Politically Georgia: Southern Pride

Politically Georgia | AJC

America’s 250th birthday has Howard Franklin thinking regionally.

The Atlanta-based public relations executive released a new report arguing that the South is now the country’s true economic and political center, noting that if the region were its own country it would have the third-largest economy in the world. Among his arguments:

• Southerners hold the speakership and majority leader offices in the U.S. House and make up a third of Trump’s cabinet.
• Georgians run the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Small Business Administration and act as ambassadors to the Bahamas, Belgium and China.
• The top five states for net domestic migration are all in the South.

Franklin said he was inspired to write the report after representing clients from New York and California that approached the South with outdated thinking.

“I think a lot of what people believe or maybe even think they know about the South is rooted in historic truths, but not necessarily modern truths,” Franklin told us. “Lots of things have changed about what powers the economy.”