Posted on 12/20/2014 7:37:08 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
With the recent defeat of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu — which leaves three Democratic Southern U.S. Senators — the common wisdom is that Democrats should bid farewell to the South.
Even with favorable changing national demographics that benefit Democrats, an abandonment of the South and, on a larger scale, a viable moderate wing would be a mistake.
Recently, writer Michael Tomasky argued that the South, a “reactionary, prejudice-infested” region, should be left to Republicans to create a “free market Jesus paradise.” Few sentiments better show what is wrong with Democrats today and why ironic Republican arguments that it is the Democrats who are the “elitists” gain traction.
Democrats still need both the South and a viable national moderate wing. The South is where successful Democratic presidential candidates — who are moderate enough to win nationally — call home. For the 11 presidential elections before 2008, all successful Democratic candidates were Southerners, and three of the last four nominated vice presidential Democratic candidates were Southerners. Centrist Southern Democrats champion today the values of the New Deal and the “Beloved Community” while keeping faith with local values.
A Democratic Southern abandonment would only further leave our two major political parties without viable moderate wings. Southern states that once produced productive moderate Democrats — who did not ridicule their constituents as “reactionary, prejudiced-infested” rednecks and fought for racial and social justice — cannot be abandoned to produce another Ted Cruz.
Contrary to popular wisdom, Democrats can still win in the South. The key to this is to connect with voters, not to embrace elitist notions that reject voters through crude cultural and religious stereotypes.
Democrats often blame this failure in the South on racism and redistricting. The great dividends for Republicans from their post-civil rights era Southern strategy realignment — now condemned conveniently by some Republicans after its benefits have been exhausted — are undeniable. Equally undeniable is the detrimental impact of racial redistricting, where Republican legislators pack minorities into Democratic majority districts and whitewash their own districts.
However, the Democratic tone has changed, too, to the detriment of moderate Southern Democrats. Though Democrats remarkably claim that Ronald Reagan could not survive a Republican primary today, the reverse question must be posed: Would a moderate Democrat survive a national primary today? Could a Lloyd Bentsen — the 1988 Democratic vice presidential nominee — survive today? Could a Democrat who, like Bill Clinton in 1992, challenged Democratic orthodoxy on welfare, balanced budgets and crime survive a primary?
In Florida, the farm system that once produced such Democrats as Reubin Askew, Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles is defunct thanks not only to Republican redistricting but also Democratic malfeasance. Furthermore, a national trend of Democrats stressing liberal positions on social issues has harmed all moderate candidates, especially in the South. The national Democratic Party commits itself to liberal positions on gay marriage, abortion rights and gun control, with limited room for local accommodation.
The answer to the 2014 election loss is not for Democrats to become more regionally and ideologically isolated, or to attack Southern voters. Although Democrats will always be a majority progressive party, Democrats must have a viable moderate wing in a big tent, and nowhere is that moderate wing more needed than in the South.
The region where a weakened Franklin Roosevelt came to find rehabilitation and inspiration in Warm Springs, Georgia, can still today provide rehabilitation and inspiration for Democrats nationally.
*******
Luis E. Viera is a Tampa attorney.
...is defunct thanks not only to Republican redistricting but also Democratic malfeasance. Furthermore, a national trend of Democrats stressing liberal positions on social issues has harmed all moderate candidates, especially in the South. The national Democratic Party commits itself to liberal positions on gay marriage, abortion rights and gun control, with limited room for local accommodation.IOW, the only thing holding back the Democrats from total annihilation is the stupidity of people like the author of this screed, who value brand name over quality, and vote straight ticket or not at all.
I dreamed Al Sharpton was representing the US govt in Hollywood to make non-racist movies.
Obama Productions' first picture was titled: "RAMPANT RACISM: the Story of Tawana Brawley."
I woke up in a cold sweat---thank God it's only a horrible dream from eating fried chicken late at night.
Mickey Kaus at the time wrote the Democrats needed to get out of promoting the 1960s counter-culture policies.
At the time I was a Democrat and I felt the party should move to where the American people were, to move to the middle.
Welfare reform, school choice, support for the death penalty - stuff like that I found very attractive and I thought the DLC might breathe new life into a moribund party.
Sad to say, it slid back into its bad old ways, like returning to a pair of comfortable slippers. For liberals, it was just too much change to bear.
Not racist per se. La raza. Return land to Mehico
It was probably Strom Thurman, (D) then (R), S.C.
The treasure trove of "The Midterm Democrat Demolition Derby" and down-ticket state wins have yet to be fully- mined, but this we know:
<><> REPUBLICANS WON A STUNNING ELECTORAL HISTORY...
<><> midterms were a massive and awesome rejection of liberals;
<><> Landrieu's loss means Southern Democrats control not a single governorship, US senator or legislative chamber,
<><> Democrat losses stretch from the Carolinas westward to Texas,
<><> Of 140 Southern States election districts---110 went Republican.
<><> GOP's House majorities are so huge and solid NBC's Chuck Todd says Dems can't recapture losses until 2022.
<><> Some pundits say Republicans have a 100-year majority;
<><> when the next US Senate convenes, 30 lock-stepping Democrats who voted for Obamacare are gone.
<><> Ark and Ill (Clinton hometowns) have Repub governors---important in a prez race b/c guvs control party machinery.
<><> Unprecedented MINN 6th Congressional district---every single House and Senate district went Repub
<><>GOP now controls the MINN State House.
<><> Ohio's historic GOP statehouse takeover (Gun Control is toast)
<><> Ohio's Gov, Lt. Gov, AG, Secy of State, State Auditor, State Treasurer--all R---Sup/Ct - 6 R/1 D
<><> Britt Hume: "latino vote is zilch"---"over-50" is significant 30% voting segment.
<><> Republicans unified control: gov/legislature in 23 states (per Ntl Conference of State Legislatures factoid).
<><> Repub governorships: Florida, Tx, Ill, Ohio, Mich, MD, Wisconsin, NC, GA, Mass. .
<><> GOP has every congressional seat in Arkansas; first time in 141 years...
<><> Environmentalists fogged out---suffered huge losses.
<><> Gun Control Candidates blitzed.
<><> "War on Women" became a ntl joke.
<><> Clinton's politically useless---most candidates they flacked lost.
<><> Montana, So/Dakota and West/VA Dems were forced to retire; no hope of getting re-elected,
<><> An Arizona House recount race went Republican.
<><> AZ Republican McSally wins last open House seat (Dem Gaby Giffords seat),
<><> Repub McSally's win gives GOP 5-4 advantage in AZ congressional delegation,
<><> Repubs hold 247 House seats (Dems 188), the largest GOP advantage since the Truman administration after World War II.
<><> 73 percent of LA's white voters say told they "strongly disapproved" of the president.
<><>Republican Congress holds largest House majority in 83 years...
I assume nothing. How such a demographic plays out is unknown until it happens. One scenario is a huge win for Dhimmicrat Marxism.
Illegal is illegal. My grandparents came here legally. It’s not only not fair (to those who won’t enter illegally). It can seriously tip the scales toward Marxists like zer0bama.
All of which means absolutely nothing if its content to implement Obama’s agenda.
Victory is fleeting.
My thought exactly. Isn’t that sort of what the founders had in mind?
Luis Viera: Democrats, please don’t concede the South to the Republican Party;
You do remember the last tome all you uppity southerners voted for Republicans right? Don’t think for a second that we proud DEMOCRATS won’t reactivate our enforcement division, the Klu Klux Klan.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1523692/posts
And this Viera fellow rightly fears that "moderate Southern Democrats" are right behind them.
What they have left is running other racial candidates. Put in mind that Obama wasn’t up for election this year. Large groups of people boasted about voting a black man, or a man like them to the presidency in 2008 as well as in 2012. Many of these fanatical voters don’t have a reason to show up to the polls in 2014.
Same with my Grandparents, they had to cross the ocean to leave the prospect of living in postwar Austria after they left Heufeld, Yugoslavia to avoid being under Soviet Occupation. Checked in, filled out the work, lived in a primitive glorified garage until they built their home 200 feet away up outside of a small town in rural New York.
Democrats in the South survived as a legacy of the Civil War- a way of maintaining a separate identity even in defeat. They benefited considerably from the New Deal and the Great Society as they could buy votes from the largesse created thereby. However, at the national level, the Democrats have become the party of sodomy, socialism, secularism, appeasement, gun control and human sacrifice, aka abortion, which are positions no civilized human could accept, let alone an American, and less still a true Southerner. Thus, they lost a lot of support- local Dems cannot separate themselves from this vile stew of offal no matter how they try. The Democrats have to pin their hopes in the South on migrants from the NE, keeping the blacks on the Democrat plantation, and in the future a horde of Latin Americans. For the time being, that is a rather thin base, but I do not see that lasting forever.
who are they?
Mine came over here in the first decade of the 20th century and lived in slums in lower NYC. They busted their rears to improve themselves and succeeded for themselves and ultimately my parents and myself.
Mark Warner, Tim Kaine and Bill Nelson.
LOL - you're right... his point was to 'lie better'...
Democrats should run:
white liberal elites with their noses stuck in the air
communists with back room delusions of mass murder
blacks with chips on their shoulders
union goons with mob connections
dependent angry women
illegals
Hollywood whore mongers
and common drug dealers.
Who knows, maybe they can 'win' being themselves... /s
Couldn’t get Bill Nelson. Thanks.
A “free market Jesus paradise”....... a doable plan conservatives can get behind 1000%.
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