If the truth be known, many southern Republicans are pinching themselves as the 1998 election approaches, amazed at and wondering about the extent of their success. Consider recent Republican accomplishments in the formerly Democratic “Solid South.” Republicans hold eighty-two of the U.S. House seats in the thirteen-state South, up from forty-four in 1990. The Democrats retain only fifty-five seats. More than any other single factor, Republican success in these southern seats shifted national control of Congress from the Democrats to the Republicans.