There are any number of references regarding the political, economic and social dynamics that have turned the South "conservative." I won't embarrass myself by pretending to summarize them here.

Forty years after the civil rights movement, the South remains segregated, racially and economically. But segregation and racism are not the reasons the South remains conservative. One of the primary reasons the South remains conservative is because there is no seeming way to construct an acceptable narrative that connects the religious values and beliefs of the moderate democrats in the South with the secular values and beliefs of liberal democrats in the larger urban areas on the East and West Coasts. This disconnect is evidenced by any number of truisms and criticisms of liberal "northerners" as being atheists, elitists, relativists, etc. and of liberal "southerners" as being dogmatic, uneducated and uninformed.

I have lived most of my life in the South. As a student attending college in Shreveport, Louisiana in the mid-70s, I was fortunate enough to study under Ken Hinze, a demographer from the University of Chicago. I asked him, "Why would you come here of all places?" and he responded that this part of the South was a bellwether for the country as a whole and that what happened here would be reflective of the larger society in the coming years. He said I should not be surprised to see most future presidents come from the South and that I should keep an eye on Hispanic immigration and energy policy as measures of the South's political leanings. Hispanics are catholics and Hispanic catholicism (i.e, liberation theology) is liberal by nature. Energy policy is geo-political and conservative by nature.

I refer you to the following:

http://www.usccb.org/hispanicaffairs/demo.shtml

I think he was right.

I think that the South is a sleeping giant where the Democratic party is concerned. It is not inherently conservative. But it is religious and it is comprised in large part of minorities and the working class. If these people can be given a voice in the Democratic Party, the South could again play a role in the establishment of a national Democratic majority. If they are not included in the Democratic dialogue, the Republican party may find a way to use them to create an unassailable majority for a generation to come.

If you have the time, the writer Joe Bageant has more to say about the working poor of America and their religious, political and economic values and issues than anyone else I know of today.

Here's his essay on "Redneck Liberation Theology."

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2007/04/redneck_liberat.html