Democratic Breed Dwindling in the South

Democratic Breed Dwindling in the South
By JIM DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, May 9, 2006

05-09) 00:16 PDT Galivants Ferry, S.C. (AP) --

Many species are rare, even threatened, in the swampy marshes along the southeastern coast, and perhaps none is closer to extinction than the "yellow-dog" Democrat of the Old South.

For decades, straight-ticket, conservative white voters who displayed unyielding loyalty to the Democratic Party — they said they'd vote for a yellow dog if the Democrats ran one — transformed the South into a party stronghold.

The tide began to turn in the 1960s, when the Civil Rights Act alienated some lifelong conservative Democrats and Republican President Nixon courted yellow dogs with his "Southern Strategy." Since the presidential bid of Georgia's Jimmy Carter in 1976, no Democrat has carried the South and the region has become a Republican bastion.
(snip)

Some yellow-dog Democrats can still be found in the South, and they harbor hopes for the emergence of a next generation, looking at plunging approval ratings for President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress, even in the South.
(snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/05/09/politics/p001650D46.DTL

You walk right up to some pooh-bellied white, fundamentalist wacko southerner and ask him this:

"Would Stonewall Jackson be proud of you voting for the party of Lincoln?"

"would Robert E. Lee be proud of you voting for the party of Lincoln?"

"What kind of respect for Southern heritage do you have by voting for the party of Lincoln?"

"Republicans are the party of General Sherman and his thugs who burned, raped and pillaged the South."

"Republicans are the party that humiliated the South after the war and tried to shove Reconstruction down the throats of thre South"

We don't have to mean any of it, but just say it to these people.

... it is their racism and lack of intelligence and education that make them that way. The good news is that "a bastion" or a "stronghold" of Republican dupes does not mean 99% and I have seen many very intelligent people from the south and many of whom have led the fight against the dark ages mentality of those the Republicans court in the south. Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower and a number of others come to mind and they know first hand what we are all up against with this unique crowd of throwbacks. The rest of the country is not free of this either and the bluest states have a third or so Republicans-right-or-wrong types. If there is a common denominator in all of these groups it is the pseudo religions that take advantage of these trusting and largely well meaning people. As P.T. Barnum said "there's a sucker born every minute" and the Republicans have a poisoned breast ready for them to suck on.

Since you start of with the disrespectful premise of "pooh bellied(?)white fundamentalist wacko southerner". You had best keep yourself in your Blue State, my friend for your own safety. We will deal with our fellow Southerners. Thank you for your well intentioned suggestions.
a

Yeah... the south is not the best place to start a red-blue fight. Many people are indeed fundamentalist wackos down here, but there are some intelligent democrats down here, and we can do our part to shut them up. My geography teacher is, well, a nutjob neo-con. I've won a fair amount of arguments against him (although being what he is, he won't admit it) and some of my classmates who are equally crazy, so we can handle it. You focus on keeping the blue states blue, and we'll take care of Dixie. Viva La Resistance!

:hi:

Well said.

:hi:

Lincoln was all about civil rights, everyone being treated equal. If Lincoln were around today, he would be a Democrat. As noted above, the white racists in the South voted Democrat only because they were pro-segregation. Their vote was more anti-Lincoln. When the Democratic Party became the party of peace and fairness for all, those same racists cry "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me." They are not the "party of Lincoln" anymore. Republicans today would prefer minorities be "kept in their place."

Lincoln, for all his virtues, was, by his own admission, "a Clay Man." A "Clay Man" in this context refers to followers of Henry Clay, originator of the American System, the progenitor of the philosophy that at length drove this nation into the so-called Golden Age and which the neo-cons of today seek to reestablish and extend. The American System supported publicly financed "internal improvements" that would benefit fledging corporations. It advanced the idea of Manifest Destiny. It helped solidify as a part of the American consciousness that any act undertaken to secure the financial wealth of the nation was justified, up to and including territorial conquest and subduing so-called uncivilized people so that they acted in accordance with America's best interests, not their own. This is the most direct connection the Republican Party of today has with its ancestor, and it is an important one. The party's first President was a strong believer in what could be defined as an embryonic form of "trickle down" capitalism and imperialism in the name of profit.

As for Civil Rights, Lincoln was anti-slavery. Being anti-slavery did not necessarily make one pro-civil rights for minorities. In fact Lincoln had to be convinced that relocation of slaves to African was a bad idea. He had to be convinced that the slaves should be universally freed. He had to be convinced that slaves and former slaves could serve well in the armed forced in a fight for their own freedom, and even then he did not believe they could function without white leaders. It is much to his credit that in that day and age and in his position that he allowed himself to be convinced, but let us not be fooled. Lincoln was a racist by modern standards. He was somewhat more benign for his day than his contemporaries, but "civil rights" as we understand them was not one of his concerns. His concern was with the economic livelihood and political integrity of a nation, and the means he sought to achieve that are readily embraced by the modern party of Lincoln.

Stop being so biased against the South.

We're not all racists and racism isn't relegated to one section of the United States. In fact, I dare say racism is LESS of a problem in the South because we discuss it openly and don't hide it under allegedly "liberal" rugs.

Besides, race has NOTHING to do with why voters in the South (and mid-West) have been turning to the Republican Party over the course of the past five to 12 years.

The reason is attitudes like yours: people from the coasts assuming that everyone in the South is racist. The reason Republicans are winning is because they embrace our slower lifestyle and don't look sidelong down their noses at us.

Granted, I know and you know, that the Republican Party has done NOTHING for the predominately poor and middle class (white or black) in the South and the mid-West, but the Republican Party has done an excellent job at PRETENDING they care about our lifestyle, our concerns and our heritage (good, bad or otherwise).

That's the key: get a populist Dem who isn't perceived as being an "uppity" liberal and you'll do just fine in the South and mid-West.

So you keep sending Republicans to washington who cut back on civil liberties and you do it because people on the coasts think southeners are anti-civil liberties? And this shows them what?

You'll continue to send Republicans to washington who's policies hurt you until the people on the coasts stop thinking southerners are dumb?

I suppose this is not a strategy anyone conciously developed....

which Southern state sent Rick Santorum to the Senate?
How about John Sununu? Norm Coleman?

Who is the governor of New York? Massachussets?

How many Democrats has Maine sent to the Senate?

CT's Republican governor signed a civil union bill.
RI's Republican senator refused to endorse Bush.
Both NH Republican senators voted against the Bush Energy Bill.
All 3 of CT's republican house members are pro-choice.

Did Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins vote for Harry Reid as majority leader? Did CT's pro-choice house members vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker or did they vote for Hastert and thus keep the anti-abortion Christian Coalition regime in power?

Unless you count Zell Miller

Read the message incorrectly.

I don't see any relevance to your post. Post 19 gives an explanation of why southerners like to vote for Republicans (because of how the people on the coasts view Southerners). Who non-southerners sent to Washington has nothing to do with the matter I responded to.

People in the South AND mid-West (which is well more red than the South, btw), DO vote for Republicans because they think they stand up to the "uppity" liberal Democrats in those big populated states like California and New York.

Yes.

I know you can't seem to fathom the mindset, but it's an absolute truth.

For years, people in what are now the red states - and specifically Southerners - have been vilified by Hollywood and made fun of by New Yorkers. It's a fact, don't deny it. I mean, take a look even the most mundane of movies like "A Time to Kill," which was set in the 1990s, but still had us all sweating indoors like we'd never even heard of air conditioning down here.

Then, the Republicans taped into this disdain for the way Hollywood treated mid-staters and USED that to convince the voting population that they would listen to their concerns and not force those "librul" views onto these allegedly God-fearing people.

Now, you have a several-years long campaign that has ingrained itself into the psyche of many a Southern and mid-Western voter: that the Republicans are FOR us, not AGAIN' us.

The Democrats, to this date, haven't done shit to compete. Instead, we keep getting told how racist we are, how backward we are and how stupid we are by people on this very board who should know what tolerance means.

If the Dems want to make in-roads into the red states, they need to get the fuck off their high horses and campaign down here. John Kerry simply CONCEDED the South to Bush: he didn't bother with more than a handful of campaign stops in the South, even though his running mate was from North Carolina!! That's RIDICULOUS.

A populist candidate who could break that psyche would help, as well, but the DLC and the media doesn't want us to have that candidate. They want us to pick another New England senator with a voting record that can be distored so badly that red state voters wouldn't dream of voting for her... or him.

... keep voting for people who hurt you, over and over again, until the coasts believe you're smart.

You're really sticking it to those uppity rich coastal types with your big tax cuts to Woody Allen, Michael Moore and Steven Spielberg.

If you ever get tired of being beaten by your government, you might start picking your candidates by competence not by the height of their horses.

I, from the red mid-western state of Ohio, will vote for people who will help me. And I don't care what the coasts, or the south, think of it.

Lets see... Bob Taft, Ken Blackwell, George Voinovich, Mike DeWine, Bob Ney, Jean Schmidt.

Yea you guys are doing a lot better than the south

Nowhere was anyone pitting Ohio against the South.

The poster I responded to and I were talking about the strategy of electing politicians who hurt you to make other parts of the country stop thinking of you as dumb. Which is what one poster here claimed was the strategy of the south.

Do you have some thoughts on that strategy?

If not why did you think that the fact that Ohioans vote badly is relevant here? Who was defending or holding up Ohio as an example?

And you were basically saying that the south votes in a stupid manner because they elect politicians that hurt them. I was pointing out that in Ohio, you guys do the exact same thing. Also, the way you addressed Clark2008, seemed like you were assuming that he votes Republican just like everybody else from the south. That is obviously not the case because he is a member of this board. Despite the fact that we elect Republicans, 40% of us or more at least voted for Kerry in most southern states. You seem to imply that because we live there, we support this idea of electing politicians that hurt us to show those yankees a thing or two. The way your post was worded, you seemed to be implying that southerners like Clark2008 and myself were doing something wrong just because we live in the south. We voted for Kerry just like you did. Clark2008 was trying to explain why a majority of southerners don't support democrats. He was not implying that he was among that majority who doesn't support them.

I also threw in those names that people in Ohio elect to suggest that this isn't just a southern problem. People all over the country vote for Republicans and one of the reasons is that they want to stick it to those coastal elite types. Can you give me another explanation as to why all of those people I've mentioned above are in office in your state?

... but I never defended Ohio. I just live there. I never said anything about the way Ohio votes.

"And you were basically saying that the south votes in a stupid manner"

*I* didn't say people from the south vote in a stupid manner Clark2008 did. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that Clark2008 described a way southerners vote and I labeled that strategy as stupid. I was criticizing Clark2008's characterization. You need to re-read this thread.

"in Ohio, you guys do the exact same thing."

Review what Clark2008 said and see if you really think any significant number of people anywhere, Ohio or the south, vote to get back at rich elitist coastal liberals. If you do, then we can talk, if you don't then we agree and your issue is with Clark2008.

"Also, the way you addressed Clark2008, seemed like you were assuming that he votes Republican just like everybody else from the south."

Yes, I see how I could have been read that way. I thought Clark2008 was describing other southerners and not himself or herself. I should have been more careful with my wording.

"You seem to imply that because we live there, we support this idea of electing politicians that hurt us to show those yankees a thing or two."

Re-read the thread. That is Clark2008's contention. I suspect it's not accurate.

"I also threw in those names that people in Ohio elect to suggest that this isn't just a southern problem."

Clark2008 ascribed the problem to both the south and mid-west. Ohio is strangely, but typically, included in the mid-west, though it's in the eastern part of the country.

"Can you give me another explanation as to why all of those people I've mentioned above are in office in your state?"

Because Ohioans also vote badly. I've never said differently. I just don't think they do it out of revenge or an inferiority complex.

I hope this clears a thing or two up.

And, I don't vote for people who hurt me, over and over again, so I don't know what you mean. I was a reporter for 12 years and a veritable news junkie. I MAKE time to read and study the issues, but my brethern traveling from Podunk into the city to work only get Reichwing talk show hosts telling them what to think. I don't have the money to purchase my own radio station to put on AAR (not that half the companies around here would risk advertising on it, anyway, because of the conservative bullies).

At least I'm aware of the problem and am TRYING to do something about it instead of putting down an entire group of people by pigeon-holing them into a small box of my own making and, in doing so, pissing them off to the point that they don't think logically and vote for the opposite of what is good for them.

If you don't follow the southern strategy you described then I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the people who follow the voting strategy you described (if there really are any such people).

Here's where you explained the strategy of the southerners that vote republican:



You said here that some in the south vote Republican, even though you admit that the Republicans are not good for them, because democrats look down their noses at the south.

I couldn't believe rational people would continually vote for people that hurt them so I posted #22 to make sure I was reading you right. You then went on to confirm that yes, southerners vote for Republicans (who hurt them) to get back at rich costal types that make movies denigrating them.

We both know that the Republicans turn around and heap large tax cuts on those same rich costal types who think southerners are too stupid to have air conditioners, and then the southerners do it again.

I call that stupid. I don't call you stupid. I call that strategy stupid. And frankly, I don't believe that's a fair representation of the voting habits of the south because I don't think they are stupid down there.

My strategy is working out fine - I vote for good people without regard to what rich coastal types think, and sometimes my candidate wins. The problem is not my strategy, but the fact that not enough people follow a similar strategy.



Don't you? You ascribed a very ignorant voting strategy to a large group of southern voters.

If they "don't think logically" for some reason the blame is on them, not the rich people on the coast. I mean we can follow the blame game back as far as we want. The south votes the way they do because the people on the coasts make the movies they do. The people make the movies they do because the public like their movies and gives them money to do it. The movie going public likes the movies they do because... on and on and on.

I think the blame for the people in office falls on the voter who put him/her there.

Maybe you're right about why the south votes the way they do (they vote for candidates that hurt them over and over again to get back at rich liberal elites on the coast who think they're stupid), I'm skeptical but, if you're right, isn't that stupid?

keep voting for people who hurt you, over and over again, until the coasts believe you're smart...

Yes, I thought you were talking directly to ME (who else would "you" be in that sentence); if you meant the Southern collective, you should have said so.

In regards to your strategy, no, it's not working fine in the red states. Stating that people are ignorant and dumb (even if they are) isn't going to win them over to your way of thinking. That was the "strategy" to which I was speaking.

And logic has nothing to do with the Southern and mid-Western mindset because they don't have the tools to get the information they need to HAVE a logical conclusion to their voting habits.

Let me give you an example: John Doe of Podunk, TN has to drive an hour to the nearest large city to work every day and an hour to get home. He figures, being a conscientious American, that, since he has to spend so much time on the road, he'll grab his news over entertainment via talk radio. What does he get treated to? It's all Rush, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Neil Boortz down here. There are VERY VERY few (we're talking a handful) of stations THROUGHOUT the South and mid-West who broadcast anything but right-wing radio. Even though Joe is a reasonably intelligent person, the ONLY thing he hears day-in and day-out is rightwing views. He's not offered a choice - not a convenient choice. He can't very well search the web for news in his car and he doesn't have time once he gets home and wants to make love to the wife and throw ball with the kids. And, now that he's brainwashed, well, he won't be purchasing AAR on satellite radio, now will he?

It's not that Southerners and mid-Westerners are "stupid" or "ignorant," it's just that they are only hearing ONE side of the argument and, after 10 to 12 years of nothing else on the radio, well, they think it's gospel.

What Democrats need to do is come down here more often, stop conceding, build a base from which to purchase radio stations and put on something besides Rush and Sean Hannity and have it supported by listeners and advertisers (there are many advertisers around here that would not for fear of retribution - how sad is that). I blame the corporate control of the media more than I blame any individual Southerner or mid-Westerner and I blame the Democrats for conceding and not fighting back. And I blame some people on this board who STILL, in 2006, believe that all Southerners are racist or bigoted and call out the ENTIRE region on it, even though it's not true.

If I was told all the time that "liberal elitist Democrats in New England" thought I was stupid and then I talked with one and they alleged that all Southerners were racist bigots, well, I'd probably think the Democratic Party didn't have much to offer me but derision, either.

Happily, I'm married to a New England liberal, so, therefore, I KNOW not all New Englanders believe that of Southerners - but, I wouldn't necessarily know that from some of the comments on this board.

... I got a little carried away and started talking through you to the people you were describing. Please be assured I never really thought you were describing yourself. I should have been more careful.

I did think you were defending it somewhat though and saying the fault was really with rich coastal liberals, which I don't agree with.

I think I agree that the one-sided media is a major factor. Perhaps THE major factor.

"What Democrats need to do is come down here more often, stop conceding"

I don't think that's all that useful. I mean the "stop conceding" part I like but this idea that northern democrats should come down there and explain it to you southerners would be taken as patronizing I think.

What I think is needed is for the democrats and progressives who are already down there, the southern democrats, need to do a better job in dispelling the liberal myths their neighbors are fed. Really I think each region needs to save itself.

I'm not a fan of presidential candidate visits. They just screw up traffic while meeting only the tiniest percentage of locals. In a national contest almost everything we know about the candidates will come from the national media.

If it were in my power I would gladly deflect all presidential candidates visits to Ohio to your area if you want them. I just don't think it will make a difference.

Populist or not. They will go through the RW propaganda machine just like Kerry and Gore did.

As long as we have an unfair and unbalanced media in this country, they will smear anyone. It doesn't matter if the candidate is from the Deep South, Far West, or Northeast. Kerry did make some mistakes, so did Gore, but expecting a "populist" candidate to wave his or her magic wand and go back in time to the Clinton years is a tall order. As much as I miss the peace and prosperity, this isn't 1992 anymore.

If the Democrats don't have a clear, strong, unifed, message and back their candidate up when it counts, then NO ONE will make it. That's the bottom line.

I will vote for candidates that listen to the people care about their interests and this country.

...will tear apart anyone who runs against his candidate. I hate to say it, but that SOB is smart, and he knows what he's doing, even though he's a total dirtbag.

One example: I think it was South Carolina where Rove had three candidates running for the state Supreme Court. Another guy, who was an honest, good man with a wife and kids, was running against them. Two of Rove's people tanked. Rove then ran some ads with his candidates' opponent holding hands with some impoverished, homeless children. He was a humanitarian who helped out childen in that sort of situation. Rove, in turn, made him out to be a homosexual pedophile. The man then dropped out of the race, because he "felt sick about what had happened, and wouldn't have the stomach to run again." Rove's candidate won.

The right wing will do anything to win, but the dems have more respect for their opponents. They lose because they have the decency not to make up scandalous lies like the GOP. In this age of shock value, the dems need to find someone who has the guts to say "That is not true, and this is what I really am about." So far they just back into a corner and wait for it to end. If we're going to win an election, then the dems are going to have to stretch their values a bit.

I still do believe that racism is a factor. Don't get me wrong, the fact that there are progressive southerners Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, LBJ, is living proof that not all white southerners are racists. Further proof, southern states have delivered their electoral votes to non southern progressive candidates. John Kennedy took several southern states, Hubert Humphrey took Texas, even Michael Dukakis took West Virginia which is very southern in culture. There still is a certain segment of the population that will vote Republican because they are still pissed off at the civil rights movement just like there is a certain segment of the population that will vote Republican because Democrats slaughter unborn children and want to force everybody to be gay.

As far as Kerry campaigning in the south, I agree completely. If we'd stop ignoring the south, it would be a lot closer than it is now. But part of the problem that isn't Kerry's fault, is that campaigning today is outrageously expensive and Republicans will ALWAYS have a fundraising advantage over us. Writing off the south and putting everything you have into Ohio seems like such a good solution when you have your financial bottom line staring right at you.

it wouldn't matter if he or she was from the North or South that's why we have to get the machines fixed. And this is coming from a fellow southerner. Voters want someone they can trust and can lead America out of this mess.

The candidate that embraces the 50 state strategy (courtesy of Dr. Dean) and puts out a clear, strong vision for the future, with a unified Democratic Party (on message) can compete anywhere, not just the South.

the Republicans have made on the mid-state voter's psyche, either.

We do so at our own peril.

And we have to stay on message. That's the bottom line.

You do it by connecting to the working class, make people understand that Repukes stand for Big Business and not the middle class. The Dems ran away from the South and it seems to me as a Southerner they need to spend money here and get the message out. Simple. Forget the old Democrats of the Old South, it's time as Dr.Dean says to court the new South. We are a diverse region, stereotyping us wont work anymore. But getting the Democratic message out here is key, for years now Dems have not spent money here and just given up on us. Do not equate me as a Southern Democrat to the old guard like my Grandfather who was racially motivated. He was a yellow dog Dem. He still hated African Americans and was offended that his Grandfather was run off his farm by the Yankees. Those days are gone, some small aging few still hang on but the majority need to here a Democratic message that appeals to middle class workers, keeping jobs in the country , and giving people here a reason to vote Democratic. It's like a news black out here during Presidential campaigns for the Dem candidate. In the last race Bush was on TV every 3 minutes, Kerry maybe twice a day.....what do they expect? Campaign here, not writing off the South is the key! Having a Southerner on the ticket helps as well.
There are ways to flip this deal.

It was a Democratic bastion for so long because they couldn't stand voting for the "party of Lincoln."

For many, many years the very name "republican" in the South conjured up images of radical carpetbaggers who "took advantage" of poor white southern democrats after the Civil War. But I think we are starting to forget about that history. There are still some older white democrats who cling to that old notion of the party of Lincoln, but younger people have no identification with that idea. Most younger people have no idea that the republicans were the radicals and the democrats were the conservative status-quo defenders.

During the Great Depression, people hung pictures of President Roosevelt in their homes. If you think that the south was any exception, you're crazy. These same white southerners that we call racist, absolutely loved President Roosevelt, who was also loved by liberals. When southerners voted for Roosevelt, they were voting for the New Deal, not against the party of Lincoln. Now a days if a liberal democrat from New York tried to introduce something like the New Deal in the south, it would be brushed off by southerners as tax and spend big government. Attitudes of southerners have changed on a whole variety of issues and race is not the only thing that determines the way that they vote.

Until somebody can get the south to believe in the concept of government, Democrats will never take the south. It has to start with local southerners, they can't keep running away from the national party and then wonder why their state doesn't vote for the Presidential candidate. Either the national party has to become more conservative, or the local party has to explain why conservative politics are wrong.

Most Texas Democrats know that the National Party is glad to take Texas money. But the party offers no support for Dem candidates in state races.

Let the National Party come out & explain what they have to offer. Yes, I know where I can find Democratic policies on the 'net. But many people depend on national news media--perhaps a bit of effort is required. I'm not talking about going more "conservative"--but just explaining how Democratic policies can make the USA better. Al Gore is a Southerner & he can do it.

I've seen it on this board a hundred times. It's kind of hard for Democrats from other parts of the country who DO believe in government to say anything to anybody from the south, otherwise we're trying to tell them how to do things. The local politicians don't want the national party to come in because they don't want to be connected to the party of the gun grabbers or the abortionists or treehuggers or french surrender monkeys or whatever. Until the people IN the south want a different kind of government, Democrats won't win; and it's going to take local Democrats IN the south to make those changes. And Al Gore didn't do it, he didn't even win his own state.

We don't want the national party to come in?
Dean has sent organizers to Mississippi to help bolster party efforts there -- the most help that has been sent to Mississippi in decades.
We love that kind of help. We can do without the preaching.

There's a huge difference between organizers behind the scenes and somebody from Vermont telling someone in Vicksburg that they need to pay more taxes to provide condoms in schools and free health care. It will never work. The only way to make change is for local politicians to convince local voters that government can provide solutions to local economic and social problems. Red state voters do not believe that government is efficient enough to provide any solutions in the first place, and in the second, they generally don't believe it's the job of the government anyway. Sending in organizers is important, but it's going to take a whole lot more than that to win voters over in rural America, particularly the south.

Local politicians are supposed to fix economic and social problems?

What is it exactly that local politicians are supposed to provide?

Outsiders aren't allowed to tell local southerners anything about political solutions. Local politicians can't provide the economic and social programs that only come through the federal government, which outsiders aren't allowed to talk about.

So you tell me, exactly what is the problem in the south???

But I imagine you wouldn't take to kindly to a bunch of Southerners telling you how to fix your state.

What's wrong with the South?
1. Insufficient resources devoted to education.
2. Everything else refers back to No. 1.

I guess you missed the posts in this thread that said to stop calling southerners stupid. Now what?

I live in Oregon. The problems we have are the same, rural Republicans who reject government and want local control but refuse to raise the necessary taxes to pay for anything, including investment in the businesses and business technologies of the future. Luckily, we don't have that problem in our cities which is why Portland, Eugene and Ashland are some of the most liveable in the country.

Just as I imagine some Oregonians are uneducated.

We have the same difference in quality of education in Alabama that you have in Oregon. Suburban Birmingham has excellent schools -- one public high school was just named the second best in the nation and another has won the national math contest 12 out of the last 14 years.

Rural districts are seriously underfunded because most school funds are raised locally through property taxes. Much of the land in Alabama is owned by out-of-state corporations that don't give a shit about Alabama schools so they spread enough money around the Legislature every four years to keep property taxes low. Counties in Alabama have to get the Legislature's permission to hold a property tax election.

But it was our Republican governor -- Bob Riley -- who proposed in 2003 the largest tax increase in state history to fund schools. Riley told us it was our Christian duty to support the tax increase. But Grover Norquist threatened to make an example out of him -- and did.

when someone sees the problems they're told to take their "uppity liberal" selves the hell out of the south. I remember the debate on DU over the Riley tax increase and there were Alabamans, right here on DU, who opposed it because government wastes so much money. I see it time and again. Rather than demand government do what it's supposed to after Katrina, most southern people just wanted the government to get out of the way, they'd fix it all themselves, thank you very much. Again, right here on DU. Not much use in the south for Democrats who believe in government, it seems to me.

I live in New Orleans and I can tell you that I haven't met a single person who thinks that government should get out of the way. We all want as much help as we can to rebuild our city. We just had the first round of mayoral elections and nearly every major candidate was proposing big government solutions to rebuild our city. In fact the only one who wasn't proposing that, was the batshit crazy Republican Peggy Wilson who said that the solution to all of our problems is a "tax free city". She got less than 800 votes.

We are begging for help from local, state, and federal governments and we are being ignored by all of them. Louisiana's congressional delegation has very little seniority, Bush doesn't give two shits about us, and our democratic governor is inept. Our mayor makes chocolate city speeches that turns us into an embarassment in the eyes of the rest of the country. We're demanding that the government do its job but our leaders (especially on the federal level) aren't listening.

The whole government is inept, same as your complaints, and they can just get the hell out of the way and let New Orleanians fix their city themselves. Heard it repeatedly. And when I suggested that perhaps that wasn't the best approach, I got my head bit off too. Just like I'd suggest to you that there was nothing wrong with the chocolate city speech and that most of the country understood exactly what he was saying. So why are you embarrassed about it?? And like many of us have suggested that the real problem is that they're intentionally slowing down the reconstruction process so that poor people don't move back, and had my head bitten off about that too. Funny, just today I saw a news piece that said exactly that, property was starting to be bought up for development. But what the hell does anybody else know, just shut up and stay out of the south's business. Well okay fine.

And you wonder why people throw up their hands and say "fuck the south".

they are supposed to be our public servants, OUR PUBLIC SERVANTS.

What we DON'T like is people like you telling us how we think when we don't really think that way.

The government DOES waste a lot of money, but you can beat your ass that the victims of Katrina wanted some governmental intervention when their homes and their Grandma were being swept away with a colossal tide.

Geesch.

Gulfport, Biloxi, and Ocean Springs have better funded, and equiped facilities then my home town of Linden, NJ ever had. And a better teacher to student ratio as well.

Southerners aren't all dumb,

I heard on NPR one day,
Bill Clinton was talking to a preacher friend of his, when the preacher had voted for Clinton in 92 and 96. But bush in 2004... when bill asked why. He replied "You can't vote for someone who doesn't talk to you."

And it's not race either. Gulfport is far more an intregated town the Linden ever was. I remember everyone in my nieghborhood referring to N**** town when referring to the part of the city where African Americans lived. And this was in the 80s/90s.

I used to live in Jackson.

But the schools in the Delta are appalling, just as they are in the Black Belt in Alabama.

The problem with education funding is that it is locally driven and poor counties have no way to raise that kind of money on their own. In Alabama, they are often thwarted by huge out-of-state landowners with a vested interest in keeping property taxes low.

Thank you for posting this: this is IT in a nutshell: "You can't vote for someone who doesn't talk to you."

Bingo. I have been making HUGE posts trying to explain this, but these 10 words sum it up, exactly.

Welcome to DU, stevekatz! :hi:

In every single post, don't tell you what to do, don't come down there, don't TALK TO YOU. Clinton can talk to you, he's from the south. Everybody else, shut up.

How can I compete with such profound knowledge.

How helpful. We're supposed to come down and run campaigns in the south, but any time Democrats do, they're going to be called "uppity liberals" (see #19). Then when someone points out the reality, that the change is going to have to happen IN the south with southerners telling the truth about Republican politics and their rejection of government, that gets blasted too. In fact, you rather proved my point. Nobody except southerners can say anything to southerners about anything, not even on DU.

Then I'll explain how you can make it better.

You don't want anybody telling you anything. Makes it pretty difficult for a national candidate to say anything in the south at all.

Don't you want to hear MY thoughts on how your home state can be redeemed?

That's how we ended up with one of the most livable cities in the world. I live in Oregon, have at it. There's lots of things that need improving here.

a couple of years ago - and it's a SOUTHERN town; therefore, your argument just lost a lot of ground.

And don't give me that, resentment of the party of Lincoln crap. Southerners were just as loyal to the New Deal coalition as anybody else in the country. They loyally supported the largest expansion of the federal government in history at the time and loyally supported a progressive president from New York.

I don't buy this idea that we have to sell "government" to a region that only two generations ago had absolutely no problem with it.

That's what they dubbed the Democratic Convention that year. Times were very different then, the parties were very different. And you can't compare what people would accept during the depression to now.

I'm tired of the South being stereotyped and written off. The Dem party needs to invest some time and money in the Southern states. There are bright spots, after all. NC has a Democratic governor and both houses of the state legislature are controlled by Dems. Virginia has a Dem governor, and the growth of the DC suburbs in No. Va. is gradually turning that area blue as well. We need to jettison these old ideas about racism and yellow-dog democrats. Southern states are now as diverse as any other. Our cities and college towns have people from all over the country. Most of the Southern states had at least 40% who voted for Kerry. We also have large African-American populations as well. I haven't heard a kind word about Bush around here in a LONG time!

the state General Assembly.

And, for the first time since Al Gore was our senator, we have a Democrat running for senator who is only a few points, as opposed to 18 to 20 percentage points, behind any given Republican nominee.

It can be done, but not if a bunch of people come to town and yell that we're all a bunch of racist yahoos who need to believe in government or some such shit.

That's the entire point. Local Democrats in the south, and rural west, don't run on the same platform as national politicians. For the most part, they run away from liberal Democratic politics, like on abortion which is how we ended up with all the federal abortion laws. That in turn has sent the left to the Green Party. Either the left is going to have to accept the compromises needed to win the south, or southern politicians are going to have to stop running away from the national party and start rejecting the kind of politics Republicans have been pushing for decades.

Do you find any of his issues particularly objectionable?

www.chrisbell.com/issues

Still need voter education. Still need voter registration. It's like football, man, drill the basics till you puke if you want a winning season.

You have to have an economic populist message that appeals to working class Southerners, like Clinton had in '92. They just don't get it.

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How much time have you spent in the South? I don't hang out in the ultra-rural areas such as those favored by Jim Davenport, who was apparently only informed last month that the USA had some Southern states. But urban & suburban areas have more votes--because they have more people.

Most Texans HATE Ken Lay. Even those who lost nothing personally see him as the rich guy who exploits those "beneath" him. And working class folks mostly get along with each other.

Do not forget that the South includes African Americans with deep roots in the area. And Latinos--moving into some of the South but long-established here in Texas.

I grew up in rural Alabama and have lived in several southern states. I also travel fairly extensively around the US in my business.

Perhaps I've missed something but I think the south in unique among regions in the country where rich and poor, black and white actually mingle with one another on a fairly regular basis. Go to any decent BBQ joint or meat and 3 for lunch and you'll see bank presidents and corporate executives eating next to, and talking with, brick masons, welders and carpenters. Go to sporting events in the south and you'll see the same thing.

The south has a terrible history with race but, thankfully, it is mostly history. Perhaps the north didn't have the same Jim Crow environment as the south but then neither has the north truly integrated. Birmingham in 1965 was more integrated than Boston in 2005. Go sit for a few hours in Quincy Market and see for yourself if you doubt me.

What is the point of all this? Simply this: explaining the lack of Democratic strength in the south as racism or classism or any other ism is a convenient excuse. There are many reasons the democratic party has declined in the south. Refusing to honestly come to grips with them will only perpetuate that decline.

.

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Get away from average white person and average black person and get into the black churches and the democratic meetings. Its about organization and voter registration and getting the message right. Its even more about voter education. Why move on to other strategies when we still have not mastered the fundamentals?

but my point in this "discussion" is that as long as the republicans own what some call the Bubba vote--and continue to pander to it via race--no southern states are going to be in the dem column until WE find an effective and non-threatening way to counter that.

I wish it was different--but denial is NOT going to win elections.

I'm an "average working-class white person in the South," and I feel no affinity with Ken Lay.

You, too, missed the point.

If a republican is running against a dem, I'll vote for the "D" each and every time regardless of the office. And way down here in South Mississippi, my Congressman is a Big "D". Whupped a Lott in the last election.

The Southwest is where the party's future is.

That's the ticket.

But if they're not willing to do it, I agree the future is in the Southwest/West Coast states.

You lose if you don't learn to play the game. They're handing our asses to us because they out organize and get their message out to the target voters better than we do. I talk to people every day that are Dem voters but they aren't registered and they don't vote. They just "think" they're Dems. Weve got to make them into Dems that count.

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Actually reading the linked article is too hard. Learning about US history is too difficult.

Please--what state do you call home?

I think I'll move up north where there are no racists. Thanks for the tip.

we should think nothing of it, because "there is cancer everywhere." ?

of course there is racism everywhere, but the South seems to have had the worst problem with it.

so you don't like someone suggesting that racism may be somewhere in this country other than the south? I understand.

I'm saying you can't logically downplay the extent racism in the south by saying "you do it too!"

That's like Bush saying, "the Democrats voted for IWR too!"

Not me. I see it everyday. If we want to swap comparisons, you may be suggesting that only republicans are corrupt. Racism is in every state in the country.

suggesting that you should move up north "where there are no racists".

That suggests the south's racism isn't remarkable because there are racists everywhere.

And I'll deal with my own neighborhood.

Oh wait... it already is because of THIS attitude.

It keeps putting the kabosh on ANY progressive candidate because too many people down here think they're all like you.

It seems to me that today's Republicans are merely yesterday's Democrats. They just switched names.

but that's changing. Used to be our Dems were more conservative than the Republicans around here, and racist too, but this isn't the old days. People need to stop thinking of reasons why southern democratic voters won't prevail. We can do it but we don't execute very well.

As a life-long Alabamian, it appears to me that the average Southerner is primarily concerned with a politician's stance on abortion, school prayer, gay rights, gun control and other such 'moral' issues.

Race is still an issue, but it is often disguised as a loathing of social programs (read: Welfare) or a fear of immigrants (xenophobia).

I have tried to convince typical good ol' boy, working class Southerners that voting for Democrats better serves their economic interests, but that argument doesn't get far. Seems they would rather vote for a Republican who pays lip service to their morals than to support a Democrat who would at least try to make their lives better.

Your first three lines pretty much sum it up.

And suddenly we're uppity, or worse, flat out lying because no southerner ever said such a thing. I even avoided the racial implications of why southerners reject government and got blasted anyway. None of it's true, apparently, the only problem is Democrats are ignoring the south. Well, except, when they're in the south being uppity, I guess.

When you condemn "Southerners" you condemn all of us.

I've heard great things about Portland. Demographics: 84.3 % white, 2.4% black, 1% native american, 4.10% asian, 8.7% hispanic. www.cityrating.com/citystats.asp?city=Portland&state=OR

Houston's got many flaws, but I do prefer more diversity: 62.6% white, 16.9% black, .4% native american, 4.9% asian, 28.9% hispanic. www.cityrating.com/citystats.asp?city=Houston&state=TX

But I've just assumed you live in Portland.

Do they not? So I hardly think minorities are the problem in the south.

Per your definition, all Southerners reject government.

Gawd, Guns and Gays....the democrats running nationally have fallen into the Rove trap and haven't confronted it, except for Dean who calls it for what it is instead of running away from it or trying to pretend it doesn't exist as a wedge issue.

It is a daily, hourly bummer to watch as the RW fundies usurp power through their churches, with this "values" claptrap. Its so forking depressing to watch it up close.

They may be pissed at *, but it will be a cold day in hell before they would go the polls and vote for a Kerry or a Hillary. They may disapprove of * 'giving the ports to the arabs' and gas prices and huge deficits, but they would never ever in a million years vote for the democratic fare tossed around now as likely candidates.

Hopefully they will stay away from the polls in numbers large enough to allow someone other than a Freakazoid Republican to win in 08

a few miilion more on top of that than voted for Clinton.

The Dem HQ I worked at here in NC had MANY GOPs coming in for Kerry yard signs because they were pissed about the budget deficit and Kerry has a long record advocating for the balanced budget.

He wasn't afraid and he is quick on his feet. Not unimportantly, he was also obviously from the south. He doesn't come across as a pompous ass.

The rural south, in the last six years....its bad. Its really bad. Throwing Kerrys and Hillarys at the thing won't work, unless the urban voters vote like the fundies vote...which is okay by me, too. :-)

And those suburbanites are the ones getting killed by gas prices now.

Clinton was called a bore at the '88 convention and someone who didn't know how to communicate. His great prowess as a 'communicator' was achieved after the election. He was seen as a pompous windbag in many circles. He had raw talent, but he never translated it into getting over 50% at the polls.

I think that Kerry got a higher percentage of the vote in his first Pres election than Clinton did. By a lot.

Perot dropped out in the summer and polls showed Clinton 51% and Bush 39%. Exit polls showed that Perot voters were split equally between Clinton, Bush, and would've stayed home. Clinton couldn't get over 50% because Perot was the first third party candidate in the modern era that could financially compete with the two major parties. No candidate could get over 50% in such a three way race with perhaps the exception of an incredibly popular wartime incumbent.

is that you look at your Southern neighbors as "they."

I look at my neighbors and myself as "us." I don't see any of my neighbors as hopeless causes.

We can obviously forget about the white racist vote. But we've got the black vote. We're getting the Hispanic vote. Let's hope we get the majority sooner than later.

And people wonder why the southern working class has rejected the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party has done nothing for any working class people since it let the New Deal die.

The repubs pander and offer fantasy, which I guess beats the abuse and loathing displayed here.

I think I detect a wiff of classism.

Although some posters on this thread want to prove otherwise. Let them paddle around in their oh-so-Blue puddles. (Also oh-so-White?)

They are easy to ignore. Texans learn to be tough.

(I lied. Many Texans would rather cause trouble than simply ignore fools. The fools make such interesting noises when you rile them.)

Are you going to tell me the south is going to vote for that, which is the suggestion of post #67. Go ahead, I want you to have the audacity to tell me "free" health care is going to win over the south, or any rural state in the country. Come on. Tell me all about it. Tell me how all we have to do is implement the 50 state strategy with wonderful liberal ideas like that.

Sad thing is, it is a good idea. But it will NEVER fly in states that REJECT government control of anything, because you know, southerners and Texans "learn to be tough". They don't need none of them librul pantywaist programs.

which long ago established a state system of charity hospitals -- which was expanded greatly by Huey and Earl Long.

Where everybody pays a percentage of their income so that everybody can see the doctor of their choice. Single payer is not charity that creates a second class medical system, it's the same medical system for everybody. It is consistently rejected because it's a liberal "big government" program.

And Frankly Huey Long's economic policies were so far left that I would even disapprove of some of them. As I mentioned in the post above, the south loved FDR. The South loved William Jennings Bryan. All of these people were economic populists if not damn near economic socialists.

They're Republicans now, who don't believe in big government that takes their hard earned money and gives it to lazy people who refuse to work.

Contrary to some opinions, Bubba CAN do cyphers. Give the people a concrete reason and a good chunk of them will come around, though given recent history it will take an election cycle or so to prove that it's not just pandering.

But given the hold that lobbyist have on both parties I'll not hold my breath.

Get back to me.

.........SHALL RISE AGAIN....in very BLUE fashion. Mark my word!

.

and we are coming in masses!!! Affordable housing is brinking young northerners to places like atlanta, the carolinas and texas. hopefully we can make a dent.

Tell your yankee friends to bring higher paychecks with them when they relocate down here. :hi:

Good way to completely derail the 50-state strategy.

Makes me hurl to see some of the ignorant comments I've seen here.

coming down there telling them what to do. I guess John Edwards was right after all.

I support the 50 state strategy, but it doesn't change the fact that it's going to take a whole lot more than organizing the vote to win in the south.

Who is "they"?

I'll stop being obtuse for a moment and agree with the notion that a lot, probably most, Southerners don't want people from elsewhere, liberals or not, telling them what to do. Has always been thus, but it would be hard to argue that people from other regions don't feel the same. Liberals could, however, learn a lesson from this. Bona fide Southern liberals have in fact learned that lesson and seek not to unnecessarily antagonize everyone with the common "you're bad, you lost, get over it," refrain. The problem Southern liberals face is that they receive absolutely no direct support with the strategy they seek to advance from liberal power bases elsewhere. "Why can't you be more like your brother" tends to make a child be everything except what his brother is. "Why can't you be more like <insert another culture here>" does the same thing, and that has been the dominant national strategy among liberals for decades now. It was more understandable in the 50's and 60's. After the 70's, when all the myths of racial and social benevolence in the rest of the country were positively destroyed, it stopped being understandable.

"the strategy they seek to advance"

Which is what?

Because that was a point I made upthread, I think I did anyway. We've got two choices, go more conservative to support the politics I hear coming from southern Dems. Or southern Dems are going to have to shake things up themselves because "southerners don't want people... telling them what to do". We can't tell you what to do, you don't want us to, so why is it such a horror of a thought to suggest you're going to have to do this yourselves? We can supply the money and behind the scenes infrastructure, but we cease being helpful when we try to lead because you don't want to hear from us. That's not our fault.

How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out (Hardcover)
by Bob Kerrey (Foreword), Steve Jarding, Dave Saunders

From Publishers Weekly
Those who stayed up late to watch with worry or woke in dismay after the November 2004 presidential elections will welcome this answer to "How in the Hell did this happen?" as the first chapter, aptly titled, promises to explain. In this humorous discussion of what went wrong and how to change it, Harvard professor Jarding and Virginia politico Saunders present a method to secure a Democratic victory by gaining the lead in the South and the Midwest. The book encourages Democrats to open their minds to the rural culture of "Bubbas," or blue collar, religious folks who despise government intrusion, have been voting Republican and would respond to political "NASCAR marketing." Jarding and Saunders keep it lively, interspersing low-blow jabs at Republicans with statistics, political history and strategies for Democrats to connect with Bubbas over contentious issues like gun control, environmental protection, gay marriage and abortion

"despise government intrusion" Cuz that's just not true, don't know where in the world these folks got that idea. :eyes:

We Southern progressives know how to talk to our brothers and sister, but we DO need the infrastructure and money.

Do you think we're children who wouldn't know what to DO with that infrastructure and money if the national party would give it to us? I believe Dr. Dean WANTS to do that very thing. I think he gets it. He understands that HE cannot come down here and tell us how to do things, what to believe and what to change, but he knows WE know how to make these points to our brothers and sisters in the mushy middle or teetering on the edge or Republicanism.

WE have to help ourselves, of course, but WE need help from the National Party to get a foothold.

We've heard from you and your way has lost votes since Clinton. Time to try it OUR way for a bit, don't you think?

but how about some policy that is clearly beneficial to the working class? Universal health care, for example. If the Dems can't do that how can they claim to be the party of working people?

I speaking purely to getting the current message out - but, yes, it would definitely help to have an even better message to get out.

Isn't that what I said way up there in my first post??? This is exactly why. So don't be mad when people don't come to the south to campaign, you don't want to hear anything from anybody else. We get that, loud and clear. It's also why I said either we go more conservative, or the locals will have to change things themselves. So don't yell at me for pointing out exactly what you've just said.

And frankly, NO, it really isn't time to do anything your way. If I wanted to live in Alabama, I'd move there. I don't and do everything I can to stop stupid hick right wing thinking from taking hold in my town and state.

Thanks to morons like Lieberman and the DLC corporate Dems from the northeast who think it doesn't work.

a very popular Democratic blog here in Virginia:

"Attention Democrats: Looking South Isn't a Mistake"
Link: http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2487

Thanks, Josh and Lowell! :hi:

Unfortunately, this has become a flame-war.