For those who think ignoring the South is a good election strategy

a little information

http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/

Just ran across this today, and I kinda figured this would be a good way to toss around some ideas, and get us away from the disgusting posts where people are thankful for Ford's death. Any takers?

It has nothing to do with which part of the country it is (except it is a little disconcerting to see so many in the arrid SW). We are the only industrial country with a climbing population and it is an environmental disaster in the making.

our overall population density is far less than most European countries, and obviously more than Japan, China, India etc..

Speaking personally, I just made my second cross-country drive and I was amazed at how much open space we still have. Granted we need to keep it that way, but we're not as bad as some. Not disagreeing with you, and the SW thing is a big problem (anyone who's been to Phoenix can tell you that) just adding to the conversation.

While it is still possible to re-take the White House without the South, it becomes harder with each election as Southern population growth far out-strips the electoral strength of the old Rust Belt.

I also found the article interesting in regards to the West. This is where I see the Democratic gains really coming. Over the past few years, we have seen the Democratic Party gain strngth in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and even Montana. If we can continue our gains here, we may still be able to win without the South.

One key to winning the South is regional appeal. Since JFK, only Southern Democrats have won the presidency: LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Gore. We need to remember this in our 2008 nominating process. While Hillary and Obama are getting most of the press, we do have some Southern candidates who might prove interesting in Al Gore, Wes Clark, and John Edwards.

However there are other factors to winning in the South. We tend to be very wary of the elitist thing (probably a result of being constantly made fun of by the popular culture), The Republicans have been very good at painting the Democratic Party as condescending toward ordinary people. I believe the key to being competitive in the South is to break this perception. This would also help us greatly in the midwest and in the western states.

--- One would think that recent political events here in Virginia would impact heavily on that "ignore the South" rationale. Times are changing. Virginia's 13 electoral votes would make a nice permanent acquisition for the democrats.

But to put that region of the country into its context and give it as much say as it deserves, balancing their interests with the rest of the country seems not only prudent, but wise and fair.

Unfortunately, there are a number of interests in this country dedicated to giving the South an outsize influence over national policies, and some of those interests operate from a racist, elitist position that sees an advantage to keeping people squabbling and divided. They appeal to a narrow mindset that is certainly not exclusive to Southerners, but which has dominated Southern politics for the last century and a half. And being treated as an equal seems an insult to this mindset.

the influence of the South is growing and the influence of the traditional Democratic New England is shrinking. I believe the mindset that you speak of dominates Southern politics still because most Progressives write us off completely and do nothing to support those of us trying to build a populist progressive southern movement. To often, Progressives are guilty of not trying to reach Southerners on their own level. Even I can see how certain things that have been said can be misconstrued to sound biased against Southerners (Howard Dean "confederate flag" comment anyone?) I believe we ignore the South at our own peril.

As the "traditional Democratic New England" was solidly Republican about thirty years ago.


Aside from that "ignore the south" is in response to those who claim the south is full of bigots and idiots who will only vote for a fellow southerner or a conservative. If the people who make that claim are correct, then we really should ignore the south.

Most of us don't believe that about southerners. But if you want to make that the basis of an argument such as, "we have to run a southerner for president," then you are going to continue getting "ignore the south" responses.

The last election was decided by Ohio.

if Kerry had won Edwards state NC and any other sate in the country, Ohio would have been moot

If Gore had won his home state of TN Florida would have been moot.

I'm not arguing that we should run a Southerner, but Progressives need to alter the perception in the South and every other region of the country besides the Northeast and the Pacific coast that they are not the elitists that the right-wing machine has convinced most of the country we are, and we don't make ourselves very likable to Southerners, Midwesterners and Westerners when we run candidates who appear to be (true or not) condescending toward ordinary people. Like it or not, Kerry didn't play well to average Americans, in what some people would call the "flyover"

Who were those 10-15 million more voters who voted for Kerry if they weren't 'average' Americans?

And if Kerry didn't play well, then why did BushInc have to suppress and steal votes and manipulate the votecounts all over the country to stay in power?

And you know what we call the people who say that? Republicans! I have never, ever heard that phrase except from Republicans pretending to talk about what Democrats say.

For that matter, I grew up on a farm in Indiana 8 miles from the only traffic light in the county. I spent one year in college at Auburn in Alabama where I constantly put up with the condescending attitudes of my peers, almost exclusively Republican. The people who did not talk down to this "hillbilly" were the liberal faculty, some military guys and the small handful of liberal Democrats I met in the student body.

I spent the next three years attending college at Indiana University. The student body (again, mostly Republican though not as high a percentage as at Auburn) at IU were not nearly as condescending as those at Auburn, but I would have found them almost unbearable if not for my prior experience with worse.

After colleg I got my first job in a Chicago suburb. I had no problem with my coworkers, a government job which meant mostly Democrats. But the people I met outside work were even worse than those at IU. And, of course, they were almost exclusively Republicans.

Finally, I moved into the city of Chicago itself where hillbilly is just one more ethnic group welcomed by all the Democrats in this city. And as one that almost speaks english, more welcome than most.

:)

But in the past twenty years I have adopted the Chicago accent. And the people down near the farm, who used to vote Democratic and held college educated people in high esteem, now vote solidly Republic and treat me with disdain.

I HAVE encountered pompous jackass liberals as well. But for every Noam Chomskey I have met in my life, I have met a hundred William Safire Jr's. Cripes, in January 2001 they broadcast the Republicans chanting outside the White House, "THE HILLBILLIES ARE GONE!!! THE HILLBILLIES ARE GONE!!!". And yet the hillbillies and southerners somehow always miss this shit.

but your personal experience doesn't change the perception of the majority of America. I agree that perception is wrong, but it won't change itself.

Personally, I just moved back to the South after living in the SF bay area for a while. I found that every kind of person was completely welcome, except that every time I opened my mouth to speak I'd get stares or barely concealed laughter. In dinner conversations I'd get condescending "compliments" about my "charming accent" and how I could use it to get drinks if I was so inclined. So don't try to pretend that there is no such thing as liberal snobbery.

I have also seen my fare share of conservative snobbery. The town I'm from is as red as red can get, and some of the people there (usually the more wealthy ones) are very condescending toward me because of my progressive views. They are also condescending to ward most anyone who isn't of there class so it's a bit different than what I experienced in CA.

Both are wrong.

States like Viriginia, North Carolina and Florida are places that Dems can compete and win. We are not going to win anytime soon in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina. I'm not sure yet about Tennessee and Kentucky.

and Georgia would be a blue state.
Repukes did not gain power here till Diebold arrived.

the state has always been conservative. The conservative Dems are turning into conservative Republicans.

The South isn't totally gone, there are still states we can compete in. Arkansas, Virginia, Florida and North Carolina are places that should be looked be part of our strategy. It sounds crazy, but I feel that these states could be turned around if we start paying more attention to them and have the right candidate.

all it takes is a little strategy adjustment and the right candidate. A lot of those states have been killed by the globalization policies of the last 2 administrations. We could go a long way if we'd work to make more hay out of that issue. Of course that would require pissing off some of the corporate Democrats, but the way I see it, they're the ones who caused this problem in the Democratic Party. You're just not going to make it very far with populist Southerners/Midwesterners/Westerners with a progressive social platform and an economic policy that looks like it was written in a corporate boardroom.

We're on the right track with the minimum wage increase (even though it's not nearly enough), and that could lead to more things that appeal to the economic sensibilities of those voters. Despite popular opinion, most of the people down here don't praise the lord everytime there's a capital gains tax cut. They may agree with the conservatives on social issues like gay rights, but they certainly don't agree with this social darwinist approach to economics. Most are also starting to come around about the war.

We have the tools to build a progressive south, but many of us would rather figure out some mathematical way to get a candidate in the Whitehouse while avoiding doing any work to change people's mind. Of course any mathematical solution to the Southern problem means running a mistake-free campaign in every battleground state in the rest of the country.

... campaign down South. Kerry's biggset problem wasn't that he was too aloof, or speaking with a Boston accent. His problem was that he didn't even go down South and campaign. He chose to "defend" the Pacific Coast, Northeast and Midwest which ceded the rest of the country to Idiot by default.

Yet in many cases he still only lost by a few percentage points. You have to ask yourself, what would happen if we actually tried selling progressive and liberal ideas down South instead of telling ourselves the only way to win is to embrace bad policies and threfore walking away?

are you saying that focusing on economic issues that have had a disastrous impact on much of the South is bad policy?

I agree in part with your assessment on Kerry, but he also did seem aloof and out of touch with a lot of people. Both of these played an important role. You are right however in saying that a big part of the solution is to campaign down south. There were lots of people down here who voted for Kerry even though he didn't step foot in their state, but he could have done better with a little work.

You also can't discount the fact that the conservative machine is always going to attempt to paint our candidate as an out of touch elitist, but by nominating someone with some "ordinary folk" credentials we can go a long way toward beating that label. They managed to convince voters that a millionaire sired by several generations of millionaires was "down home", but they'll never let us get off that easy.

The DNC had allowed many of the southern or 'red' state party infrastructures to collapse and neglected them since the mid90s. Instead of strengthening those infrastructures after 2000, the national party ignored them even more - giving up on 2002 AND 2004 - paying more attention to their DC operations and new headquarters there than working to bolster collapsed infrastructures. They acted like they gave up on 2002-4 on Sept. 11, 2001.

I swear, I think I have discovered my only 'ist'. I am not racist or sexist. I am yankee-ist. We live in a previously rural area of upstate SC and things are changing so fast. I know it is naive or silly or something, but this just isn't the same place it was even three years ago.

I'm down in Spartanburg.

We moved to our current farm about three years ago. Before that, we lived in a small town just on the other side of the state line in NC. Within the past three years they have started developing this area so rapidly it is insane. There are subdivisions of McMansions going up on every corner. It sucks.

The Southern, Mountain, and Midwest states have been seeing population growth in the 5-15% percent range every year since 2000. The Northeastern states like Massachusetts and New York have seen somewhat stagnant population growth <5%. After the 2010 census it has been projected that states like FL, GA, and TX could pick up 1-3 more seats each in the House of Representatives. This means that some states are going to have to lose seats in the HOR, states like NY, MA, CT, NJ, etc. If that shifts it means those Southern states would then have more electoral votes in the Presidential election. Something to think about.

When I lived in Tallahassee I had a colleague from Dixie County, Florida, a tiny county (population wise) in North-Central Florida (near Gainesville). He was/is a Republican but claimed he abandoned Bush sometime in 2003, early 2004. He supported Edwards and had an Edwards bumper sticker on his car. He was going to vote for Edwards in the general but when Kerry won the nomination he stated he couldn't vote for a non-Southern Democrat and voted for Bush. In 2006 he supported Democrat Rod Smith, a Democrat for Governor in Florida (he was more Southern than fellow Democrat Jim Davis) but when Davis won the nomination he voted for Republican Crist.

Now this obviously doesn't relate to all Southerners and who knows how many feel like this, but there are Southerners who won't vote for a Northern Democrat.