Posted on 07/24/2006 9:36:25 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
If you want to understand why Democrats are the minority party in Congress, look at four states: Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky. Before the 1994 elections, when Democrats still controlled both chambers, these Southern states had 24 Democratic House members and 14 Republicans. Among senators, there were five Republicans and three Democrats.
Today, there are 24 GOP House members and 15 Democrats, and all eight senators are Republicans.
Democrats acknowledge that their prospects for regaining control are dim until they start winning elections in this region. Several of this year's races are lab experiments in this effort, with Democrats testing new types of candidates, messages and media.
They hope to underscore that they do not fit stereotypes of Democrats as cultural liberals, and they hope to win voters with mix of economic populism and traditional values. There is talk of raising the minimum wage and creating more jobs, but little about abortion or gun control.
Phil Kellam, who is challenging Rep. Thelma D. Drake in Virginia's 2nd District, is airing a TV ad that calls for ending the sale of violent video games to children and blocking their access to violent or pornographic Web sites. President Bush won Drake's district with 58 percent of the vote in 2004. But Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine won the same precincts in 2005.
Democrats have been thrilled to find their candidates in striking distance in some of these races. One of the Democrats' top targets is North Carolina's 11th District, where former Washington Redskins quarterback Heath Shuler is trying to unseat Republican Rep. Charles H. Taylor. In Virginia, James Webb, a former Republican who served as secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan, is being watched closely by Democrats to see if he can make Sen. George Allen sweat for reelection.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yep. I had a flashback to before Hutchinson's 2002 loss in Arkansas. The four Dems from the states of the old Confederacy include one from FL, one from LA, and both from AR, sadly.
With respect to MD, I agree that the Eastern Shore is culturally Southern and conservative. But it has always been overwhelmed in elections by other areas of the state -- for decades, Baltimore (heavily Catholic, a union stronghold, and a major port with all that entails), and in recent decades by the increasingly liberal and distinctly non-Southern DC burbs.
SUPPORT VERNON ROBINSON, USAF Academy Graduate as North Carolina Congressional Republican Candidate
http://vernonrobinson.com/twilightzone.shtml
"If people are stupid enough to let one of those two get nominated they can enjoy having Hildabeast get elected, because many are like myself, and refuse to ever vote for those choices.
"
Hillary is banking on that. That is probably why the MSM loves Rudy and Lamo so much. It keeps Conservatives home.
bttt
Interesting analysis, but I still disagree about Maryland. I'm not sure where in Maryland you've been...everywhere I've been, Baltimore City and County included, people have distinctly Southern accents. Southern Maryland has a significant population of rural blacks, like many other Southern states. I do concede that Baltimore does have a signifcant Irish influence that would not be found in any Southern city, and there's of course the aforementioned DC suburbs. As for Maryland's not seceding, Maryland was a slave state that overwhelmingly favored secession, but the Federal government pulled out all the stops they could to prevent Maryland from seceding as that would've left the Capital surrounded by Confederate states.
Any Republican that falls for this 'bait-and-switch" campaign blather is too stupid to be a Republican any way.
They love Rudy and McCain now, because they're "mavericks", which means they support about 85% of the democrat platform. When it comes down to the choice between a democrat and a democrat running as a Republican, though, you know where the media will land.
That being said, Reliably red states will probably stay red. Blue states, particularly NY, come into play. Arizona doesn't have enough electoral votes to make the Rats lose sleep, and should fall republican in most national elections, but Rudy could give the Rats some sleepless nights, just because they'll have to defend NY and New England, and Pennsylvania could be problematic also.
Florida seems to have gone more red, but most of the blueness comes from transplanted New Yorkers, so it could be a problem for the Rats. I think McCain's a loser, but Rudy could create some problems for the Rats. The Rats have been able to count on NY and California, which gets them over 1/4 of the way to the WH before they even begin campaigning. Personally, Gingrich is sounding better than anyone I've heard, but he has some heavy baggage from some nasty divorces, and the media detests him (course, they automatically detest any Republican running for office, but they've got a two foot file on Newt.
My personal opinion is if you see heavy campaigning in the South in October, the Republicans are losers. If you see it in New England and the Northeast, the Rats are losers. This is for the Presidential race.
Maryland was below the Mason-Dixon line, but it long ago lost most of its southern character. There may be a little of it left in the rural areas, particularly the Eastern Shore, but the state's politics are dominated by the two mass population centers of Baltimore and the DC Suburbs. Those areas are solid leftist and have no Southern character at all. They're more like Boston or New York City in their politics. As recently as the sixties and seventies, there were still quite a few old-time conservative Southern Democrats in Congress. For example, Georgia's U.S. House delegation in the late seventies was entirely Democrat except for one Republican (young Newt Gingrich). But all of those Democrats except for one (the Atlanta city one) were just about as conservative as any Republican. Southern Democrat Senators then included Sam Nunn, Herman Talmadge, James Allen, Richard Stone, James Eastland, John Stennis, John McClellan, and others. They were all pretty conservative. But Maryland hadn't sent a conservative to the Senate since the 1920s. You'd have to go back almost a century to find any voting patterns in Maryland that are similar to that of the South.
The DC suburbs are certainly different, but how is Baltimore all that different from Atlanta, Memphis, Jackson, New Orleans, etc? Maryland, like Mississippi, has a very high black poplulation, but where they differ is that Maryland also has white liberals in the DC suburbs that tip the balance to the Democrats every time.
Yes, you're probably right that the DC suburbs are the killer. As you noted, many Southern states have a large, heavily black major city that votes Democrat. But in those cases, the rest of the state is so conservative that it more than cancels out the city most of the time. But Baltimore doesn't get cancelled out because of the DC suburbs. Maryland has more liberal whites than one would find in most states to the South.
That would be news to Baltimore native John Marshall Butler. Butler, a Republican who served from 1951-1963 (who knocked off the legendary 'Rat Millard Tydings in 1950), was considered the single most Conservative member for the Senate during at least part of his tenure. Also, Republican J. Glenn Beall, Jr. was at least as Conservative as some of the Southern Dems when he served from 1971-1977.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
If "the South" decides that it would like to sample a French-style, socialist welfare state then sure, the Democrats can compete. But "the South" would also have to want to fund "free" abortions for all, never mention "God" within 200' of any school or publicly-owned property, and agree to let homosexual activists hold regular "fisting" seminars for elementary schoolers.
That stuff flies great in Massachusetts, but I doubt they'll appreciate it in Alabama.
Yes, and there were plenty of blue cities in the southern red states, so what's your point?
I'm sorry for my response. I didn't realize you were literally answering the question instead of challenging whether the article was parallel to the other one.
Yeah sure....when the RATS bring their bag of goodies to the red states.....abortion, gun control, cut & run, higher taxes, liberal judges, amnesty for 11m illegals, their buddies at ACLU, no drilling, etc. etc.
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