As I indicated when California’s primary was called for McCain, Mitt Romney’s going to suspend his campaign for the presidency today.

Beyond any smirking and gloating, it should be noted this increases the odds of keeping in place an unusual bit of presidential trivia. Though people point out the elder George Bush’s New England roots, he claimed Texas as his home state while President. So, since FDR died in 1945, this nation has gone 62 years without a president from north of Missouri.

Or, more accurately, the sole exception, JFK, did not get to complete his term. He was murdered while visiting the South during a time of North/South division wrought by the Civil Rights movement, an era that has been followed by a long period of political reverberations that highlighted the divide that has existed since the country was founded more than 220 years ago. The divide has been successfully exploited by Republicans since Richard Nixon, utilizing racist Southern strategies and appeals to religious fundamentalists.

Congressional Democrats have seen progressive policies thwarted since LBJ left office by conservative Southern Democrats willing to ally with Republicans. Only two Southern Democratic governors have broken through to capture the White House for the Dems, and the last required the development of DLC strategies that abandoned most of the progressive policies that have been among the greatest gains made by Americans in the past century.

So as Romney departs, let’s reflect on that big picture a moment.

We stand at the edge of a potentially groundbreaking election. Not just because Clinton’s a woman or Obama’s a black man, but because both are northern moderates offering at least one major progressive advance - a national healthcare plan - as a centerpiece of their campaigns.

In the way stands another conservative from a Southern state - Arizona - offering a continuation of regressive tax policies, budget-busting spending that continues to bleed jobs to foreign competitors and a war that most Americans don’t want.

Obama likes to speak of a post-partisan era and many assume this means a time when Republicans and Democrats can work together with less rancor. But in fact, the longer divide in the nation that needs healing is this North/South divide. I grew up in the north, completely oblivious to it, never claiming the North as a region held any superiority over the South. I thought that ended with the Civil War and we were all united as Americans. Only when I first moved to the South at 21 did I discover I was a ‘Yankee’ and viewed as an opponent by Southerners.

Whatever.

Have the divisions healed enough yet? Have enough Southerners moved past the anger lingering from the Civil Rights advances of the 1960s? Has enough Sunbelt migration and intermingling occurred that a decided majority in every region is willing to work together as a nation without the rancor of much of the first 220 years?

Progressivism is no longer owned by any region. Consider that two of the most progressive Democrats in this primary season were John Edwards and Bill Richardson, a Southeasterner and a Southwesterner. Kucinich came from the Midwest. Dodd was a Northeasterner as was Biden. Gravel came from Alaska. Obama was raised on Hawaii, but his mother came from Kansas and was raised there and in the Pacific Northwest, and he’s spent his adulthood in the Midwestern hub of Chicago. Clinton, raised in Chicago, spent much of her political life as a Southerner before moving to New York.

That’s reflective of the nation as a whole. Some live and grow within a region. Some move across regions for family or career reasons. And all remain Americans, invest their time and energy and talents and assets into the American Dream. We are viewed as one by our allies. Our few enemies would attack us without checking our zipcodes or what church we attend or what color our skin is.

After 62 years, will enough people in every region accept a President who resides north of Missouri? Are we ready, as a nation, to accept a few progressive advances from the political traditions that gave us Social Security, unemployment assistance, Head Start, the GI Bill, women voting and running for office, safe workplaces and the minimum wage?

The GOP has rejected its most progressive candidates from the Northeast. It’s ready to stand by the politics of status quo and more of the same as we’ve had for the past seven years. The Democrats, despite their internal arguments, will ultimately offer one of two moderately progressive people, each representative of a group in our advancing nation that has been locked out of the White House for 220 years.

If either Obama or Clinton prevail, we achieve an era that crosses important divides. It’s not the political one between Republicans and Democrats that is the most important.

Are we ready to transcend the political for the better nation we can become?

I think we are.