Luis Viera: Democrats, please don’t concede the South to the Republican Party

The Tampa Tribune ^ | December 20, 2014 | Luis E. Viera

[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.

[Liz]

Be that as it may---I DO NOT intend to rollover and play dead.

As Kurt Schlichter opined ....."let's understand that our real goal is to destroy everything Obama stands for – his lies, elitism, the quasi-fascist dream of controlling every aspect of other people’s lives. This is the time to strike. Our enemies are on the run.....the military knows that you defeat the enemy in detail during a rout. Let's hunt them down. Let's finish off progressivism. And let's do it by not being stupid......."

I'll drink to that.

========================================

Read more Schlichter here:

A Massive, Humiliating And Awesome Rejection Of The Liberals
Townhall.com ^ | November 10, 2014 | Kurt Schlichter / FR Posted by Kaslin

[C. Edmund Wright]

you’re way off the emotional deep end and not having the logical conversation based on your first equation, which damn sure DID make that assumption. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said it.

But again, you’re emoting, and I’m logically discussing.

[C. Edmund Wright]

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.

The problem with that scenario is that it wasn't ever going to happen - and Clinton only came to welfare reform after the 1994 mid terms, and never was a supporter of school choice.

[goldstategop]

Your Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Bill Nelson in FL.

[goldstategop]

They began pushing HillaryCare instead of the things the DLC wanted that was part of the Clinton platform.

The public was turned off and it turned into a rout for congressional Democrats.

Twenty years later, they learned nothing and forgot everything.

[Still Thinking]

Equally undeniable is the detrimental impact of racial redistricting, where Republican legislators pack minorities into Democratic majority districts and whitewash their own districts.

Would it be inconvenient for your agenda if I pointed out that they're REQUIRED to do that, whether they want to or not, by statist LIBERALS in the Just Us Department, of whatever party is in power? Creation of majority minority districts is required in states they claim have a history of racial voter discrimination.

[Kenton]

Luis - The democrats didn’t concede anything, they were kicked out of the south by voters. They’ve become tired of you, you used them and treated them like crap, and they know it.

[goldstategop]

If the Democrats can’t appeal to white male voters, I don’t see how that’s the GOP’s problem. At all.

[central_va]

I couldn’t think of the third one Bill Nelson. Florida still is a hot bead of liberalism near Miami. Florida is the only state where you have to drive North to get to the South.

[goldstategop]

Palm Beach is a Democratic stronghold and the I-94 Corridor swings statewide elections.

[Vaquero]

Not really emoting. Facts are fine if you know from where the facts eminate. I can go to six sources and get 6 different sets of facts skewed by whatever the EMOTIONAL philosophy of the skewer, wishes to present.

It seems you are emotionally tied to letting the illegals in. But that is just an opinion and you know what opinions are like.

BTW. You write like a lawyer, you know, those guys who can make facts sound like something they’re not.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Now you’ve just gone straight to retardation - I was only pointing out that your math was below kindergarten. I never said, have never said, and will never say, illegals should come in. Ever. You owe me an apology for taking my conversation to such intellectual depths.

Does your husband know you’re online this morning?

[C. Edmund Wright]

Welfare reform was forced on Clinton by Newt and the 94 congress. There was no support for that from Clinton beforehand. Maybe the DLC gave it lip service, but the DLC was never any kind of force.

[billhilly]

If the democrats had not modeled themselves after the USSR of the mid-twentieth century they probably wouldn’t be in the trouble they are in today. Like Dolly Parton’s “Coat of many colors” the Democrats have cobbled and coddled themselves into a very fragile coalition of dependent voters that they no longer can maintain, and thus they are losing their base of southern democrats. They are losing other segments too, if the recent election is any guide. They also elected(twice)a president who is so alien to most Americans that he no longer goes unchallenged. This falls into the good news, bad news category for the Democratic Party.

So bring on someone left of Obama who they think, being a woman, will fool enough voters to repeat the same mistake of 2008 and 2012.

[goldstategop]

If it sounds familiar, it should.

Clinton promised to focus on the economy and get reforms through Congress that had bipartisan support.

Somewhere along the way, that got sidetracked with a push for health care reform.

Obama made the same promises after his elections and instead focused on passing Obamacare.

When life gives you a chance to make lemonade, you make lemons instead.

[USS Alaska]

Come to think of it — who was the last ‘conservative’ RAT?

Thomas Jefferson.

[Vaquero]

You sound insulted? You see it’s not a one way street.

I will now let your smarmy insults pass Miss, and look elsewhere for some intelligent discourse for a change. I will not read another by you.

[randita]

Good lowdown, Liz.

This is amusing:

Equally undeniable is the detrimental impact of racial redistricting, where Republican legislators pack minorities into Democratic majority districts and whitewash their own districts.

Democrats insisted on majority/minority districting, now they're griping. If they redistrict those southern cities to combine urban precincts with suburban ones, a fair number of those seats will NOT be shoo ins for Rats. So they pick their poison - a handful of seats which they can win handily or a bunch of seats they're going to have to fight for.

[yorkiemom]

That’s a nice list.

I hate to be the pessimistic note, but..... Republicans that vote to fund amnesty and Obamacare are not our saviors. They will continue the destruction of the country that the other liberals started.

[yorkiemom]

“Now you’ve just gone straight to retardation”

Edmund, who is the one having an emotional rant?

Vaqueros, you know you’ve won the argument when all your opponent can think of to say is fling insults.