Democrats Covet the West, but Can't Keep Losing the South

[losdiablosgato]

Democrats Covet the West, but Can't Keep Losing the South
Since President Bush's narrow reelection in November, many Democrats have looked longingly to the Mountain West as the party's best opportunity to rebuild an electoral college majority. And in the years ahead, states such as Colorado, Arizona and Nevada may indeed become more competitive political battlefields.

But new long-term population projections from the Census Bureau show that anyone who believes Democrats can consistently win the White House without puncturing the Republican dominance across the South is just whistling Dixie. The census projections present Democrats with an ominous equation: the South is growing in electoral clout even as the Republican hold on the region solidifies.

Veteran demographer William H. Frey, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, this month extrapolated the census numbers into projections for the electoral college over the next quarter century. His conclusions, in a paper titled "The Electoral College Moves to the Sun Belt," framed challenges for both parties but raised the toughest questions for Democrats.

Overall, Frey forecast a continued shift in influence from "blue" states where Democrats have run best, primarily in the Northeast and Midwest, to "red" Sunbelt states that mostly have voted Republican in presidential elections since the 1960s.

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-na-outlook16may16,0,1951383.column?coll=la-home-headlines

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

1. As the population shifts, so do the dynamics....

It seems that an increase in population across the sunbelt means that that population comes from 'somewhere'...do people all of a sudden abandon their political beliefs because they change latitude?

[losdiablosgato]

2. Many of the people are coming from the south

My brother (who is so right wing he make Rove look linke Dean) has 3 kids and they are talking about a fourth. I had a coworker on th elast job who was very conservative and religious, he had 8 kids!!!! I live in Tx and all I see is it gettign redder and redder.

[Wright Patman]

3. It's the people with lots of kids

who should be most upset at Bushonomics because it has condemned their children to life in a Third World hellhole.

Texas is really going to be more unlivable than most places because of the vast distances between home and work and between population centers. And everything is geared around the internal combustion engine.

Eventually, all remaining energy resources will have to be devoted to keeping the AC on during the summer or we will all literally roast in the literal hellhole this state becomes in August.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

4. Don't know about Texas....that is its own little world

But in places like Virginia and North Carolina and even Georgia there is a shift in dynamics with the influx into urban areas.

I see the last election as an urban vs. rural dynamic more than a red state--blue state division.

[reality based]

13. A population time bomb is ticking in Texas

The Republican takeover in Texas was apparent as they began to win local races in traditionally Democratic areas. However, the day is not far off when Texas white Anglos will be in the minority among the voting age population. The Republican Party's own projections show them beginning to lose local races in Dallas and Harris (Houston) Counties soon Dallas County, long the bastion of right wing Republicanism in Texas, almost went for Kerry in 2004. This why Rove continues to make a play for Hispanic votes. Similar demographic patterns are in play elsewhere in the south. As the south becomes more urbanized, different problems will arise that will challenge the current Republican/Christo-fascist/quiet racist coalition. In the meantime Democrats should not attempt to become Republican-lite to attract southern votes-- that will only lead to debilitating third party splintering. For the near future Democrats should concentrate on a modification of the old "quadcali" strategy-- the northeast quadrant (Minnesota to Maine), the west coast, western states of opportunity (New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Colorado), and try to chip off a few southern and border states (Missouri, West Virginia, Arkansas, Virginia, Florida). I think a major effort should be made to bring Ohio back into the Democratic column. The disaffection of the South is currently a function of the growing assertiveness of the religious right in the Churches. I see little hope for quickly reversing that trend, although some effort should be made to divide it where possible. Democrats should not take the Hispanic vote for granted and take steps to shore up our traditional support there.

[losdiablosgato]

14. My next door neighbor is hispanic and had a Bush sign in his yard in 2004

I talked to him and it was gun control and values thas made him and he said his father and brothers leave the Democratic party.

[reality based]

29. Hispanic voters remain overwhelmingly democratic

although there are defections. Even the Cuban exception is turning more Democratic. Democrats should not take Hispanics for granted, however. Their turnout percentage is often low and they can be marginally moved toward the Republicans. My Hispanic brother-in-law (who hunts, fishes, employs immigrant labor, drives SUVs, doesn't like gays) was for Bush in 2000 but switched to Kerry in 2004. "I say I'm a Republican," he told me, "but I always do better when a Democrat is President." He raises money for liberal Hispanic candidates. My closest Hispanic "neighbor" is an unwavering Democrat. To some of her Hispanic coworkers discussing the recent death of a Marine nephew in Iraq, she said "You know there is only one way to stop this and that's to vote Democratic." They agreed. I don't think being pro-gun or adopting right-wing values will get their votes, but campaigning on traditional Democratic values of peace and prosperity for all will.

[snowbear]

64. I don't get the "amount of kids" connection?

:shrug: ...My brother and his wife live in a small town in Alabama. He has 8 children and they adopted a 9th baby from a relative.

They are good Democrats who despise Mr. Bush with a passion.

I don't get where the kids connection comes in? I know tons of Democrats who have huge families and who live in the deep, deep south.

Help.. I'm sooOOoo confused.. :crazy: :silly:

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[quaoar]

8. Populism

The Democratic Party has ceded it to the Republicans and it is what the South responds to in national elections. The Republicans have wrapped up the South by thundering about gay marriage and liberal elites and other horseshit for years.

Democrats used to win in the South by thundering about Republican fat cats "back East" screwing the little man. When was the last time you heard that from anyone and it didn't sound like it was focus-group tested?

If all you see is religious fanatics, militarism and bigotry, you haven't bothered to open your eyes.

[losdiablosgato]

10. One of my big peeves about this blog is all the south bashing

The south once was the bastogon of the democratic party. It can be again but we have to stop bashing these people and listen to their concerns. I know that a centerist/popularist who is pro gun, against Gay marriage, but pro civil union, and very pro labor could win in the south.

And keep in mind that we can not afford to lose in 2008. If we lose then we lose the supreme court. The justices are all old, ill, or both. If we lose in 2008 I do not see any of the sitting juctices on the court by 2012. With all 9 justices picked by rethugs we will lose Roe, affirmative action, gay rights, and a lot else. If protecting that means a moderate, and I think it does then we need to go to the center.

[Davis_X_Machina]

12. Yeah...

...and if my grandfather had tits, he'd be my grandmother.

[quaoar]

15. South bashing is a popular pastime

Apparently some people have 20/20 vision when it comes to spotting bigotry in the South but myopia when they look around their own backyards.

[losdiablosgato]

16. I take people as they come

But I will say this south bashing is stupid. We need these people, and if we bash they will turn a deaf ear.

[leveymg]

25. I've lived in or visited every region in the country (except the upper .

Mid-west) In the '80s, the most racist city I knew was Boston (but they tried to keep that under wraps, like an uncle with a bad drinking problem who lived in the basement). In the '90s, it was LA that had top honors for racial tension. It's now Orlando (quite open about it, too). Funny, a lot of the people in Central Florida are recent transpants from New Jersey who used to be Democrats.

That's just my impression.

[Bill McBlueState]

23. yeah, them gays don't need to get married

Who do they think they are, asking for equality under the law?

I won't be happy if something as fundamental as equality under the law is sacrificed to get the bigot vote.

[quaoar]

26. I guess all the blue states

must be citadels of enlightenment where gay marriage is happily accepted, right?

[QC]

42. But if we end up with a permanent Republican government,

then we will never get marriage rights. It's a tough question.

[losdiablosgato]

46. And what else will we lose

The sad truth is we have to start winning elections asap or the rethugs will start turning back the clock.

[ElectroPrincess]

45. Only when slavery was A OK ...

I live in The South ... I am politically unrepresented. After all, VA's the state that gave you Senator George Allen. I rest my case. ;)

[jfw9999]

55. South bashing and the bible belt

My original posting was deleted for some reason or other so I'll try to make my point clearer.

The trouble with attempting to win over the South is that it is a waste of time under the present political system we have. (IMHO)

I do not believe that there is a snowball's chance .... that the Democrats will ever carry Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina --- the list goes on. The trouble is that if you are not a bible toten patriot populist who understands and accept the intolerance that runs rampant in these areas - you are an outsider.

Many parts of the south are simply xenophobic, creationists that will not tolerate interference. The thought that The Democrats once owned the South is not germane here. At that time Roosevelt wished beyond all measure that he did not have to deal with the south. He hated having to cow tow to that insular provisional ism that refused to move forward. Current day rabid conservatism was born in the South.

If we had a parliamentary system - it would be a different story. We could cull out the 20 to 40 percent of the minority made up of the likes of Molly Ivans, and Jim Hightower who have fought this kind of hate and anger in their own backyards for years.

We need platforms and credos that disavow the kind of attitudes that warm the average southern Joe to the Democratic party.

Come up with a different vision that enlightened folk can get behind, Perhaps change the way we operated our electoral system in this country so we are not disenfranchising the sizable minority in the South that don't hold to the larger narrow views promulgated by the current majority in the Southern red states.

[quaoar]

56. It would have been a lot easier

to write off the South in the 1960s when hatemongers like Bull Connor were in power. Interesting side note about Connor: He had actually been kicked out of office when he was unleashing dogs and fire hoses on demonstrators in Birmingham, but he stayed in thanks to a court ruling.

Anyway, back then there was a much greater argument for blowing off the South. Opposition to desegregatin was intense to say the least. But that generation has passed and the South is a different place than it was thanks to the efforts of progressive-minded people, progressive church leaders and corporate executives who made it clear that they would not move their factories to a state full of uneducated bigots.

I have lived in the South since 1966. Believe me, it is vastly different today. But it needs to continue to progress. And that progress will only be achieved by working day after day and year after year to change attitudes. It doesn't happen overnight and it doesn't magically happen by itself.

You have to commit to it even though it won't see fruition in the next election or the election after that. Those of us who have stayed here have made that commitment -- to make Alabama and other Southern states a better place for our children.

We don't ask for a lot of help, but we do ask that we not be scorned.

[jfw9999]

58. our support

Well said, quaoar. I am not scornful of the likes of you, Moyers, Ivans and Hightower. To me you are heroes - much nearer martyrdom than the evangelists lying in front of "abortion clinics".

Certainly there is a tremendous amount of the same sort of narrow minded thinking that goes on in my home state of Wisconsin. So far... however, we have maintained an edge.

My only real concern is for the Dems to water down their message so that it will appeal to the center of the road folks in the South. The center of the road is the right of a decade ago, in many instances and it is my belief that that kind of old DLC politic is what turns off the fighters and the general public to vote against the wishy-washy statement of intent.

Lets get the progressive agenda out in front and INSIST on it. Perhaps the Dems will regain long lost respect.

You have my respect and support. truly.

[leveymg]

18. Agree. The populist message needs to be revived

Just not given a right-wing, holy-roller slant to please the evangelicals.

[BillZBubb]

27. I've opened my eyes and my ears.

Obviously, you haven't. I talk with Southerners every day. I live here. The bigotry is real and deep, but they keep it below the surface. Whenever the Repugs use it in a campaign, it's a guaranteed winner for them. Democrats used to win the South because they were the party of Jim Crow and you know it (I hope). Their populism was wrapped in bigotry. Do you want to go back to that?

The militarism is obvious. Even as Vietnam was a disaster, the South stayed pro-war. The same for Iraq. More than any other region, these people will support any right wing military mis-adventure. They love a President who projects power, no matter what the facts are.

The religious fanaticism is getting worse, not better. This shouldn't need any explanation.

As for populism, good luck. Like I said in my original message, it won't fly here UNTIL their is an economic disaster that really grabs these people by the short ones. Then, it will work for a while.

[Clark2008]

37. I live here, too, and I don't see it.

In fact, my city has turned blue in the past two elections, even if the county its in and the state remain red.

Maybe you're talking to the wrong folks.

[ElectroPrincess]

44. I'm just guessing that you are a white male?

Be a "little lady" or a "person of color" in DA South, you will know discrimination up close and personal.

If the Democratic Party has to win these willfully ignorant mean-spirited, bible thumping rednecks, then I don't want to a Democrat.

No, these people are not Christian - many of them are just plain uninformed and arrogant.

[BillZBubb]

54. I suggest that it is you talking to the wrong folks.

If you want to see the true nature of the Southern states, you need to talk to people in the suburbs and rural areas. Those are the people I deal with on a daily basis. I would expect the city people to be more politically evolved--even in the South. But, that's not where the majority of the voters here are.

[Clark2008]

35. Bigotry of the South?

Geez - you DO realize that there is bigotry EVERYWHERE, don't you?

Maybe if Dems wouldn't make statements like that, we could MAKE a dent in the South, which, btw, voted for the Clinton/Gore ticket both times. It's not its been Republican forever and a day.

[ElectroPrincess]

43. Yeah, but the bigotry of "The South" is a very disturbing kind ...

Why? Because it's "in your face." Stars and bars flags and bumper stickers are everywhere in these here parts. Makes me wish we would have settled in Maryland with a smaller house vice in the yahoo parts of Northern Virginia - many areas south of Woodbridge, Virginia.

If I were an African American (10% local population), I'd work like hell to NOT live here. The "redneck aura" is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Being liberal here is like being on a "deep cover" assignment. You can NEVER honestly speak your mind. A neighbor of mine bragged that he was going to Gettysburg to reenact for the South that battle. I didn't have the heart to tell him my ancestor's (The North) fought and won the Civil War ... and he should just "get over it" like we did the 2000 Coup. <eg> It's a complete mystery to me why these rebel souls MUST relive carnage within civil war battles every damn year ... why? I'm at a complete loss, not for remembrance of their beloved ancestors, but why in the world would you with RE-ENACT killing your brother?!?

Yes, You're right = there's covert bigotry and racism everywhere. However, IMO, The Southern Redneck Flavor is one of the most F'd-up in it's audacity and morally decrepit expression. <twilight zone theme>

[BronxBoy]

63. Um....

There are a lot of non-white people in the South who kinda like it. Myself included. Where exactly area you located? I moved from the one of the bluest of states (NY) to a so-called red one (GA). Yes, the politics of the state are a little too conservative for my tastes but on the other hand, I like my situation a lot better than what I had up North. I'm sure there is some "disturbing" bigotry in the south but I can tell you horror stories about living 8 years under Rudy G's mayoral tenure in NYC. You need look no further than Diallo, Dorismond and Louima to see that "disturbing" bigotry knows no geographic boundaries.

I do think there is a certain segment of Southern society that may be forever beyond the reach of progressives but I don't think we should write off the entire South. Where we moved to down here, there are a lot of conservative folks. Most of the homes on my street had Bush signs up during the last election. My next door neighbor and his wife are in their 70's. He's a retired farmer, solid Baptist fellow. He wears overalls and looks every bit image of a rural georgia farmer. One day I was down in the back of my property planting some gardens. I had my dogs tied out with me while I worked. He rides a electric wheelchair and he's a little scared of them so he came around through a path in the woods in the back, I thought he got stuck and went to help him.

We started chatting and I told him that I had decided to take a job instead of purchasing a business I was looking at. I told him the reason was becuase I wasn't very comfortable with the economy and didn't want to take on the debt load. And without missing a beat, he said "Yeah, that Bush is really messing up, isn't he". He then proceeded to tell me that the neighbor to the left of us was pissed off at him because he blasted Bush about a variety of things and the guy had a hissy fit and wasn't speaking to him. I laughed my ass off and it was only then that I noticed, slapped right on the front of his wheelchair, was a Kerry/Edwards sticker.

I say all of this because progressives will not gain ground by continuing to label and demonize all people in a certain geographic region. If I were to post a picture of this old guy and do one of them DU polls asking what his political affialtion was, I can guess what the outcome would be: freeper, fundie and all the other endearing terms we have for some conservatives. Yes there are those people, both on the right and the left, who are going to hold fast to some f**ked up beliefs no matter what. Our challenge is to focus on the rest of the folks. It's easy for people surrounded by like minds to feel that they can never reach common ground with those of differing opinions. Progessives will move their agenda ahead in areas in the South and the Blue people living here will be the ones to do that. And it won't come from shouting racial history at folks but from sharing common concerns such as the future of our kids, our health concerns and our economic worries.

Please don't write off the South! I just moved here

[losdiablosgato]

7. I think abandoning the south is a really bad idea

Since 1964 only 3 democrats have been president and then only for 16 of the 41 years. All three were from the south (Johnson, Carter, Clinton)and all three were at least somewhat of a moderate. No democrat has won the whitehouse in living memory without winning at least a few southern states. If the rethugs have the south sewed up them they need only about 100 more electorial votes to win and have more resources to throw into the battle ground swing states. We can not be a nation party and give up the south.

[reality based]

19. I was "Charter Carter"

recognizing the opportunity he provided to throw a monkey wrench into Nixon's southern strategy. I supported Bill Clinton for similar reasons. Al Gore's candidacy unfortunately seems to have signaled the end to the efficacy of the southern moderate gambit for the Democrats. Gore couldn't carry his own state, much less North Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia, or Louisiana. Racism and right-wing religion are tying up most of the South for Republicans right now. The affluent Yankee immigrants seem to have no problem in joining that coalition. Urban problems and demographic change have yet to make a difference, at least on Presidential races. Perhaps social security privatization and the slow but perceptible disintegration of our health care system will bring southerners to their senses, but I am not too optimistic. The South is just too "high maintenance" to make a grand play for. Better to try to chip off a few states on the edges without risking alienating the base.

[losdiablosgato]

51. I agree we do not have to win all the south

But we need to get a message that will make us competitive in the south. Losing gun control would be a good way to start.

[leveymg]

20. If its a choice between principles and expediency, I'd rather

not compromise the Party's central message: racial inclusion, economic populism, and social openness. I have nothing against southerners or moderates, provided that basic message is maintained.

Reasonable people can disagree about the specific content.

[losdiablosgato]

41. I hate it too, but.....

Given a choose between losing in 2008 and having a moderate I choose the moderate. Losing th supreme court is that important. Think about this how much of out agenda have we relied on the courts to make happen? And in the past 33 years democrats have had the whitehouse only 12. We lose in 2008 the carnage to our believes will be unimaginable.

[jfw9999]

59. time to chuck the compromise program

The trouble is that the moderate is increasingly seen as the mush ball that can't stand up to world terrorism. It is my opinion that the electorate in the country is not capable of any self-criticism and is unwilling to look at another REAL terrorist in the world called US Foreign/Economic Policy.

The moderate is obliged to say that even though Iraq was misguided - now that we are in there we can;t get out.

In the world of George Carlin: "What IS this coitus interuptus? That's essentially what we are doing over there anyway..."

That;s only the tip of the iceberg. So...... we ALL know about this stuff from the Shah of Iran to Pinochet of Chili - but to be a moderate means you DARE NOT EVER BRING IT UP.

So the bulk of Americans never truly know what is going on but simply have an uneasy feeling about why "The all hate us"...... that's when the xenophobia kicks in.

We need to come clean. It will take an entire party of grassroots folk to insist on rooting out truth and presenting it in small bite size meals to the electorate until they are brought up to speed.

If this sounds condescending it is because it IS condescending. The bulk of the American public has not a CLUE what is going on in their name - if they did George Bush would be back home loosing at checkers with Tom Delay.

[Lexingtonian]

50. well, times do change

You've picked exactly the 36 years dominated by Nixon Republicans. Which was preceded by 36 years of FDR Democrats dominating.

To be blunt, some states are locomotives and others are cabooses in matters of political progress. The South is a bunch of cabooses for the time being. In a generation the Latino 'insurgency' will be breaking down its traditionalism via intermarriages and it's all over in a hurry. Catering to it much in the meantime is a waste of time. Democrats, like it or not, will be the smart secondary party in the region in any case.

Some Southern states are breaking down, as mentioned in other posts. The Republican Party is also starting to break down, just as the Democratic Party did during LBJ's term when LBJ reached the limits of the FDR agenda. The limits of the NIxon agenda are being reached at the moment and the Republican coalition is starting to break down.

We're not seeing the socially liberal moderates among them come over to Democrats yet en masse, but 2 million of them crossed over and voted for Kerry.

[jfw9999]

60. Where's the beef?

I know the Mantra for the Dems now is to GET INTO POWER and then we can do something.

I think the cart is before the horse. The Democratic party MUST do some deep soul searching before they muddle their way into another losing campaign.

The Democrats have moved all over the map from the time of their creation. Now they/ perhaps we? (green party member for a long time) will reinvent ourselves again.

But at the moment- our elected officials are mainly panderers. Panderers to power, to money, to business interest groups, unions that are so weakened they are another mouthpiece for the industry they fight in the vain hope they can keep jobs and not have them transported overseas to support the bottom line.

Look! Folks, we are in a very deep pile of shit these elitist Repubs have put us in. The "us" applies to not only the democrats with whom the likes of Karl Rove has torn into shreds - but the American people as well.

When I was a youth, a family would dig a well and clean water was the norm... if it was bad - it was tracked down to the source IMMEDIATELY and restitution was made IMMEDIATELY because: Water and Air was a public commodity that could NEVER be owned by a corporation.

Now we are facing a new feudal emperor growing, where corporations will parcel out clean air and water for a price.... the very same (I would imagine) who have been allowed to pollute the resource in the beginning.

The same is happening to agriculture: as Monsanto and DuPont begin to control the yields of GM crops; it is becoming increasingly clear that the family farm (no matter how large) is simply not able to complete with the corporate equivalent and begin to sell out to the corporation. Well What happens when the one last viable resource of the United States is sold off to the corporation?

Nothing is more valuable in the US than the millions of acres of old sea bed that has created 20 and 30 foot deep topsoil in regions of Indiana. Iowa and Illinois. If this is turned over to the corporations who will benefit.

It is not hard to guess. Who needs it more than any others on earth? India, China and Japan will own these corporations and folks like the Peterson's, Oriels, and Johnson's will be working the lands for wages their grandparents once owned.

Then we will be ripe for revolution.

This right wing form of lazzesfaire capitalism is beginning to eat the founders of the creed. Walmart has all but destroyed diversity in the retail community. When will we wake up?

I'm tired - I will stop my rant. We need leaders that are willing to address these issues head on.

[Lexingtonian]

61. Well, why don't you just give up?

You're one of many, many economic Left, socially pragmatic-to-conservative people wandering around this country who can't figure out why your politics doesn't actually lead to results.

What I'm trying to explain to people like you is that your unwillingness to accept or prioritize social change and overcoming social conservatism is the Why. If you don't, you will spend a lot more years mentally gyring around all these economic-qua-environmental grievance in extremes of despair and dread of 'revolution'...that, because you will not accept the root of the problem, will only invert things rather than transform them.

Equalization of social rights precedes the kind of transformative change in economic rights that folks like you desire to have the end products of. Slavery has never been changed by giving slaves a minimum wage or making masters and slaves trade places. Slavery had to be abolished before its social and economic consequences could begin to vanish.

Corporations are part of the inequality structure of American society. They only lose their privilege, standing as masters, by a process of social and economic justice that begins by people giving up the systematic social inequalities that pits common people against each other and always manifests itself in economic inequality.

As alternative you can hope that your opponents defeat themselves. You can keep on demanding that leaders rise up and do what you want, and never see the problem from their perspective: a lot of people who want relatively small problems fixed that result from very large problems they deny are relevant.

[Bill McBlueState]

9. I hate these calculations

I mean, the editorial is exactly right. But nothing in that editorial has anything to do with the direct will of the people. Thanks to our electoral college system, presidential elections are all about states and not people.

It doesn't matter how many blue people move to Colorado as long as there's a red majority.

[losdiablosgato]

11. We do not have 1 national election, we have 50 state elections

That is the math, sorry but that is the way it is.

[Bill McBlueState]

22. I wish people would take a more proactive approach than

"sorry but that is the way it is"

The electoral college has come close to being abolished a number of times. As recently as 1971, an amendment to abolish it passed the House and nearly passed the Senate.

Democrats shouldn't accept the status quo when the status quo is undemocratic.

[kenny blankenship]

17. I live in the south and I'm from the south

and you can just forget it.

Until Bushonomics blow up and we have a undeniable economic crisis (and we get some Democratic politicians who realize politics isn't a debating society or a garden club) the South is going to stay radioactively Republican. The South didn't go GOP, the GOP went Southern. Joining Ohio to the blue uppermidwest is a much better chance for us than picking up Georgia or some combination of small southern states. I see your historical analysis and I wonder how's the weather back in the past?

[CTLawGuy]

21. a better idea for Dems is to win the Southwest

TX, CO, AZ, NM, NV, and FL make up the Southwest in my opinion. They all have high Latino populations and I think are more a swing region than the south.

Obviously TX is out, but the rest of those states are legitimately winnable for us, AZ being the hardest of those.

The south (VA, KY, TN, NC, SC, GA, MS, AR, LA, and AL) is more ideologically rigid, and we never seem to have a chance in ANY of those states.

If we make big gains in the southwest, we won't need the south.

[quaoar]

28. Southern states that are winnable

include Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, NC and maybe Georgia.

Alabama, SC, Mississippi and Kentucky will be tough to crack.

What we really need is a right-wing independent or third-party on the ballot to split the Republican vote -- someone with name recognition and a base, like Roy Moore.

[guardian]

30. FL is not in the SW

Check your map.

[CTLawGuy]

33. If you are speaking geographically, that is true

but if you are speaking culturally and politically, it makes more sense to put FL in with the southwest than the south.

Florida has a high Latino population (which the south in general does not), just like the other SW states, and it is more of a right-leaning swing state rather than a solid-repug southern state.

[realFedUp]

24. Brownstein's a CNNer....

enuf said.

[Toots]

31. We need to post Isaiah 32: 5-8 along every highway in the south

Let them read God's words concerning Liberals... We need to reclaim the word Liberal and we can do it with God's own words.

[kenny blankenship]

32. Well that makes about as much sense as the rest of the bible (nt)

[Toots]

34. Never learned to read or what is your problem?

What do you not understand about these three verses? The vile person does evil things and is filled with hypocrisy and against the LORD But the Liberal does Liberal things and for that he will be remembered.

[kenny blankenship]

36. I read the bible.

All of it. Some of it many times. That's my problem.

[Toots]

38. Maybe you just need to comprehend what you read.

What about those three verses do you not understand? The vile person does evil things, speaks LIES and is filled with hypocrisy and is against the LORD But the Liberal does Liberal things and for that he will be known. Also the vile person will never be known as a Liberal. meaning Liberals are not vile people.

[kenny blankenship]

39. It's what's often called BLATHER

I comprehend blather pretty well, but there's not much in it to comprehend. You think it signifies something, please feel free to spend your money trying to get people to read it as they zoom past at 75mph.

[Toots]

40. Yes very good representation of Blather

Blather is apparent. so is lack of comprehension. Thank American schools.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[jfw9999]

48. typos " Howard not harold Dean" sorry

[losdiablosgato]

49. What does it mean you ask?

It means we lose. Now matter how you cut it we need to be competitive in teh south to win nationally. I am not saying we have to win more then say 4 states, but with out a message that can at least attract some votes there the rethugs ahve to much of an adavantage. We can not afford to write off this part of the country.

[mrgorth]

52. And I am not willing to give up on

civil unions. So how do we fix it?

[losdiablosgato]

53. I think civil unions are more then doable

The polls I have read all say they are. But gay marriage is just to big a pill for these people to shallow. Maybe in the future, but not now.

Politics is the art of the possible. I would much rather do a little horse trading anf gget 70% to 80% of what I want and try for the rest in the next election, then go for it all and lose it all.

[Davis_X_Machina]

57. It's the old kid's story "Stone Soup"...

...but in reverse. Each person who comes to the soup pot takes something away.

Be a Democrat, but...

• ...tone down your support for civil rights.
  
• ...don't suggest that "Boo-ya!" might not be a foreign policy.
  
• ...backtrack on separation of church and state.
  
• ...don't mention the fact that the nation is awash in guns.
  
• ...a woman's right to chose is negotiable.
  
• ...progressive taxation might be a bad thing.
  
• ...in a time of 'war' no one gets to ask any questions.
  

Notice that at this point I am no longer a Democrat?

[Eliot Spitzer 2006]

62. You're a little over the top, don't you think?

I think you can be a good Democrat and also support the Second Amendment, support parental notification for abortions and be strong on defense in the tradtion of FDR, Harry Truman and JFK.