It has been interesting to sit back and wait for a few days to gauge the public and the media reactions to the ill advised bigoted comments of all nine of the Democratic candidates for president.

Two or three questions required some dust to settle before a clear trend developed.

The first query is what is the response of those 32% who still claim to be Democrats?   With the exception of Senator Zell Miller,  D Georgia, there has been a thundering silence.  Senator Miller, who believes the Democratic party is no longer a national political party called the nine candidates  "the naive nine".

Is there no other prominent Democrat who is willing to buck the trashing of Southern people and Southern culture?  Apparently not, as the general attitude of the nine candidates appears to be not only to write off the South, but to pander to special interests who profiteer waging hate campaigns against anything Southern.

There is a blowback. Self identified  Southerners which a recent survey from Vanderbilt University clams make up 70% of the population of the old Confederacy are beginning to react from a heretofore reticence about their heritage. In short, they're quietly becoming more and more galvanized.  Example, shortly after the comments of the nine Democratic candidates , many retailers reported their supply of Confederate battle flags were exhausted.

In Georgia, where those who identify as Southerners is lower than the all South average reported by Vanderbilt, more around 50% which equates to almost two million voter eligible citizens.  Of these, about one a half million are registered, and about 700,000 vote regularly.

The next question to follow was the reaction of the national media. This represents a bit of a surprise since even some of the most liberal journalists. editorials and commentators generally panned one or all of the nine Democrat candidates,  some mildly, others strongly suggesting being out of touch with the real South to plain outright bigotry.  Many questioned the "idiotic offensive bashing" of the people of almost a third of the Electoral College.

The final question concerns Southerners. While reactions have been clear that Southerners have not been very happy about the shabby comments made about them, there has been almost a total void in reactions by some of the leading heritage organizations such as The International Sons of Confederate Veterans.  The SCV is the largest organization of Confederate descendants in the nation. This perhaps explains why there is no coordination or leadership for the sizeable population that is Southern by birth or sympathy.

If these folks ever got organized and coordinated and more vocal, they could be awesome.

J. A. Davis is a retired radio and television journalist living in Gainesville, Georgia.  He is volunteer Chairman of the Georgia Heritage Coalition.

Contact: Telephone 770 297-4788 P-6, 2360 Thompson Bridge Road Gainesvlle, GA  30501