Someone should ask Republican Rep. Capito: are "the southerners" to blame?

by: Clem Guttata

Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 08:53:48 AM EDT

Too many conservative senators like Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) are to blame for the GOP's downfall, one of their retiring Republican colleagues complained Monday.

"We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch. "It's the southerners."

Voinovich, a native Clevelander who retires after the 2010 election, continued after the southern elements of the GOP.

"They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr,'" he said. "People hear them and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'"

West Virginia occupies a distinct geographic (and cultural) location in the United States:

The Census Bureau considers West Virginia part of the South because most of the state is south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The northern panhandle, however, extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio with the West Virginia cities of Wheeling and Weirton being just across the border from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, while Bluefield is less than seventy miles from North Carolina and Harper's Ferry is considered to be a part of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. The unique position of West Virginia means that it is often included in a wide variety of geographical regions, including the Southeastern United States and even the Northeastern United States.

Someone really should ask Rep. Capito if she agrees with her esteemed colleague Sen. Voinovich:

Who does Capito blame for the GOP downfall, "the southerners" or someone else?

To be fair, there's no need to oversimplify the situation, she doesn't have to choose just one or the other.