{"id":3641,"date":"2010-02-07T15:50:37","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T15:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zmetro.com\/?p=3641"},"modified":"2010-02-07T15:50:37","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T15:50:37","slug":"trouble_down_so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=3641","title":{"rendered":"Trouble Down South for US Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Bowman and Andrew K. Woods<\/a>: <\/p>\n

At first glance, McLeod\u2019s Tyre Shop in Lucedale, Mississippi, seems an unlikely venue for a political salon. It is a large, spare room, its contents pushed to the corners as if by an invisible centrifugal force, or maybe the weak wind of the ceiling fan. To the right of the entrance, four tyres stand on tiny podiums like sculptures in an art gallery. In the far right-hand corner of the room, a large 1920s stove slumbers beneath a Mississippi State football flag, which Doug McLeod hung to taunt his rivals from Ole Miss \u2013 the University of Mississippi. And in the far left-hand corner, a long counter is crowded with well-thumbed copies of every newspaper (local, state and national) from the past two weeks \u2013 kindling for starting and settling scores.


\n\u201cA Mississippi lady once asked me where I went to church. I told her Sacred Heart and she said, \u2018Well, we all have to worship somewhere, don\u2019t we?\u2019\u201d
\n


\nWe walk in at the tail end of an argument between four men, just in time for McLeod to jam his finger into one of the newspapers and say, with an air of finality, \u201cAnd that\u2019s why they should raise interest rates.\u201d McLeod has owned this tyre shop for more than 30 years, and in that time he has established himself as a local character and the shop as a destination: a place where he and others can hold forth. The scene is both chaotic and relaxed, with high-energy McLeod spinning like a top while visitors sit or lean, idling on about all subjects but their tyres.
\n


\nThe men assembled here, in one of the most Republican counties in the American deep south, are conservative. In fact, the latest demographics say they \u2013 southern, white males aged over 35 \u2013 are the Republican party. Despite differences on many subjects \u2013 football, Ford trucks, fiscal policy \u2013 they all agree that their interests are not represented in Washington, not by Barack Obama and the Democrats and not even by their own party.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Bowman and Andrew K. Woods<\/a>: <\/p>\n

At first glance, McLeod\u2019s Tyre Shop in Lucedale, Mississippi, seems an unlikely venue for a political salon. It is a large, spare room, its contents pushed to the corners as if by an invisible centrifugal force, or maybe the weak wind of the ceiling fan. To the right of the entrance, four tyres stand on tiny podiums like sculptures in an art gallery. In the far right-hand corner of the room, a large 1920s stove slumbers beneath a Mississippi State football flag, which Doug McLeod hung to taunt his rivals from Ole Miss \u2013 the University of Mississippi. And in the far left-hand corner, a long counter is crowded with well-thumbed copies of every newspaper (local, state and national) from the past two weeks \u2013 kindling for starting and settling scores.


\n\u201cA Mississippi lady once asked me where I went to church. I told her Sacred Heart and she said, \u2018Well, we all have to worship somewhere, don\u2019t we?\u2019\u201d
\n


\nWe walk in at the tail end of an argument between four men, just in time for McLeod to jam his finger into one of the newspapers and say, with an air of finality, \u201cAnd that\u2019s why they should raise interest rates.\u201d McLeod has owned this tyre shop for more than 30 years, and in that time he has established himself as a local character and the shop as a destination: a place where he and others can hold forth. The scene is both chaotic and relaxed, with high-energy McLeod spinning like a top while visitors sit or lean, idling on about all subjects but their tyres.
\n


\nThe men assembled here, in one of the most Republican counties in the American deep south, are conservative. In fact, the latest demographics say they \u2013 southern, white males aged over 35 \u2013 are the Republican party. Despite differences on many subjects \u2013 football, Ford trucks, fiscal policy \u2013 they all agree that their interests are not represented in Washington, not by Barack Obama and the Democrats and not even by their own party.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,39,8,33,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}