WP, Dionne: The Rise of the Lincoln Democrats: The North will rise again!

[DeepModem Mom]

The Rise of the Lincoln Democrats
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, September 5, 2006; Page A19

PHILADELPHIA -- The North will rise again.

If Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in November, that inversion of an old slogan is likely to be a central factor in their victory....

***

One key to the Republican takeover of the House under Newt Gingrich was the completion of a long-term realignment to the GOP in the South....But a quiet counter-realignment has been under way in the Northeast and Midwest. Post political writer Dan Balz was one of the first to notice after Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection that longtime Republican suburban bastions in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, New York and New Jersey were moving the Democrats' way.

If Democrats take the House this fall, it will be the culmination of this trend. To put it in historical terms, if Democrats have suffered in the states of the Old Confederacy, many of their best opportunities in November are in states carried by the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, in the 1860 election.

These include four and possibly five seats in Pennsylvania, four in Ohio, three in Connecticut, two to five seats in New York, three in Indiana, one or two in New Hampshire, and one each in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin....

***

The realignment of the South has been more important than any other factor in the rise of the Republican Party to majority status in Congress. It would be one of history's ironies if that majority were imperiled by the reassertion of the Lincoln states.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/04/AR2006090400701.html

[saltpoint]

1. I love EJ Dionne. What a refreshing damn soul he is.

This is a provocative interpretation of shifting voting loyalties.

And although we're still 9 weeks or so out from the midterm elections, I have a strong hunch that Dionne is right on this tend.

Go, Democrats.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. I LOVE the idea that we might walk to victory in the footsteps of Lincoln!

n/t

[saltpoint]

4. Yes! And we might just as well claim him for our side. He's a lot more

like us than he is like them.

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Indeed! nt

[calimary]

12. Delicious irony, 'eh? After all, they never hesitate to appropriate OUR

most revered presidents - Truman, JFK, even FDR on occasion. We should be doing this anyway, show some nerve and yank a page out of kkkarl's playbook - about attacking them at their strengths. They aren't expecting that, and they're not prepared to respond to it.

Turnabout is fair play, after all. VERY fair. And balanced. :evilgrin:

[Jim Sagle]

3. About fuckin' time.

[zdux0013]

6. yeah

yeah

[Tiggeroshii]

7. My fingers are crossed n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

8. I know -- hopes have been dashed before. Fingers crossed! nt

[alvarezadams]

9. The author

might have noted that the shifts have a lot to do with economic interests... which would lead us into reconsidering the use of the "class warfare" card.

[KKKarl is an idiot]

10. I have always

said we are a lot more conservative than the conservatives are. The reason being that we believe in defending the constitution which Lincoln also believed in. The conservatives believe in walking all over it. This thinking is a lot more anti-conservative than we can ever come up with.

[Arugula Latte]

11. The South has pulled the strings for far too long.

The North's gonna rise again, baby! :woohoo:

[yellowcanine]

13. After 2006 the Democrats will be the party of Lincoln and the Republicans

will be the party of Jefferson Davis. Ironic, ain't it?