Sanders tells Schultz: Southern Democrats are tired of being abandoned by the party (2013)

[ismnotwasm]

Interesting. He talks about "low income white voters"-- I wrongly assumed republicans-because they get "hung up" on "abortion issues" and "gay rights" issues. He is talking about Southern Democrats.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) made the case for a broader progressive push in an interview with MSNBC host Ed Schultz on Friday, saying his recent sojourn into southern states showed him there was still a Democratic base in a region usually known for supporting Republicans.

“I’ve been meeting with unionists, independents, progressive Democrats,” Sanders explained via satellite from Columbia, South Carolina. “And they are tired of being abandoned by the national Democratic party. They want some help, and they believe that with some help they can start winning in these conservative states.”

One cause for concern, Sanders explained to Schultz, was seeing many white, working-class voters in “low-income states” like Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina voting against their own best interest.

“These are guys getting hung up on gay marriage issues,” Sanders told Schultz. “They’re getting hung up on abortion issues. And it is time we started focusing on the economic issues that bring us together: Defending Social Security, defending Medicare, making sure that Medicaid is not cut, that veterans’ programs are not cut.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2013/10/bernie-sanders-tells-ed-schultz-southern-democrats-are-tired-of-being-abandoned-by-the-party/#.Vtl9eGJ4Rgs.facebook

[Cha]

1. kick

[Her Sister]

2. OMG!!

[johnp3907]

3. Hung up???

Please proceed, senator....

[72DejaVu]

4. Man is that ironic

Bernie Panders crying crocodile tears for Southerners while his shock troops are trashing them all over the Internet.

[Agnosticsherbet]

5. Some info on Southern Democrats "The Conservative Fantasy History of Civil Rights"

The Conservative Fantasy History of Civil Rights

His story completely ignores the explicit revolt by conservative Southerners against the northern liberal civil rights wing, beginning with Strom Thurmond, who formed a third-party campaign in 1948 in protest against Harry Truman’s support for civil rights. Thurmond received 49 percent of the vote in Louisiana, 72 percent in South Carolina, 80 percent in Alabama, and 87 percent in Mississippi. He later, of course, switched to the Republican Party.

Thurmond’s candidacy is instructive. Democratic voting was deeply acculturated among southern whites as a result of the Civil War. When southern whites began to shake loose of it, they began at the presidential level, in protest against the civil rights leanings of the national wing. It took decades for the transformation to filter down, first to Congressional-level representation (Thurmond, who Williamson mentions only in his capacity as a loyal Democrat, finally switched to the GOP in 1964), and ultimately to local-level government. The most fervently white supremacist portions of the South were also the slowest to shed their Confederate-rooted one-party traditions. None of this slowness actually proves Williamson’s contention that the decline of the Democratic Party in the South was unrelated to race.

Strom Thrumon was a Southern Democrat.

[yallerdawg]

6. The old "Solid South" in transition.

[stonecutter357]

7. K&R!

[CajunBlazer]

8. He obviously doesn't understand that social issues trump all in the South...

...and that is not going to change anytime soon.

A hatred of government's "meddling" in Southern social "customs" has been handed down from generation to generation. While it may have lost its sharp racial edge and moved into the areas of gay rights, abortion, etc., that hatred is never the less very much alive and well in the South and it totally over rides economic considerations. It is still the defining aspect of Southern politics.

For instance, well respected studies have show that when our governor refused to extend Medicaid here in Alabama, it cost the state one billion dollars in federal funding and associated economic activity. However, Governor Bentley was running for a second term at the time and he didn't dare accept those federal funds because if he had, he would have lost the election.

One day economic issues may gain precedence in the South, but certainly not in my lifetime. Bernie is barking up the wrong tree.

[YoungDemCA]

9. Which Southern Democrats? Black Southerners are overwhelmingly Democratic

[George II]

10. Note that he's criticizing voters in states where he lost by margins of 44%, 46%, and 47%.

And I guess to him gay marriage and abortion rights aren't important issues to him.

[UtahLib]

11. So, don't bother him

with your concern about those distracting social issues. No wonder he's losing.

[Treant]

12. It's amazing how little he's evolved.

This is two and a half years later, and well into a Primary contest, and his message hasn't adjusted to suit the audience in the slightest.

It was tone deaf then, it's tone deaf now. And as always, he's more interested in wooing the whites in these states--where both a philosophy and party change are required--than in proving himself to the existing black voters who are, overwhelmingly now, rejecting him for Clinton.

Two and a half years of working for the AA community down there would have shored up his credentials very nicely and possibly made him quite competitive in many more states. But I guess that was too hard and required attention to somebody else's concerns that didn't quite match his own.

[DesertRat]

13. k&r

[Tarheel_Dem]

14. So, why isn't he doing better in the South? His concern for "black lives" is a relatively new one.

But, thinking that he can form a coalition of disaffected white Southerners with POC who they feel are beneath them, was stupid from the start.

[Her Sister]

15. sounds like he is talking to Southern whites

who vote Republican. He is giving up on minorities. Explains going to Fox TV too

[Starry Messenger]

16. This has been a left-wing pipe dream for years.

It's obviously not working now either, so I wish we could put this theory to bed, but now it is being replaced by conspiracy theories.

The Democratic party is a multi-racial coalition now, and white people who don't like it vote for Republicans or let them win.

[Thinkingabout]

17. This Southern voter does not feel abandoned, missed again.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. Seriously Bernie?

[DemonGoddess]

19. uhhhhhh...

seriously? He's shooting for the Repub votes again isn't he?

Just supports that he's not a Democrat, except for where it benefits him to be. Which is of course supported by his upcoming Senate run as an Independent.