Swiped from Pookie's daily toons thread......
Posted on 02/23/2005 3:07:10 PM PST by Libloather
Democrats Split on Electoral Strategy in the South
BY BILL WALSH
Newhouse News Service
WASHINGTON -- As former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean took the helm of the Democratic National Committee a week ago, he declared he would make the party competitive in all 50 states, including in the South.
It was a bold promise for a party that has not won a single Southern electoral vote in the past two presidential elections. To Southern ears it sounded all the more unlikely coming from Dean, who famously remarked early in his failed presidential bid last year that he wanted to be the choice of the "guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."
With Republicans having tightened their grip on the region in 2004, some Democrats openly advocate writing off the 11 states of the Old Confederacy as a lost cause. But others are hatching plans to regain a footing in a region the party dominated for much of the 20th century.
This week the liberal Center for American Progress is co-hosting a conference at the University of North Carolina called "New Strategies for Southern Progress" that will probe topics such as "The Mind of the South" and "Rethinking the Role of Faith and the Community," according to the conference program. The centrist Democratic Leadership Council has gone even further in forging a new Democratic identity, crafting a how-to manual for candidates on how to talk about hot-button issues such as gun control, abortion and affirmative action without alienating Southern voters.
Hewing to the adage that success in life mostly involves just showing up, Dean believes that visibility in the South is the key. He said in his DNC acceptance speech that he plans to replicate the success of his own Internet-powered, grass-roots fund-raising efforts and will hardwire a network of activists throughout the South. He also said he plans to spend a lot more time below the Mason-Dixon line.
"People will vote for Democrats in Texas, in Utah, in West Virginia if we knock on their doors," Dean said. "I believe more people are aligned with the beliefs of the Democratic Party than they are with the beliefs of the Republican Party."
That's a curious conclusion to draw judging by the most recent presidential election. In 2004, President Bush expanded his margin of victory in every Southern state except North Carolina, the home state of Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards. According to one post-election analysis, Bush won 85 percent of all Southern counties and 90 percent of those that have white majorities.
The news doesn't get any better for Democrats as they glance down the ballot. All five retiring Democratic senators from the South had their seats claimed by Republicans in 2004. And University of Maryland political scientist Thomas Schaller said even Democrats' once-solid grip on statehouses in the South has loosened. In state legislative races in the region last year, Democrats lost 36 House seats and 11 Senate seats, he said.
Schaller, a Democrat, said the party should fold its tent and abandon the South. That's essentially what Democratic nominee John Kerry did in the 2004 presidential contest, pulling campaign finances from every Southern state except Florida after Labor Day to boost his campaign operations in other parts of the country.
Schaller said the party should attempt to portray Republicans as the "Party of the South," in a negative sense. He would attempt to tar the GOP with the South's legacy of opposition to civil rights and remind voters elsewhere that some Southerners are still fighting over displaying the Confederate flag.
"Don't conservatives talk about Democrats as Northeastern liberals?" Schaller said.
Schaller said Democrats could make some inroads in the South if voting districts with black majorities were redrawn to make them more racially diverse. Some, he said, are 70 percent to 80 percent African-American, which virtually ensures minority representation from those areas in Congress but stifles black turnout for what are frequently uncontested races. With more than 90 percent of African-Americans voting for Democrats in many elections, Schaller said it takes a toll, albeit an indirect one, on Democrats running statewide.
Some strategists believe that Democrats should target Southern border states that aren't as Republican red as those in the Deep South. They point to Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee as potential targets. Kerry showed promise in parts of those states, such as Northern Virginia, with its bustling technology corridor, proximity to Washington and explosion of young professionals willing to vote Democratic.
Emory University's Merle Black, co-author of the 2002 book "The Rise of Southern Republicans," said there is little hope for Democratic presidential candidates in Deep South states such as Louisiana, even though the state voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. John Breaux's retirement from the Senate and replacement by a Republican, he said, illustrates how things have changed from the days when few Southerners would ever think of pulling the lever for a GOP candidate.
"We're seeing a shift among white moderates in the South, with younger white moderates more likely to align with Republicans," he said. "The older ones are still with the Democrats, but they are leaving the electorate, literally. There is a generational replacement. That helps Republicans in the long term."
Black said that if Democrats are to be competitive in the border states in presidential races, they need to choose a "moderate, centrist candidate," which was the same advice Breaux gave to the party before retiring in January.
The candidate doesn't have to come from the South, but in the words of North Carolina political consultant Mac McCorkle, "It sure helps."
McCorkle said Clinton was successful in the South -- he captured five Southern states in his two campaigns -- not simply because he hailed from Arkansas, but because he had his regional bona fides in order.
"He could sing `Amazing Grace' without looking at the hymnal," McCorkle said. "The candidate has to look comfortable with the traditions and the culture of the South. If he does, people will give him room to maneuver even if he's not from there."
A key to Democratic acceptance, strategists say, is not alienating Southerners on social issues. At a conference in Atlanta in 2003 called "God, Guns and Guts," the Democratic Leadership Council counseled Democrats to embrace what it called "values centrism."
Will Marshall, president of the Leadership Council's think tank, said Republicans have been successful at framing issues such as gun control, abortion and affirmative action in a way that puts Democrats on the defensive. He said Democrats shouldn't avoid those issues, but rather change the terms of debate.
Democrats should acknowledge a constitutional right to bear arms, he said, but emphasize the need for responsibility in owning guns and the need for better enforcement of gun laws. And whatever you do, he said, don't be snooty.
"We aren't interested in denigrating the vast majority of law-abiding citizens who own guns," he said. "It's in the Republicans' interest to polarize these issues. If Democrats don't define themselves, there is a tendency for voters to default to stereotypes the Republicans have designated."
It appeared last month that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., might have been following his advice. Clinton, widely seen as a potential contender if not front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, said her party ought to seek common ground with those who oppose abortion.
Dean also appeared to be trying out a more diplomatic line than voters saw in the Democratic primaries when he roused the party faithful with a full frontal assault on Bush's decision to send the military into Iraq. Dean didn't mention Iraq in his Democratic National Committee acceptance speech. Instead he focused on how Democrats talk about abortion and gay marriage. The party doesn't favor abortion, he said -- it supports a woman's right to make up her mind about "what kind of health care she wants." Democrats don't favor gay marriage, he said, but rather believe "in equal rights under the law."
To Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life at the University of North Carolina, Democrats' success in the South is as much about message as messenger. Guillory said it's unlikely Democrats will enjoy the kind of dominance they once had in the South but that it isn't beyond the reach of the party to pick off a few Southern states and send a Democrat back to the White House.
"The right candidate with the right message can compete in some of the South," Guillory said. "Maybe not all of the South, and maybe not all of the time. But enough."
Or simply listen to Zell Miller. It ain't gonna happen with Nutcase Dean or the Hildabeast in charge...
Well, a strategy is better than no strategy.
Hey Dean! Hire me. I'm from the South, speak the language, and can educate you & your kind on how to court their vote without insulting them.
120k/yr plus perks (I get to bop Hillary over the head with rolled up newpapers).
I think the Democrats demonization of a southern Democrat like Zell Miller, especially with his illustrious political career (it wasn't as if he served one term and then became a Republican), should do injury to the Democrats chances in the south. They used their media machine to tarnish his good name, because he had the tenacity to say they were out of step with southern values.
Considering that seems to be a basic personality characteristic of about 90% of the Dem party, I don't think their strategy is going to work. ;)
Promise me that you will use a Sunday edition, ok?
LVM
Is this guy so stoopid that he can't see that a claim like that will pretty much flame his butt before his spittle hits the ground? It ain't ancient history, it was the Democrat party that was almost violently against desegregation in the south.
BTW..according to some Dem strategists, the party needs to nominate a Southerner, and a governor..By those standards...they have a severe deficit of candidates..
Yeah, please come on down and spend lots and lots and lots of money campaigning here. You'll really have a chance of winning. No, seriously, come on down.
It ain't gonna happen with Nutcase Dean or the Hildabeast in charge
Did you see the poll Monday in which 26 percent of Republicans indicated that they wanted Hillary Clinton to run for president? I don't know if all that number would vote for her, but she remains the likely Democrat standard-bearer.
Just, please, for everyone's safety including his, don't let him near taking one of those guns out. Don't even give him one Barney Fife round in his pocket.
There is only one way for them to get out of the mess they're in. CHANGE! Some ideas:
-Stop hating this country and always publically finding fault with her.
-Stop attacking Christians and Christianity.
-Stop claiming that sex with members of the same sex is normal, wholesome behavior.
-Stop giving handouts to folks because of the group they belong to.
-Stop taking the side of France and Germany in world affairs.
-Stop supporting Islamofacists. Even in "Palestine".
-Stop supporting the killing of the unborn.
Now, if the Democrats do these things, then yes, they may have a chance in the South.
This is grewat stuff. Send the swimmer down to Texas to "show up
"and knock on doors" and see how many votes are generated.
These guys don't understand they have to advicate things important to Southerns--not try to deceive people.
If they are not willing to vote in line with a majority of Southern opinions and priorities--thye are going down in flames anyway.
Thet article basically says the Rat centrist group is well versed in the deception of Southerns, nothing more.
Better read that yankee law that prevents reduction of minorities in a district. They made that bed, let them lie in it.
Which might explain some of the recent calls for changing redistricting. It was fine for Democrats to gerrymander to get reserved black Democrat seats. It was fine for Democrats to gerrymader sitting Republicans right out of the districts (George Allen was gerrymadered out of his District, and went on to bigger and better things). Now that a change is needed to get more Democrats elected, academics are decrying partisan redistricting as the worst thing in the world.
I was born and raised in the north and spent last 30 years in the DEEP South and love it. The northern Dems and California liberals have a major disconnect with the Southern states because they are so engrossed in their on liberal psychobabbel that they have to "strategize" about what they might pretend to believe in so they can con the voters. BOY THAT SURE GIVES CONFIDENCE IN THEIR LEADERSHIP!!!
I was born and raised in the north and spent last 30 years in the DEEP South and love it. The northern Dems and California liberals have a major disconnect with the Southern states because they are so engrossed in their on liberal psychobabbel that they have to "strategize" about what they might pretend to believe in so they can con the voters. BOY THAT SURE GIVES CONFIDENCE IN THEIR LEADERSHIP!!!
[Schaller said the party should attempt to portray Republicans as the "Party of the South," in a negative sense.]
Brillant move. Not. No RAT has ever won the White House without carrying a few Southern states. The RATS are clueless in how to court Southerners.
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