The Yankee-Cowboy War Updated

I previously wrote about the Yankee-Cowboy War, The Yankee-Cowboy War Looks to Continue.  As I mentioned, this concept is a useful paradigm for viewing the shifting American power base from the old-line Northeastern old money boys (Yankees) to the West and Southwest with its economic base in natural resources and technology. Before moving on to this post, I'd like to clarify two things:

(1) I was wrong in my original post about Hillary being the nominee for the Democrats. Barack Obama, a Chicago Yankee educated in Yankee bastions of Columbia and Harvard universities, became the nominee and President, defeating Cowboy military-trained and Annapolis educated John McCain. This represents the first Yankee victory over a Cowboy since Kennedy defeated Nixon in 1960. However, one could make the case that McCain's political sensibilities on issues like campaign finance and public health, though not on military matters,  actually made him closer to a Yankee than to a Cowboy.

(2) The 2012 political contest was between two Yankees - Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is a classic Yankee vs. Barack Obama. Again there seemed to be no significant difference of the Reagan-Carter example between the nominees. Interestingly however, various "invisible primary" frontrunners like Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and briefly Newt Gingrich in the actual primaries represented the Cowboy faction of the Republican party.