Do we really need the South.. in order to win in 2008?

[RethugAssKicker]

Becuase if we do, we're fucked... The south is never going to vote democratic.. The republicans have the south locked up completely!

Does anyone have any figures and or strategies to win without the South?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I live in Northern FL

which went red this time. But I totally disagree with you.

There are plenty of people here on the fence. They just need a decent candidate. Clinton took Florida both times, I THINK. (not looking at the data..just memory)

There might be a Baptist church on every corner, but not all of them are conservatives in the voting booth.

[FreedomAngel82]

35. I agree

The area where my church is there is a Baptist church down the road and I see a few Bush stickers but not like I used to. And I remember seeing a Kerry sticker on a car. Heh heh. At my church there were no stickers except for my Kerry one. With the governor of Tennessee he's a democrat but a lot of republicans like him. Some think that's bad but I don't.

[bryant69]

2. Electorally they probably need to take a few southern states

But fighting in the south has a bigger purpose than that. Conservatives have successfully demonized us in the south, and poisened many of them against us (although not nearly all (as another poster mentioned)). They have portrayed us as the betrayers of American Values and the South (particularly the rural south) as the exemplers of American values. In the long term we need to challenge that perception and destroy it - and we can't do that if we aren't willing to confront the south.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Virginian]

16. The South can be won.

Southerners tend to be loyal. Once you wake them up and show them who has their best interests at heart, you can have their loyalty for several elections to come. Ignore them and they can only get redder and redder as the conservatives continue to spread lies about what they stand for and what we stand for.

One example is the inheritance tax. There are very few in the South who can benefit from abolishing the "death" tax. They need to know that no family farms have been lost to this tax. They need to know that the first $1.5 million -- soon to be $2 million is exempt. They need to know that the conservatives are just trying to make the rich richer and the poor and middle class poorer. They need to know that this tax will probably not impact anyone they have ever known. They need to know that this is what the republicans are really all about.

The moral issues? With a Republican in the White House, the Supreme Court leaning to the right and a Republican majority in both houses of congress, abortion has not been outlawed and lots of other issues the Republicans like as "wedge issues" are not going to be changed because these issues keep electing Republicans. If they got rid of these issues, what would they use for a platform in the next election?

Yes, the South needs to be saved from the lies of the red party.

[RethugAssKicker]

29. Haven't we already explained all these things to them?

They just plain don't believe it!

[Virginian]

52. They have to keep "catapulting the propaganda." So, we need to

We need to keep reinforcing the truth. We can't just tell them once and expect them to understand. The other side is bombarding them with mis-information to undo the logic we give them. They need reinforcements. They may not have DU to validate their logical conclusions. They need someone to tell them they are right when they see the light. All they have are ditto heads to tell them they are conspiracy theorists.

The herd mentality, safety in numbers. If you believe what your neighbor believes, you must be right. People would rather be right than happy. If you can convince the right neighbors, the rest will follow. A candidate appearing in their region can gain votes. People feel important if they have shaken the hand of the future President of the United States. They will vote for a person they have touched. That is why Bush followed the Democratic primaries last year. After the Dems had held their primary elections, Bush would show up in those states to switch the voters back to the dark side.

[FreedomAngel82]

36. I think so too

I also think it has to do with the canidate and their message and how effective it is and the others. In my area we can go either way. The democratic canidate for Congress did pretty well this last time. He got 30% while the republican got 50%. Not terribly bad. Kerry did pretty good with the state of Tennessee by 43% and Bush 57%. Not too bad because of everything that has happened the last four years. A few months ago there was a poll on approval raitings of Bush in the south in general and it was 50%! I was really surprised. I think with the right canidates we can win areas. If we can have a democratic governor surely we can have a democratic Senator and Congress people in a lot of the districts. I think the democrats control the state and house of Tennessee as well. I'm not 100% sure though.

[liberal N proud]

3. All we need are fair elections

Elections were there are no questions about the outcome
Where people are not afraid to go to the polls
Where people are not told the election is on a different day
Where names are not removed from the voter registration scrolls
Where polls are not moved at last minute with out telling the voters where to go.
Where people informed as to where to vote
Where people are informed with the truth and not the propaganda
Where the PEOPLE have a chance to vote what they believe and not what their minister or the news caster believes.

With those factors, the repukes would not stand a chance.
And Yes the Democrats can win with out the south, but I also believe they can win the south.

[FreedomAngel82]

38. Yes

I think that is only going to happen by the local level. There should be a group of people with a lawyer who can get into a court house and show how these machine's don't work. There should be a paper trail for every district no matter what. My area you just have to have at least one proof of who you are. I used my ID and my brother couldn't find his so he used his social security card. They didn't even ask for my voting card but I had it with me anyways to use either one.

[warrens]

4. We don't need it, but we can take a couple of states

Virginia, NC, Florida are all nearly 50/50 and winnable. Louisiana will be in play this time. IIRC, it went for Clinton one time. Even South Carolina is an outside possibility, as is Georgia. The only states that are impossible are Massabama and Texas and Oklahoma.

But, if we can take Ohio, NH, Nevada and New Mexico, we don't need the south.

[pop goes the weasel]

14. Texas is not impossible

The truth is that the DNC has starved Texas Dems of campaign funding for the past couple of decades. And it just keeps getting worse. The best thing about Dean is that he doesn't write off any state, so maybe we will actually have a chance this next time.

[Selatius]

5. Look, the fucking South is not a damn red shield

The reality of the matter is that most counties in the US, all of it, are shades of purple, not red. What pissed off many Democrats here in Mississippi where I lived was that John Kerry et al never bothered to come here. Howard Dean came, but that wasn't an election rally.

The Electoral College needs to be abolished. Then everybody's vote would theoretically count, not just those in swing states.

I agree with Howard Dean that we should wage a 50-state campaign. Nobody should be left to fend for themselves.

[elehhhhna]

8. THANK YOU!

[SteppingRazor]

11. It's not a red shield, and the whole country IS purple. But...

the fact remains that, realistically, a Democratic candidate's time is better spent elsewhere, where there are a few more blue and mushy middle voters and -- equally importantant -- a few more electoral college votes as well.

In other words why go for Mississippi's hard-to-win 7 votes when he could more easily get Michigan's 18?

[pop goes the weasel]

17. just keep doing what the Dems have been doing, then

And just keep losing the whole country.

You go for Mississippi's 7 because the people of Mississippi are as deserving of honest effective government, education, and health care as any other citizens of our country. If they never have a choice, if they are just handed over to the Repubs like an unwanted puppy, then they have been abandoned. And people in other states notice that and start thinking of the Democratic Party as talking a good talk but not being there in the clinch. Better to kiss up to the Thuglicans, who you are going to be stuck with, than hope for any concern from the Dems, is what people think. That's how things have been happening, but they don't need to stay that way. Every vote in every state is important.

[SteppingRazor]

22. I agree. I'm just saying if one must choose...

What really should happen is a real fight in every state. But the amount of money involved makes that a nonissue.
As for how the Dems are doing -- you remember the electoral map in 1984 and 1988?
Comparitively, we're not doing bad at all. Every election since 1992 has been fairly close. For years before that, we were getting killed out there. Even JFK, with all his charisma, barely squaked into the presidency over Nixon -- NIXON, for Pete's sake.
And after that, the Democrats were completely, utterly annihiliated in every election until 1992 -- except for 1976, when any Dem with a pulse could've won.
It may seem counterintuitive, given the recent losses, but the Democratic campaigns of the last couple of decades have been among the best we've had in the modern era.
We're doing a lot of things correctly right now. If we can overturn the legacy of Nixon's southern strategy -- which I think we can do by getting back in touch with populist roots -- we'll be gravy.

[QC]

24. Good point--there's more to politics than the presidency.

Sometimes we forget that. "Writing off" large swaths of the country means losing power in the Congress and in state and local governments as well. We do that at our extreme peril.

[Silverhair]

30. Electoral college will not be abolished.

To abolish it will take a constitutional amendment. And 13 states can block a constitutional amendment. There are more than 13 tiny states that benefit from the electoral college. Therefore, such an amendment will not succeed.

[wuushew]

43. What about modifying the Electoral College?

so that the popular vote of all fifty states is multiplied by a state's percentage of the 538 electoral votes? Small states would thusly still have the same representation.

Would swing states oppose this as a potential loss of advertising money?

[Silverhair]

45. Big states would not go for that.

Then they would lose their power.

[FreedomAngel82]

39. Yes

Kerry only came to Tennessee once or twice. I wanted to go see him but it was way too late. :( I am glad Dean is our chairman since he knows grassroots efforts and is good at it. I think this next time around will be very different. I love Dean's plans and hopefully they'll work out well.

[leveymg]

6. I think the Dems will come back in the South, by default

I am certain the GOP fears that BushCo is pulling all the little boats down with it.

Even the Wall Street Journal says that America would probably be better off in the hands of the Democrats, at this point. See, below:


Modem Butterfly (1000+ posts) Tue Sep-20-05 09:00 AM
Original message
WSJ: Why not put the Dems back in charge?
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bminiter/?id=1...

This isn't about a slow response anymore. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the ground, troops have restored order, and the water in New Orleans has long since begun to recede. President Bush and Republicans in Congress are now taking a hit not for when but rather how they have responded. And unless they change course, Republicans will pay a steep price in next year's midterm elections....

...Katrina is swamping every goal conservatives have, from limiting government to cutting taxes to reforming entitlement programs. Katrina spending has already imperiled plans to repeal the death tax, and Congress is already $60 billion into a spending binge. Handing out $2,000 debit cards was just the beginning. The conservative Congress has brought back the welfare state.

This isn't all Katrina's fault. Republicans have been kidding themselves for years that they are still the stewards of fiscal conservatism and limited government. The Medicare prescription drug plan is just one example. Run down the list of the some 80 federal entitlements--including Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, Pell Grants and so much more....

What we're seeing in the wake of Katrina is that despite all the winks and assurances to the contrary as they passed the energy and transportation bills, Republicans in Congress don't know how to control spending and are at a loss as to why they even should. That's one way to govern. But if Republicans no longer believe in smaller government, why not put the Democrats back in charge?...

[AX10]

48. The WSJ admits that the GOP can't govern well.

It's about time.

[still_one]

7. because of the electoral college we do

and yes, I believe we are f*cked

The question is why do people vote against their own interest, and why don't people vote?

either way it doesn't look good

[RethugAssKicker]

31. IMO, I think unfortunately its the race issue

Republicans are seen to be anti-black , anti- social programs..etc.et.. And thats why most Southerners vote for them. Simple!

[FreedomAngel82]

40. Sadly

When Lyndon Johnson in 1965 signed the votings right act he said "We're (democrats) going to lose the south for a long time." Looks as though he was right eh? And guess what the south is called? The Bible belt. And they claim they're not racists? HA!

[KingFlorez]

9. I think we can win it by economic means

If we can show how damaging the Republicans economic policy is to those states and how much better ours is we might have a chance.

[FreedomAngel82]

41. Hopefully

Everybody needs a job and to take care of their families.

[SteppingRazor]

10. We need a southern state or two, not "The South."

Especially Florida.

We can actually lose the entire South and still win, but it means taking almost the rest of the country -- not an easy thing to do.

As for strategies to win the South, it depends on who they run in 2008. If we run a southerner (like Clinton was -- maybe Clark or Edwards or somebody) and they run a northerner, we can pick up a state or two that way.

[AX10]

49. Hold the Kerry 2004 states....

then take Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, the southwest four states, possibly Arkansas, we win with 325+ EV's!

[Az]

12. Depends on whether you want DINOs to win or Democrats

If your concern is simply to have people that call themself Democrats in office despite the fact that they vote for right wing ideas then play that game.

If however you want people that stand up for ideals and progress then you have to champion those ideals. You have to get people in office that stand by those ideals.

Here is the thing. At first its tough to stand for your ideals. Because when you first take that stand you are alone. If the ideal is controvercial then you may find yourself standing against a great number of people.

But as you stand there and make your point over time more will come stand by you. The strength of your conviction gives them strength to come forward. It gives them something to hope for.

After a while its not so hard to stand there. The more people you have joining you gives you the strength to move forward. And suddenly you find that your cause has shifted some of those that used to oppose you. They come to see the sense of your position.

This is how you change a nation. Not by following polls. That only shows you how to beg for scraps as you lose a nation.

[Done]

13. Rejuvenating the black vote can lead to victory...

even in alabama. The problem is that the democrats have taken the black community for granted for way too long. Put someone like Obama on the ticket. Would that cause a loss of white votes in the south? No, for the most part those who won't vote for a ticket with Obama, weren't going to vote democratic anyway.

[Az]

15. Convincing the blacks they are not being taken for granted

does not mean throwing them a black candidate. It means standing up for issues that concern them. It means showing them you are not just another political opportunist.

[Selatius]

21. Wanna win the "black vote"? Just wage a war against poverty

That doesn't necessarily require a black person to be on the ticket. It's a lot more than skin-deep appearances here. You'll be winning over every person in the country who is struggling, and it's not just blacks who are struggling.

[FreedomAngel82]

42. Who's going to vote for someone who is a newbie?

Obama hasn't had any other type of experience. He's just a first time senator. Let him stay there for a little while and see how he does with that and if he can get re-elected.

[Zynx]

18. You give yourself NO margin for error if you write off the entire south.

You're not going to carry ANY plains states and virtually none of the Rocky Mountain states either. You need to sweep the northeast through PA, sweep the great lakes, and win the whole west coast.

[Az]

19. Don't go to the south, bring the south to us

Campaigning should not be about telling the people what they want to hear. It should be about telling the people what they need to hear. Put your neck on the line and work to convince the people of ideals. It is only in this way that you can really change things.

The dance we do now changes nothing and concedes the fight to those who are willing to fight for change.

[Telly Savalas]

23. As much as I hate to "me too" your post, I'm going to anyway

Well said.

[pop goes the weasel]

33. You can't do one without the other

Want to educate people? Guess what--you've actually got to interact with them. One thing that is true across the South is that localism is extremely important. The outsider telling people "what they need to hear" might as well save his breath. If you aren't going to be sharing the burden of change, if you aren't going to live with the people and make the same sacrifices and undergo the same hardships they do, then you are never going to get anywhere. Because you may talk a good talk, and you may even be right. But tomorrow you will be gone and the same power will be in charge tomorrow who is in charge today, and folk have to get along with that power and get favors out of that power and stay in that power's good graces. If you can't stand the heat for a day, don't expect others to bear it for their lives. Get your ass to the South and be part of the South. Outsiders have never changed the South, and never will. You have to commit to being here. We need boots on the ground.

[FreedomAngel82]

44. Yes

Maybe even have southern democrats speak about voting for this person or that person if they aren't from the south. Know what I mean?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

20. Don't ever count on Fl or OH. We need a strategy that doesn't

include them. Therefore we need a couple southern states - my guess - Arkansas and Louisiana.

The fraud fix is in FL and OH. We will never win them on paper.

[FSogol]

25. Virginia is winnable for a strong candidate. nt

[Double T]

26. You'all sure do need the folks from the souths vote in 2008.......

we'all need to find a Democratic candidate that has a touch of a fundamentalist christian in them. Doncha git IT!!!!!

[DemocracyInaction]

27. Remember our other weaknesses...and remember what AZ said above

First, think of the states we WON by like a half a vote!!! We are barely holding on against this winger (a lot of it Christian right wing)in a number of our blue states. It would be lovely to romp around the country spending until we drop in every "market" but we don't have and will never have that much money (note that Bush the repukes don't exactly spend weeks on end in places like MA)! Secondly, I do like what AZ said above. What's this "going to the South" really mean?? When I see so much of the politics down there done with the racial wink and nod, I ask myself if we are suppose to do that "understanding the South" as so many preach by getting a wee bit into the wink and nod game, etc.?? Going down to the level they have fallen into thanks to the wooing of the republicans is ultimately worthless (we might have a Dem government but if it's Bush Part II, it is meaningless). We need to educate the whole damn country by pointing to Katrina and telling them that the neglect of the citizenry of this country is what repukes are all about and that the only way to put people back as priority #1 is flush republicans.

[RethugAssKicker]

32. But, even after Katrina, 90% of repubs still think * did a good job!

[Az]

37. Of course they do

What alternative do they have before them. Where were the Dems standing up for the leviees before the storm hit? Where were the Dems demanding he go there early on?

We need to freaking stand up and make noise. Not lay in wait for a political opportunity to present itself. Not wait for the repugs to make a mistake and scamble for the scraps that hit the floor.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

50. Now you got data to back that

up or you just frustrated? because I can't believe that is true.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

51. I also think the whole "Jesusland" concept

has pissed off a lot of southerners who are not fundies and alienated them against the Dems.

I think that was way overstated. As I remember, the whole morals issue really didn't hold up when you looked at the way the exit polls had been worded because a number of the other issues, like security and terrorism had been split up.

There is a lot of southern republican resentment about being portrayed as knuckle-draggers and we won't win them that way. We need to respect their culture just like we respect any culture and win them with the issues.

I don't think this country is as divided as we are led to believe. There is a strong middle ground that can go either way.

[Burning Water]

28. Yes, we really do.

Any scenario to take the Presidency without at least a few Southern states is extremely unlikely to be successful. Maybe we should throw them some bones?? What, exactly, I don't know.

[FreedomAngel82]

34. I think it'll take a long time

You have to go precinct by precinct I think. Tennessee has a democratic governor so we have a good chance.

[Stinky The Clown]

46. The **right** Dem can win in the south

And by 'right' I don't mean 'Right'. A progressive can win there. A liberal can win there.

It really depends on the candidate. Can we sweep the south? Not likely. Can we win a few and by doing so win the presidency?

Yes.

We need a candidate that is forthright and honest and speaks his views clearly and unapologetically.

[AX10]

47. Let's put it this way. A Democrat will NOT win these states in....

the South:

-Kentucky :argh:
-South Carolina :argh:
-Georgia :argh:
-Alabama :argh:

-Missisippi :puke:
-Texas :argh: :puke: :grr:

The rest are winnable, though Florida, Virginia, and Tennesee will be easier to win than West Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Louisiana.