The DNC should have a hiring freeze on anyone who

has never lived in the South or Midwest for at least a year.

If you have never lived in the heartland then you are out of touch and you are destroying the party.

If you've never had a friend who had their hometown destroyed when the one major factory in town moved to Mexico, then don't presume to decide what the party stance on global trade should be. You don't understand how it effects most people if you live in New York or DC.

If you think that Arkansas, Missouri, West Virginia or Tennessee should not be considered swing state because they are full of Southern Rednecks, then go home and stop destroying the party. Every decision you make based on stereotypes hurts the party. Every comment you make about redneck hicks loses us more votes.

If you don't know how the last major farm bill helped corporate farms at the expense of family farmers because you've never met a real farmer, then you are out of touch. Stop telling us how to win elections in farm states.

If the fact that over 80% of Americans pray on a daily basis scares you then stop telling people in states with more churches than bars how to run elections.

If you're idea of reaching out to voters beyond the cities is appealing to soccer Moms in the suburbs then stop trying to set national strategy. You just don't get it.

If you've never had friends in a small rural town where Wal-Mart is the #1 employer and half the people are on welfare then don't tell me that we have to sound like "economic conservatives" because you obviously don't know what that means to people in my region.

I can't tell you how many times I've met Democratic staffers and strategists who fit the descriptions above. They are destroying the party at the national level and they should be kept in their region.

Does anyone agree? Can you give other examples?

go watch Bowling for Columbine again. If you don't think farms exist outside the midwest, tell it to the New England small dairy farmers who fight to keep agribusiness from taking over their family livelihood. If you think in stereotypes about northerners, you are infected with the illness called fundamentalism, just in different packaging. If you think you will strengthen the Democratic party by seeking to quiet any voice within it, you will only succeed in splitting us further.

/rant

Bowling for Columbine was a Midwestern town destroyed by US Free Trade policies. The Big One by Michael Moore gives even better examples of that, like Centralia Illinois, near where I grew up. Small towns can't just whip up more jobs like New York City or Boston.

If you read my post again, it wasn't a North v. South post. I was making the point that people in New England and the west coast don't always understand how people see issues in the Midwest and South. Regional stereotyping is already dividing the party. We need to change a party establishment that can't see beyond their own coastal, urban experiences.

I'm also willing to bet that a Strategist from New York city is equally as clueless about small farms in the Midwest as small farms in rural New England.

wants to attract voters but who mocks and call Christians in southern states names really dosen't get it.The south and southeast is filled with Dems and formar dems who are christians and who feel that Dems no longer speak for them or care about there vote.Every dem politico who disses them on tv etc loses us votes.

This is a country that has both urban AND rural people living in it. Most campaigns I've seen try to appeal to one or the other.

Someone who hasn't lived in a farm state shouldn't be telling someone how to win an election there. But neither should someone from Arkansas be telling people in New England what is in their best interests come election time.

I'm a New Yorker, born and raised. I have to tell you that it bugs the hell out of people up here when a presidential candidate has to pander to the Bible Belt in order to get elected, no matter how good their ideas for the country.

Then again, I have many friends who are from the South and they hate it when politicians dismiss their region as being full of rednecks, or when they're talked down to.

The solution is that that we need to work together to make this one Party again. You know your region better than I do. I know mine better than yours. Let's share thoughts and ideas and get the Democrats back on their feet.

And I couldn't agree more about the needed change in DNC leadership.
Let's get someone who's gonna crack some skulls and get the Party into fighting shape.

I'm trying to think of what state has more churches than bars. Maybe Utah?

maybe no state at all, but I think the phrase gets my point across.

Now you've got me trying to think of a state that can truthfully be called a farm state.

factory jobs were core to the Massachusetts economy for a century and a half. Small cities in MA have suffered too. There are whole 'company towns' in ME and NH that are unemployed.

Please stop your regional bashing. It's divisive and pretty damn tiresome. :eyes:

That's what I was thinking during most of the primary and in many of my dealings with national DNC staff who make decisions and assumptions based on stereotypes.

Losing elections because the party has failed to appeal to voters in the South, Midwest, and rural areas is pretty damned tiresome. I hope you can take some meaning from the post rather than dismissing it as "region bashing."