I don't understand the south (how to win)

[mrgorth]

OK, aside from a 10 month stint in Boise I've lived in the northeast. I grew up in a Philly suburb and, as such, I tend to be blunt, even for a northeaster. As such, I love Dean's "tell it like it is" attitude and I think what he's said about the south, republicans and race NEEDS to be said. So here are 2 conflicting feelings on that same premise:

This is from a Time article on Dean:
"Second, he says, he will tell Southern whites, "You have voted Republican for 30 years. Tell me what you have to show for it. In South Carolina, there are 103,000 children without health insurance. Most of those kids are white. Tell me about your public schools. Are you happy that the legislature cut $70 million or $80 million out of the public school system in South Carolina? ... Has your job moved to Indonesia? ... And the answer is, if you don't like the answers to those questions, maybe you should think about voting Democratic." A solid argument but one that failed for Al Gore, himself a nominal Southerner, four years ago. And it may come across as insulting to tell people they are poor—and then tell them their own votes are to blame.

This is from Newsweek's The Left's Mr. Right article:
"Merle Black, a political-science professor at Atlanta's Emory University, says Southerners would have "no use for him at all" and predicts that many Democratic officeholders in the region would fail to campaign with him. But Black thinks the problem is more stylistic than related to his position on particular issues: "He's a New Yorker. He's very aggressive. For voters who are not ideological, they look at candidates and see if they think he's a nice guy. I don't think Dean is that nice guy."

Yet, in The Nation Jesse Jackson Jr. says what I feel to be the case, that being nice hasn't worked so it's time to try something else:
Jackson is particularly critical of Democrats who think the South can be won simply by placing a white Southerner on the ticket. "The Bob Graham and John Edwards campaigns positioned them to be the Southern guy on the ticket," says Jackson. "That is the approach that has plagued the party for years. It is the opposite of addressing the education, healthcare and jobs issues that could build a real coalition."

and

While Jackson acknowledged that Dean might have chosen his words more carefully, he applauded Dean's willingness to open the discussion about race and the Democratic Party's future. (He wrote an article defending the candidate, "Dean's New Southern Strategy," at www.thenation.com.) Jackson says Dean is forcing the party to be more realistic about the work that must be done to overcome racial divisions. "We have to stop kidding ourselves as Democrats: If we're ever going to become a majority party, we are going to have to start fighting to win back Southern working-class white voters,"

So, as a blunt northeasterner, I'm dumbfounded. On one hand are southerners saying that Dean is too aggressive to win and the other is people saying, what I feel, that we've been passive too long and need to be aggressive. I note for discussion's sake that Jesse Jackson Jr. is from Illinois I believe. If we can't win in the south one way, and we can't the other, how the hell can we win anything there? Frankly, I'm not sure if a Clark/Edwards ticket could win back any of the red states and we shouldn't just write off the whole bible belt.

Sorry if I sound ignorant and I hope I didn't offend anyone. Thanks.

[izzie]

1. I did live in the South many years ago. They were turning over....

school buses at that time and state police moving into schools my children were going to. Soooooooo I tend to think it is still the black thing that has them in the GOP. Men are worried about their jobs and they think blacks take them, they think blacks like white women and the whole ball of wax. Silly but old things die hard.I recall an IRS man coming to see the women next door to do something on her taxes and she would not let him in. Said he is a black man how can he know anything? This women was about as stuped as they come but it is how they think.This black man had more brains in his little finger. But really how can you get rid of that and Dem are the party of the blacks.