Jeff and Brian have both given great analysis of the presidential politics of the panhandle, and I can do little more than agree. Instead, I think it might be story time…

I remember election night 2000 like it was only yesterday.

It was my first semester at New College, and many of the students (almost all of whom were on the political left) were watching the returns in the conference center on campus. I had just left the Panhandle for college, and had even gone home two weeks earlier for fall break.

In a fit of what I guess was/is political independence, I registered no-party-affiliation in Florida. Florida has closed primaries, so I am not allowed to vote in any of them. Mostly, an NPA affiliation from the Panhandle means “somewhere left of Mao Tse-Tung,” which I can assure is not the case, personally…more or less
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Happy Birthday, Son!

Our youngest panhandler is 25 today!

Almost a year ago, I broke one of those simple yet insightful maxims of daily life I learned growing up in the South: don’t discuss religion or politics over dinner. I was eating with my parents back in Live Oak, and the issue of the upcoming election came up. We discussed the nominees for both the Republicans and the Democrats, and my father ventured a guess that I was to hear over and over the following year, all across the country: “People around here just aren’t going to vote for a black man.” He pointed towards the forested land we lived on, and said “People in Live Oak aren’t going to feel comfortable, and I’m not saying it’s right, but if Obama gets the nomination there’s no way he can win.”

While the immediate conversation devolved into a series of half-cocked assertions on both sides, more cool-headed reflections surface in the following months. Would people really not vote for a black man in this day and age? If so, by how much? And would this be especially strong in the South? How much does race predict voting patterns in a bi-racial election?

It turns out this is a well-known question, coined alternately the “Bradley Effect” or the “Wilder Effect.” These terms refer to the situation where voters do not voice racial bias to pollsters and so election-day results are significantly lower for black, or other minority, candidates. A recent paper out of Harvard University analyzes 133 races for state governor, and finds that there was a “Wilder Effect” but that it disappeared. The author argues that racially-charged issues in a specific period created the effect, and once this context changed, the effect went away: “the prominence of racialized issues such as crime and welfare declined markedly at the national level in the late 1990s and early 2000s” (7). The author uses data from the Clinton-Obama primary match-up, and finds that Obama actually did better than polls indicated, not worse.

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Senator Barack Obama is taking this country by storm.  Every reliable predictive tool shows him well ahead nationally, and polls are showing him making substantial gains even in “red states” like Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana.  In some cases, states like Virginia are now polling with an Obama lead of 7%, when in 2004 that gave Bush an 8% lead (considerably more than his national vote-share advantage of ~2%).  But these facts are all over the news.  Here’s a real question for you:  Will my reliably conservative Okaloosa County (“the OC”) turn blue?

My best guess is: absolutely not.  Now, I’m not one who likes to profess opinions without relevant data.  Without access to polls or other relevant information, I know how prone the human mind is to simplification.  Demographic shifts since my time in “the OC” may change the composition of the electorate (although it would be hard to see the kind of demographic shift occurring in Okaloosa that would work in favor of Democrats).  Still, only based on my experience with the region, I would guess that not only will Obama not take Okaloosa County; he will not even change the vote share there by more than 5% from Bush’s 3-to-1 margin of victory in 2000. *(With the assumption that Bob Barr’s votes get to count toward McCain –a lame concession in a sense, but still nonetheless indicative of the OC’s “redness”)

Now, this may seem like a crazy prediction right?  You could easily say that, even if Okaloosa doesn’t like Obama, its staunchly-conservative views aren’t likely to align with McCain.  Also, we’ve seen places like Montana become a toss-up; and Montana voted 75% for Bush in 2000.  Okaloosa County is strongly influenced by the military; maybe Colin Powell’s powerful endorsement will change some minds?  Also, we’ve heard stories about how the terrible economy is making even blatantly racist individuals consider Obama.  So why am I so sure that the OC will go so red?  Let’s talk about some recent history.

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In this post, I am going to earn my keep as the in-house historian and look at how history has shaped the region.  Jeff has already talked extensively about the social aspects of what the Panhandle is, and I’m sure Brian will follow suit.

After the Seven Years War ended in 1763, Britain took over the Florida territory from Spain and split it into two parts.  One of these was West Florida, an expanse of land that reached from the Chattahoochee River to the Mississippi River (except for the port of New Orleans), going all the way north to a straight line that included roughly the bottom third of the current states of Alabama and Mississippi.

After the Revolutionary War, Spain returned to power in Florida, as allies of the colonists against the British, but Americans balked at this northern expansion in Western Florida.  In 1795, the treaty of San Lorenzo returned the West Florida border to the northern position recognizable today at the 31st parallel.  Americans and British poured into the area, and in 1810, British settlers established the short lived independent Republic of West Florida, which included everything between the Perdido and Mississippi Rivers, and south of that 31st parallel—which for those of you keeping track, doesn’t include any of current day Florida.

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The geographic boundary of the panhandle has been debated by this blog’s authors since the three of us were in college.   To be honest, these conversations have been one part intellectual curiosity and one part simple bulls*$%ing.  Still, for a blog supposedly written by three people from the panhandle, it deserves asking: where is this place?

For those who’ve never heard of the Florida panhandle, the simple answer is that it’s the part of Florida that looks like the “handle of a pan.”  In colloquial use, the “Florida panhandle” refers to that strip of land in North Florida, running roughly East-West, which borders Alabama and Georgia.  The region is generally contrasted with the “peninsula” of Florida, running roughly North-South, which juts into the Atlantic Ocean.  This definition seems simple enough – but as you will soon learn, no answer is too simple for me, Lawrence, and Brian to make it complicated.

Why isn’t this definition enough?  Well, in 1983 a man named Benedict Anderson wrote a book called “Imagined Communities.”  In this book he argued that any community is “imagined” by those who see themselves as part of this community.  What Anderson meant by this “imagination” stuff, is that communities (or regions like the panhandle) are not simply geographic places defined by rivers or national borders.  Instead, Anderson argued, a place is always first and foremost defined by those who live in an area and believe they share something in common.

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Welcome to what must be the first blog created by intellectuals from the Florida panhandle (it’s a small demographic). Along with fellow “southern intellectuals” Brian and Lawrence, I hope we can show you what it really means to live in the panhandle, and the American South (and also to convince you that “southern intellectual” is not an oxymoron). Neither pulling punches, nor waxing lyrical about a nostalgic past, hopefully you will find this blog a frank and practical guide to issues that affect our most southern “southern” state.

In the way of introductions, let me start by being honest and say that, in a certain light, you might have trouble labeling me as “from the panhandle.” In all honesty, I only physically lived there for just 5 of my 26 years (8^th to 12^th grade). Furthermore, like Brian and Lawrence, I’m not exactly what you would call the prototypical “panhandle resident.” For a region colloquially referred to as “Lower Alabama,” my characteristics are probably not the first things that come to mind: extremely liberal, PhD-bound, and relatively free of a southern accent.

In another light, though, my heritage strangely makes me very much from the panhandle. It’s from this experience that I am inspired to contribute to this blog, and from which I think I have some purchase on the region. Because this background is important, let me share with you what connects me to the Florida panhandle.

Both my father and my grandparents were born in Okaloosa County (two generations of Florida natives are an oddity for the state) — and my family is certainly representative of the region. My grandparents are farmers (although they don’t do much farming in their old age), who several times a week attend a Congregationalist church up the hill from their house. Most telling of my grandparent’s panhandle heritage is that my grandfather built their house, by hand, out of knotty pine — a house that I have consistently returned to each year for Christmas.

In a similar way, my father is a panhandle man. He grew up helping my grandfather on the farm. Like many people who grew up working on a farm, he doesn’t speak highly of this experience (not surprisingly — from what I hear, “free slave labor” best describes how farmers “utilize” their sons). My father was also captain of the football team at Baker School (notice the missing modifier here, as in “high” or “middle” or “elementary” – Baker has a K-12 program to this day). Afterward, my dad went on to attend such venerable panhandle institutions as Okaloosa Walton Junior College (often referred to as “OW,” “O-dub,” or “slow Dub”), and the University of West Florida in Pensacola. To my knowledge, with the exception of a short stint in his 20’s, he has always lived within comfortable driving distance of his stomping grounds in Okaloosa County.

So my family is from the panhandle. Ultimately though, what about me?

Let’s just say that the strongest testament to my panhandle heritage is the permanency of my inherited southern traits. Despite my best efforts to remove the more stigmatizing aspects of my southern heritage (my questionable grammatical constructions, my predilection for collard greens, my enjoyment of shooting a rifle or reading the bible or listening to Johnny Cash), it’s just plainly evident that I cannot escape my indelible connection to this place.

As we go on in future posts, I’m sure there are many other qualities I will reveal to venerate myself as qualified to look deeper into this region (and ultimately beyond the panhandle to the entire Gulf Coast region, and the Southeastern US). However, beyond just the perspective I’ve gained from my time in the panhandle, I also should let you know that I plan to apply the tools of sociology (to what extent you give that credit) to pierce into issues relative to this region.

That’s enough for a first post. Let me end by saying that Brian and Lawrence are smart folks, and if you read on, you’re guaranteed to get a clear view on what it means to be from the panhandle, the South, and (if you’re interested in such a thing) what it means to be a panhandle intellectual.

My name is Lawrence, and I grew up in Panama City, FL, on the Gulf Coast halfway between Pensacola and Tallahassee. The reason my family ended up in Panama City was the same as many new, transplanted families in the central and western Panhandle—the United States military. My father enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1963 and remained in the service for 23 years as a Master Diver

He and my mother came to Panama City for the first time in 1978. They bought the house that my father still lives in, only 3 miles or so from the dive school at the Navy Base. In 1982, we moved to Virginia Beach where my mother gave birth to my younger brother. In 1986, my father announced his retirement and we moved back to Panama City. My father, a native of Texas and Kansas, I believe felt most comfortable in that part of the country compared to other places he lived as an adult. My mother agreed, even though her childhood was spent in Washington D.C. A growing economy and opportunities for people with his skill set also factored prominently in my parents’ decision to raise my brother and I in that small city.

I attended Northside Elementary School (Go Vikings), Jinks Middle School (Go Hornets), then Bay High School (Go Tornadoes), in what I can only describe as a typical educational experience, with the occasional atypical events and a number of fast friends that made that life more exciting. I’m sure that deeper analysis of our youth and primary educational experiences (and, perhaps, embarrassments) will be a common sight here at The Panhandler’s Guide.

In 2000 I graduated from Bay High School and started at the New College of Florida, in southwest Florida, where after flirting with Mathematics, I pursued a degree in History/Economics. It was during pre-orientation my first year that I met Jeff Lundy, a Nicevillian. Our friendship grew, in no small part, out of this “fish out of water” position we held. Non-Floridians did not quite understand what made us any different from the rest of the Floridians on campus. Those from in state, though, clearly espoused a distinction between people from Florida and people from LA, Lower Alabama.

During our third year, a first year, whose popularity and potential was boundless, came to our attention. We became fast friends with Live Oak’s favorite son, Brian Cody. Brian and Jeff were both training as sociologists, but our academic paths often crossed. We shared interests, and New College is in a minority of institutions that houses History in the Social Sciences, so our curricula had some overlap as well.

After Jeff and I graduated in 2004, we both accepted graduate associate positions; he in the Sociology department at UC San Diego, and I took one in the History department at The Ohio State University. Two years later, despite our greatest efforts to dissuade him, Brian joined us in graduate school, taking a position in the Sociology department at the University of Chicago.

It is in our graduate work, and the fact that the location of that graduate work removed us from our roots by hundreds of miles, that we became more able to really analyze what we always took as truth. That the Florida Panhandle enjoys a particular brand of uniqueness, while remaining hegemonic with certain aspects of the American South, the Sunbelt, and political changes dating from at least the Great Depression. Hopefully, our conversations will enlighten and humor you at least half as effectively as they do for us. We welcome you and your comments to The Panhandler’s Guide

When I meet new people here in Chicago where I live, I often feel like I’m in an AA meeting: “Hi. My name is Brian, and I’m a Panhandler. I’ve been southern for 25 years now.” As the supporting yet slightly pitying looks dart back and forth and the polite applause dies down, I have to ask myself, “Will I ever NOT be a southerner?”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t want to be southern. I ask this question as a start to understanding what it means to be southern, what other people seem to know about me when they divine that I’m from the Panhandle of Florida and NOT from Miami, and to discover what it is that is perceived to be so different about the South compared to the rest of the country. 

Thus The Panhandler’s Guide. Through this blog my two partners in intellectual me-search and I will try to expose what it means to be from, and to be in, the Panhandle and the South. We want to tackle this challenge through a mixture of empirical data and good old fashioned unsubstantiated anecdotes from our own lives to help get that “rich description” anthropologists are always going on about. 

You may at this point be wondering about my credentials. Am I the quintessential image of a grits eating, pick-up truck driving, overalls wearing, church going, tobacco picking, banjo playing good old boy? Well, no. But I’m not the opposite, either. In the South I’m not quite Southern enough, but in the rest of the country I’m enough Southern to be typecast as such.

I was born in the Florida Panhandle. My parents moved out of Miami in the late 1970s as refugees from the race riots (like the Arthur McDuffie Riots) towards a more picturesque and simple life, in the fashion of “The Waltons” or “Little House on the Prairie.” They stopped in Tallahassee for a few years before purchasing land in the small town of Live Oak in Suwannee County. In 1980, Suwannee county had 22,287 residents (we’re in the data section now, by the way) and ranked as 46 out of 67 counties by population – meaning 21 counties had even fewer residents. This, dear reader, is a rural area: 33 people per square mile, which is 36 times less dense than Miami and 386 times less dense than the city of Chicago.

My mother was a nurse, and my father began as a school teacher and then ventured into running a series of his own businesses beginning with weaning calves and selling them as mature cows, and then operated a mobile sawmill (jobs which, by the way, were wildly unpleasant for me at the time but great icebreaking stories now). Both enterprises failed to gain fiscal traction, and so we relied almost exclusively on a nurse’s salary until I was finishing high-school, remaining in the mobile home that was originally meant to be temporary. I mention this to allow the reader to place me in class terms: I, unlike seemingly every undecided voter in America, could only aspire to be middle class, and this economic identity colors my view of the world as I work on my Ph.D. at the upper-class private University of Chicago.

And, for any readers who were misled by the title of this blog, the focus of this site is the Florida Panhandle and is about neither the culinary instrument nor destitute beggars.

Not yet, anyway.