was born in Texas, but he's really Pennsylvania Dutch -- he retired to Gettysburg -- and, as the great Allied commander, transcended such regionalisms anyway).

'Now, of course, the opposite is the case. Today, New York political personalities, like H & H Bagels, travel badly. They lose texture with every mile from the Upper West Side. By the time they reach South Carolina, they're like zeppole that have been trucked down from Mulberry Street -- alien and unpalatable. The Carolinian forgets that zeppole taste different where they're baked. But that doesn't do the zeppole much good.'




American Prospect article