"Self-Interest" - a good essay by Bryan Zepp Jamieson

New for today - http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Politics/selfinterest.htm

An excerpt:

"Dean’s right: the party needs to be able to approach Bubba and tell him that he’s getting screwed by the GOP and HOW he’s getting screwed by the GOP, and not be overcome by the vapors because Bubba’s got a confederate flag decal on the side of his truck and a rifle rack in the rear winder. That shit just doesn’t matter much. Just because Bubba has the confederate flag and the rifle rack doesn’t mean Democrats are defiling themselves somehow by talking to him. In fact, neither of those elements are doing the Democrats a damn bit of harm, but slapping Bubba around for them is. Democrats like to talk about how Republicans are exclusionary idiots who chase people out of the party, and yet here they are, doing the same thing with Bubba.

"The fact is, the GOP is screwing the country hollow, and Bubba is going to get the worst of it. He’s what the rich white trash at the WSJ refer to as "a lucky ducky" – someone who is poor and thus in a low tax bracket. He’s the one who loses all his health benefits, who can’t get good full-time work, who stands to lose his social security, his public schools, his good roads. The GOP waves the flag and the cross in front of his eyes and keeps him mesmerized. His kids will go to Iraq. (does anyone think Putsch curses fate every morning for making him President so he can’t go over there and fight alongside Bubba’s kids? Seriously?) It’s the curse of the GOP that when their country calls, they’ve got pimples on their asses or bum knees they can only run ten miles a day upon, or bad shoulders that limit them to dead end careers quarterbacking in the NFL or some damned thing like that. It must be terribly frustrating.

"Bubba is front and center, the biggest victim in the GOP’s class war against America. He should be the Democrats’ strongest ally. But Democrats are sticking their noses in the air because they don’t like the confederate flag, or gun racks – and then they can’t figure out why Bubba votes Republican.

"The fact of the matter is, Republicans are far more contemptuous of Bubba than the snottiest of Democrats could ever be. But the Republicans are very smooth liars, and they don’t mind using Bubba, playing him like a toy drum."

as usual. I've enjoyed reading many an essay from this person.

Even if the Dems make the point about economics, Bubba won't vote Dem unless the Dems give him the right to kill women by denying them access medical procedures and give him the right to kill blacks by dragging them behind his truck.

Access to health care and civil rights are core issues. Abandon them to get Bubba's vote and the party will stand for less than nothing.

There are social conservatives (religious fundamentalists) who will NEVER vote for a Democrat. But too many people who live elsewhere see the South in narrow terms. Between those religious fundamentalists and Southern liberal Dems like me is a world of different political and social attitudes.

Dean's remarks weren't offensive, but yours are.

Eloriel

Enough moderates to swing the state vote? Not damned likely.

There are more than enough social darwinists and Republican fundamentalists in the south to ensure that the states stay red regardless of how many moderate voters are converted from the service of evil.