Southern strategy

[lwcon]

Want a better country?

It's simple: admit that the South won the Civil War. It just took us a while to realize it.

Southerners wanted a country ruled by inhumane authoritarians, and by gorry by jingo by gee by gosh by gum that's what they've gotten themselves.

Well, include me out. Better still, include yourself out, Southern Man, just like you wanted to in the 1860s.

Terms of the separation are simple. The Bush administration's bailiwick becomes the CSA, which retains responsibility for the Glorious Iraq War, and y'all have to pay down the $9 trillion deficit he rang up and reimburse us for the WTC he didn't protect.

Perhaps we could fine-tune the deal with a, pardon the term, yankee swap. We'll keep Al Gore and Stephen Colbert, and you get to keep Larry the Cable Guy and Ann Coulter.

Oh, and sorry for quoting Lynyrd Skynyrd in that last post.

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[tblue]

1. I've thought that for a long time. Lincoln was wrong. He should've let the bastards secede, and

brought all those held in slavery into the liberal North.

[DemBones DemBones]

38. Lincoln didn't care a bit about freeing the slaves,

he only freed the ones within the Confederate States as a political gesture. Slaveholders within Union states were allowed to keep their slaves by the Emancipation Proclamation.

If Lincoln had brought all the freed slaves into the "liberal North," he'd probably have been killed by a Yankee before his ill-fated evening at the theater, and the freed slaves would not have been welcomed with open arms in the "liberal North."

Perhaps you're not old enough to remember the race riots in Boston, New York, etc., when Northern schools were forced to integrate (which was a decade or more after Southern schools were ordered to integrate. Black people were killed in those riots in the "liberal North." A bus carrying black schoolchildren was overturned by whites in the "liberal North."

[raccoon]

71. Yeah, if anybody thinks the people in the North were a bunch of

liberal abolitionists, I have a bridge to sell them.

[Clark2008]

93. Gee - thanks for calling me, Bill Clinton and Wesley Clark bastards.

[Cabcere]

2. Hey now...

We're not all bad.

:hi: from Virginia

[tblue]

3. Present company excepted!

[Cabcere]

4. All right then.

:hi: Just wanted to make sure y'all weren't going to make those of us with brains and hearts suffer along with some of the others...lol. ;)

[lwcon]

6. Indeed

Some of my best friends are southern. :)

We'll be glad to include you in the swap!

Who should we send them in return?


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[tularetom]

9. We already sent 'em bush

they can keep him and his fake texas accent

[Cabcere]

11. Hmmm...

How about Lieberman? :shrug:

[lwcon]

12. Works for me!

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[Clark2008]

94. I don't want to live up there.

You people are rude and your winters are too cold.

Sorry.

[mentalsolstice]

5. This shit gets so old after awhile, even my dog won't sniff it! eom

[lwcon]

8. Look at the voting patterns, my friend

Obviously, I'm being snarky, but is the non-snarky premise of "Whistling Past Dixie" so wrong?

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[mentalsolstice]

25. Yes, there are red states...

but there's no excuse to rub noses in it here @ DU. And to tell the truth, I find many Northerners (not so much here at DU, but more so with those who have migrated south) to be totally out of touch with their expectations. I've known more than a few northern transplants who have come down here, saw one confederate flag, and declared that all of us were raving, right-wing, red-neck, religious fanatics. Those folks lasted six months to a year, refusing to explore our urban restaurants, music scenes, etc., to realize we're very diverse and tolerant of different ethnicities and orientations.

[lwcon]

28. I hear you

And we have plenty of bigots up here (I'm being called one in this thread, myself).

My post isn't meant as a personal slam to the many good people in these states, but an honest statement that the voting proclivities of one section of the country has taken the whole nation into a very bad place.

Wouldn't you agree that that's true?

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[Hosnon]

27. Indeed, look at them. It is a urban/rural divide, not a north/south divide.

And even before it is a north/south divide, it is a mountain/rest of the U.S. divide.

[mmonk]

35. Pretty much shows where the most concentration of red is.

Looks to me a little west of center.

[aquaman]

76. Oh you....

It's all about the south, don't you know? Quit making appropriate observations.
:sarcasm:

[AshevilleGuy]

37. Exactly: Urban vs Rural. Then throw the Electoral College into this

and we get "red states" and "Blue states". In NC my governor and my rep are both Dems and if we run someone OTHER THAN Erskine Bowles again next year, we might get a Dem Senator!!!

[Taverner]

7. Not all Southerners are raving Wingnuts

DU is *technically* hosted in the South

FR is hosted in California

[lwcon]

10. It's all about the electoral votes

I'm curious -- do you think we'll see a change in the next, say, 10 years?

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[Taverner]

14. I do

The South, in part because of cities like Atlanta, Athens, GA; Austin, TX and Raleigh/Durham, Chapel Hill and RTP, NC.

There are large areas where the demographic is comprised of educated, Democratic folks.

As these cities grow (and they are growing in leaps and bounds) watch the South Swing.

Places that will most likely go Repub during that time will be Colorado, Arizona and Wyoming. The demographic is shifting to retirees.

Of course, I'm a Californian - just know a lot of Southern Lefties.

[supernova]

17. And we love you too Taverner

;-)

[supernova]

18. Durham and Chapel Hill representin'

:patriot:

::headbang:

Unless other research presents itself, I'm going to presume that the OP is written with extreme ignorance.

[lwcon]

42. I'm extremely ignorant of any states south of Maryland

That voted for Gore or Kerry.


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[DemBones DemBones]

41. I wish that were entirely true. Cobb County, GA, attracts Republicans

like a pile of dog poop attracts flies. They're not Southerners and they elected Newt Gingrich and Bob Barr, neither of whom is a Southerner.

The biggest * supporters I know moved South from New York and New England. Some are racists, too, more so than the Southerners I know.

[Penndems]

13. The Bible Belt does not begin at the Mason-Dixon Line

Found that out when we were living in south central Pennsylvania. ;)

[MasonJar]

15. I can hardly believe the ill-conceived nature of this statement and the

succeeding comments. I must attest umbrage at such a stereotypical and ignorant statement. Most Southerners are very reasonable and even noble citizens of the world. I will give you two names that immediately pop in my mind, but there are 1000s more: Al Gore, a statesman of the first rank, and Bill Clinton. If I remember correctly, John Edwards and Wesley Clark are also a Southern twosome. Southerners would be too genteel to ever impugn an entire part of our country with such despicable tripe. I am proud to call myself a Kentuckian, the state of beautiful horses, Bluegrass fields. 100 proof whiskey, the Red River Gorge, extraordinary culture and first rate basketball, and a Southerner, the region of the country where the great cities abound, including New Orleans and Charleston. One thing I can guarantee you, if you come down here we will treat you with a rare brand of hospitality.

[lwcon]

23. The southern states as electoral entities are voting us into oblivion

Obviously I'm being snarky here. I'm not talking about all southerners, but the voting entities that have rather unfortunately defined the political landscape these many years.

I mention Gore in my post -- my preferred choice for president.

However, it's frustrating as hell that the whole country has to have the government that these states -- (if and) when all votes are tallied -- think we all deserve.

Now, if Gore's own state had voted for him, we wouldn't be having this -- or most of the other conversations we have on this site -- would we?

So forgive me if the knee-jerk Republican voting of southern states makes me sigh out loud.

And I do thank you for the promise of hospitality! We have some nice folks up here, too!

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[AshevilleGuy]

16. What is the purpose of this post??

Other than to dump on the largest section of the country?? Nothing has changed here since the early 2000s I see.

[lwcon]

21. Little has changed since the southern states went for Nixon

It's become incredibly hard for a good person to become elected president, largely because of bloc voting in the Bible Belt.

It's pretty frustrating, whether you're a progressive northerner or southerner.


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[AshevilleGuy]

22. I was referring to the DU

I see that there are still condescending hate-full posts slamming the South here, that is what has not changed. I suppose that "good persons" do not include Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton who were elected in three elections since Nixon. Gore and Kerry won, but were denied because of vote fraud; OH, where Kerry was robbed, is north of the Mason-Dixon, and FLA is NOT a Southern state, culturally.

[lwcon]

30. Please see my comment #23

Also, is it that unfair to dis the electoral south a bit when you consider this question: how many southern states did Gore and Kerry win?

That doesn't mean there aren't tons of "good persons" in every state, but perhaps you can understand the urge for a little griping about it now and then.

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[Clark2008]

95. Don't know much, do you?

The South also went for Clinton (with the exception of two Southern states: VA and SC).

And, your arcane point is...?

[sandnsea]

19. It's not true

The 8 Dem Congressmen who wouldn't vote for the House Iraq bill, because they didn't want to "signal" the "enemy", were not from the south, so stop saying that. (stomp foot)

(yeah they were, but it's not politically correct to notice)

[flaminbats]

20. I want a better country, not a separate one!

everytime I read something like this, it makes me sick...no wonder our party almost disappeared from the south. If Roosevelt, JFK, or MLK had this attitude..we wouldn't of had Society Security, Medicare, or integration! But so what..our party doesn't care about the impoverished or minorities, especially if some liberals might get our feeling hurt in the process?!

People like me keep working our asses off to revive the party county by county, and going door to door..and then some snot comes along an says we can all go to hell!! It doesn't matter if your black or white, moderate or liberal...if you live in the south, you're just not good enough for us dammit! :banghead:

[AshevilleGuy]

24. And liberals are supposed to be above stereotyping,

but you would never know it here. This shit is why I quit DU for several years, looks as if nothing has changed.

[Hosnon]

29. It's strange. Once one South-bashing thread pops up, ten follow suit. NT.

[DemBones DemBones]

43. Nothing has changed at DU. nt

[Jacklyn75]

44. It's unbelievable, isn't it? n/t

[lwcon]

45. Quite the stereotype to claim that...

... southern states routinely vote for Republicans, especially for president.

I guess I should have checked my facts.

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[Ishoutandscream2]

46. Again, and I'm talking about DU

It seems a few of our northern bretheren are still fighting the Civil War. There are no southern DUers that I know of that supports secession and the superiority of the south. The generalizations are frustrating.

[lwcon]

49. Oh, it's the *northerners* who are still fighting the civil war?

The majority of southern voters voted in an administration that echoes the sentiments of the ante-bellum south. It would be great if they didn't, but they did, and it deserves to be criticized, especially at DU.

That, of course, is not a reflection on southern progressives who try hard to turn things around but who so far are proving to be outnumbered by people who voted twice for the worst. president. ever. Aren't you mad at those people!?


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[DemBones DemBones]

52. Show me a thread started by a Southerner trashing the North.

There have been dozens of them started by Northerners trashing the South. Why? You only insult DUers in the South.


* didn't win just because of the Southern vote (at least a third of which is transplants from the NE, NW, MW, SW, especially in Florida and Georgia.)


Southerners helped elect Bill Clinton, who is a Southerner, as are Al Gore and Jimmy Carter.


* is not really a Southerner; he was raised in a community of rich oilmen in Texas, people who had moved there from the North primarily, from what I've read, and then sent back to New England for prep school and college.


Northerners have a bad habit of moving South to exploit cheap labor, but they think it's OK because they're equal opportunity exploiters who will exploit both whites and blacks.


It's been almost 150 years since slavery was ended in the South; how much longer are Northerners going to want to castigate Southerners for something that happened generations before their birth?

[lwcon]

53. So...

... we're not supposed to acknowledge that the GOP's "Southern Strategy," in which they took over the authoritarian mantle from the Dixiecrats, is a fundamentally important -- and rather distressing -- part of today's electoral politics?

My tribal identities are with Democrats and progressives in general. When my state voted for Reagan, I was fucking ashamed of it, and I didn't mind telling people that.

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[DemBones DemBones]

56. You 're not supposed to attack people in your party.

I've been a voting Democrat for forty years. For six years here at DU, I've had to endure regular bashing of the South, where I live, and where one of my grandparents was born and raised, and regular bashing of my religion.

I'm going to vote for Dennis Kucinich in the Dem primary and then I'm changing my registration to Green or Independent.

Congratulations, haters, you just drove a life-long Democrat out of the party!

[lwcon]

64. Boy, you sound like you love your country and your party

You've got a chip on your shoulder, so you decide complaints about the way the majority of people in the south vote is directed at you, despite post after post clarifying what the OP was about.

Sorry I forgot to pretend that the south doesn't consistently vote against us for president. I guess that ignoring that fact was the key to the next election. I'll try to do better for 2012.


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[Clark2008]

96. If you'll remember that the South DID vote for the Dem in

1992 and 1996 and only voted for the Republican in the last two cycles, you'd help your idiotic case.

Check your fucking facts.

[Thothmes]

68. Southern Strategy

IMO both political parties in this country have played to Southern political/social institutions. FDR's New Deal was largely a coalition between New England and Southern Democrats. So important was the Souther Democratic vote to the Roosevelt administration, the President, for political expediency, made no significant moves toward ending the jim crow system in the South. To have done so would have destroyed the New Deal Coalition, turning the South Republican. Would you have preferred Johnson veto the Voting Rights Act for continued Souther Democratic political support.

[lwcon]

69. Indeed not!

That's why my critique is aimed at the majority of southern voters who apparently still vote from a Jim Crow mindset, and not at LBJ.

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[AshevilleGuy]

57. No, it's always the other way around:

Every few days or weeks some stupid asshole starts one of these fucking South bashing threads, JUST AS IF no one had EVER thought of doing it before!!!! DUH.....How IMAGINATIVE!! How NOVEL!!! How creative!!! We are just so fucking impressed!!!!! How did they ever come up with this ingenuous type of post??? My, I wish I could READ so I could see what them fancy wurds say...

And being vastly inferior, WE are supposed to acknowledge something "we" or our ancestors have done so he/she/it will shut the fuck and go away for a while.

Ain't gonna happen.

[lwcon]

65. How young are you...

... that the people who voted for Dubya the last two elections are your ancestors?


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[sandnsea]

62. "New England liberals"

Almost every single day there is some reference to the horror of running someone from the north, or the absolute necessity of running a southerner to win. That's so okay that those that do it don't even realize they're being insulting.

And don't blame the north because the south is too stupid to organize and demand wage laws. I lived in Arkansas in the 80's and they were PROUD to take the jobs at half the wages of those uppity northerners.

Do not even think you've got something to tell me about the fucking south.

Every damn time somebody around where I live wants to pass some stupid right wing law, I point to the south and tell them if they want to live like that - GO THERE.

[Ishoutandscream2]

73. I am "mad at those people"

but when you have threads about the south and for my state to "go back to Mexico," then, yes, DUers (some in the north) are still fighting some kind of war.

Again, find any southerner here who promotes the south as greater than the north and who wants to secede, and I'll eat my hat. And thinking talking about a southern strategy insulting the north is poppycock. That is not insulting an entire region, and is certainly not mean spirited like posts from some northerners here who have an obsessive hatred of the south.

[lwcon]

74. It's not "obsessive hatred"

It's well-earned frustration with a part of the country where the majority of the voters automatically vote for an unimaginably terrible party -- today's GOP -- especially for president.

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[lwcon]

31. No, please keep fighting the good fight!

But perhaps you can understand how frustrating it is that that big red bloc votes against America's interests in election after election.

I hope you can, as that faux-southerner says, git 'er done. What you're doing is very much appreciated!!!


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[flaminbats]

34. it is frustrating, but this is why we must never give up

so many Democrats feel like their votes were wasted when all the electoral votes of the state they in live go for the Republican.

but we can still make a difference... it isn't the south's fault, the south can be won by Democrats again. if someone like Al Gore doesn't run for President, voters like us should persuade such leaders to run for the Senate or Governor. the southern voter is not a single monolith, and if more voters in the south associated this country's problems..like insurance discrimination and high deficits, they would be Democrats!

California was considered a hardcore Republican state which Democrats rarely won. But Democrats like FDR, LBJ, and Bill Clinton helped to change that over time. The south is a waiting opportunity for the Democratic Party, not a hopeless cause.

[sandnsea]

32. Aargh, they had to tolerate the KKK

The 1924 Dem convention was known as the Klan Bake. There was a riot due to nominating a Catholic. Imagine Chicago, except the protesters were Klan, complete with hoods and burning crosses. Yes, I recognize the Klan was from more parts of the country than the south, but for pete's sake, the racism in the south was in a whole other league.

Do we want to go back to the 1920's where we had to deny problems existed in order to avoid conflict? That'd make us Republicans because that's what they did.

[flaminbats]

40. imagine being a Republican in the south in 1924..

giving up on the south isn't the answer, and neither is insulting those who want the south to have a two-party system!

racism in the south is a reason to fight for more southern votes, not a reason to let Republicans have complete control. FDR didn't ignore the south, after the 20's he made the south a cornerstone of the New Deal. sorry but the KKK isn't a lost cause either, I know many racists who later became liberals with time.

all it takes is one interracial marriage in the family, then the racial insults and daily treatment of a person you love becomes a regular struggle for you as well!

[sandnsea]

47. Racism was ignored

A handful of progressive Dems attempted to confront racism in 1924 and the riots were the result. FDR ignored racism, Eleanor is the one who brought very modest attention to the problems. I do not know where you get the idea the south was a cornerstone of the New Deal. And as interracial marriage, I might have bought that argument 40 years ago, but if people haven't got their head on straight in this century, an interracial marriage isn't going to do the trick.

I've been saying for a while that we need to get organized in the districts where we were going to lose Dem votes on the war. I am all for that. What I'm against is the denial of the problems that exist in rural/red areas, along with the denial that people from outside can do anything about it. It's very frustrating to see a huge portion of the country hold us all hostage, and not be able to even comment on it when you can't DO anything either because you're a "yankee". It's ridiculous.

[lwcon]

48. Thank you

Hard to believe after 6 years of the worst governance in our country's history thanks to the bloc voting of the Southern states, you get your head ripped off for saying a bad thing about those states.

Of course we're supportive of southern progressives and sympathize with their challenges and root for their future successes (and cheer recent ones like voting in Webb!). But some barbed humor might be a healthy thing to pin this increasingly unpopular presidency on the part of the country that most avidly voted it in. The southerners that voted for these clowns (i.e., we're not pointing this at our DU brethren!) deserve to be mocked and shamed out of voting this way again.

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[flaminbats]

50. do you want me in the party?

I can bring my cause to the Republicans, maybe all of them will disagree..but I will not be unwelcome because I was born in the south! I want to end the cherry picking of health insurance companies and employers, a smaller national debt, and two political parties that want my support. How many votes will our party lose before this happens?

right now cherry picking is considered pro-business, starting wars is pro-life, being from the south or descended from a Confederate is treason, and the Democratic party doesn't want votes. Why should I even bother?

maybe I should stop holding you hostage! :grr:

[sandnsea]

51. See? I suggest organizing

and activism, get my head bit off. Nobody is allowed to say anything to the south. They'll take their marbles and leave.

Yes. You hold the rest of the country hostage. You just did it.

I would never in a cazillion years even pretend I could go to the Republican Party, they horrify me. It would be like threatening to become a terrorist. I couldn't say that, not even in anger or jest. Funny you can.

[DemBones DemBones]

55. My sentiments exactly. Forty years a Democrat

and at DU I regularly read posts insulting the South, where I live now, and where one of my grandparents was born, and my religion. Such posts ARE against DU rules.

I don't owe the Democrats my vote and DU makes me think they don't deserve it. Perhaps the Greens are less prejudiced.

[lwcon]

66. I don't represent DU

Do you represent the majority of voters in South?


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[DemBones DemBones]

54. Oh, come on. If you're not old enough to remember,

look up the race riots in the Sixties that occurred because NORTHERN whites didn't want blacks to attend school with their kids. In Boston or Philadelphia, a crowd of whites turned over a school bus with black children in it. White people spit on black kids. It was very, very ugly in the North. The South had been made to integrate its schools years earlier, told they were behind the rest of the country. :eyes:

The racism in the South is not "a whole other league." It's like racism everywhere.

The Klan was as much anti-Catholic as anti-black as you may know, since you mention it in regard to Al Smith, the first Catholic candidate for president.

[sandnsea]

59. "more parts of the country"

I mentioned the rest of the country, along with the Catholicism.

The south is different.

You name me whole towns destroyed the way they were in the south. The lynchings. The cross burnings.

No friggin' way. There's NOTHING like the racism in the south and to deny it is to be part of the problem.

[raccoon]

72. By the way, since you're from a Western state, I suggest you

do some research on discrimination and hate crimes against Chinese in the West.

And quit acting like you're so doggam superior.

[AshevilleGuy]

60. Oh but that was different.

Don't ask me how, but I suppose that the Black kids were not as injured in the school bus because it was in the perfect, holy north. They just laughed the 'prank' off and next day everything was okay. :eyes:

I am old enough to remember as well. It was rough here, but when we were told that racial relations were SOOO much better in the "North", we knew it wasn't so, and we understood the depth of that hypocracy.

The three most racist people I have ever encountered were from Boston, and Maine. A third was in Maryland, which to me is certainly NOT Southern. This was 1978; he needed to mail a bill in for payment, and walked at least a MILE to a P.O. to get a stamp that did NOT have Dr King on it. This was in DC at the bank where I worked - my friend Linda (also from NC) offered him the King stamp and he recoiled and shook all over. She looked at me and grinned afterwards; we poor Southern folks thought him idiotic.

[sandnsea]

61. Only cross burning I ever witnessed

Gulfport Mississippi. 1976. Laughed off the next day.

I didn't know cross burnings even happened in the 1970s until then.

How about the quaint southern KKK hot lines?

Don't even pretend. Some of us know the sick shit that southerners never talk about.

[lwcon]

67. I guess the Southern Poverty Law Center got it wrong

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp

Be sure to tell them that the haters are all up north.


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[Greyhound]

58. The party almost disappeared from the south because of their adamant refusal

to accept ideas like Social Security, Medicare, and integration. When the democrats literally dragged them into the 20th century and forced these ideas on them they went republik.

Now I know that many southerners are, in fact, wonderful caring and intelligent people, hell, I lived in Cobb county during the reign of Newtie, but it is a matter of concentration. There just aren't enough of you to swing the rest.

As to the OP, I have to agree, waging the American civil war was a mistake, but like Iraq, what's done is done, so we have to try and fix it.

ETA; Thanks for your hard work, I know it is difficult,:hi:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

26. Trouble is, the aristrocracy that wants to rule

and make everyone their slaves is not confined to one geographic area. If one looks at history, one could say that New Yorkers like Hamilton were interested in having only the rich run the nation; certainly after the Civil War the Robber Barons who took advantage of the Republican stranglehold on the country were not from the South. And there has been a history of populism in the South, especially Arkansas.

But don't get me talking about the Civil War. I had too many relatives shed too much blood for the Union to EVER wish that the CSA had won. Hey, I whistle "The Battle Cry of Freedom" when I go by the Confederate Monument on the courthouse lawn in the town in Arkansas where I work!

[mmonk]

33. Is this man an authoritarian?

[lwcon]

39. Nope

But will much of the South vote for him as president? It'd be a grand day if it did, and that goes double for Gore.


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[DemGa]

36. Well I'm glad you's guys don't get to set the terms!

Geez, I can't stand Larry the Cable guy, by gorry.

[DFW]

63. What a weird thread

I was born and bred in Virginia, have had my home in Texas for 25 years.

Still, I graduated from Andover and the University of Pennsylvania, so
been there, done that in both cases.

I see the great divide as more cultural than regional these days. In my
adopted home town of Dallas there is a huge movement of progressive people,
including many insanely rich people who now devote their time to fund raising
for Democratic candidates. People like John Edwards and Howard Dean seem to
be stopping in Dallas almost monthly. Yet since DeLay's gerrymandering, our
Rep. in Congress is no longer the moderate and capable Martin Frost, but the
incompetent and radical right-wing ideologue Pete Sessions. Does this mean
we took a step backward? Hardly. It means our district has been changed to
include some of the rural areas outside town where thinking hasn't changed
in a century.

Tennessee produced Al Gore, Arkansas produced Bill Clinton. Pennsylvania
produced Rick Santorum and Connecticut produced the Bush family. No place
has a monopoly on good guys or bad guys. If one region of the country tends
to elect right-wingers, maybe factors other than religion or race need to
be examined to explain and correct it. Economics certainly plays a role.
Jennifer Granholm came close to losing re-election as governor of Michigan
to a right-winger not due to race or Bible-thumping, but because the auto
industry and its millions of jobs were in peril.

I don't see bolting the party as being any more useful than moving from Nashville
to Nashua. The rigid ideology of the Greens helped give Florida to Bush in 2000.
Nice protest, but thanks a heap for what it did to the country. The Greens will
not choose the next President. There is a good chance the Democratic Party will.
Not Georgia, not Alabama, not Texas, not Massachusetts, but the Democratic
Party of the USA. Howard Dean is chairman of the DNC, as in Democratic NATIONAL
Committee. We could do worse than to start thinking the same way. His 50 State
strategy won 2006 for us, not some regional strategy.

Take it from a Virginian/Texan who is stationed overseas most of the time anyway,
and spends a few weeks on Cape Cod every year if he can find the time.

United we stand is not just a trite phrase. If you think so, just remember how
badly we fall when we get divided. If you kiss a bible or burn it, if you prefer
lobster or grits, if you say y'all or Noo Yawk, I don't care. If you are interested
in a Democratic President and Congress, you are my political ally. If not, then you
are my political opponent. Maybe it's not that simple. But maybe it is.

[Bill McBlueState]

70. good post

People are accusing you of bias against entire regions, but you've got the election results to prove your point. The problem is that we have a presidential election system such that regional tendencies matter. It makes no difference how many progressives are scattered across the south; our electoral system makes it so only the state-wide results are important. As long as that's the case, posts like yours are appropriate.

Here's a more subtle example of how the dominant Southern mentality affects national politics: In the fifteen Presidential elections since FDR, the party nominated someone from the Northeast three times. Each of those three times, the running mate was from a southern state to "balance the ticket." In contrast, the party nominated someone from the old Confederacy or a border state seven times. This is despite the fact that the South has been predominantly Republican in recent two decades.

[evilkumquat]

75. Huge Anti-Gay Rally in Indianapolis

My local paper ran the photo of these anti-gay nuts on the front page.

Can we start an Indiana-bashing thread, just to keep things fair?

Evil Kumquat

[aquaman]

77. Down with Indiana, Indiana is for losers........

How's that? :hi:

[leftofthedial]

78. the ignorance (cultural and historical) exhibited in this post

is staggering

[lwcon]

79. I guess I'm wrong

Southern states have not routinely voted for god-awful presidential candidates who evoke Jim Crow authoritarianism, thus inflicting them on the rest of the country.

My bad.

___

Hey, the liberal light is always on at the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Please stop by and say "hi!"

[Bridget Burke]

82. Yes, you are wrong.

Blogs aren't the best source for learning history. (That phrase you keep repeating about Southern presidential voting is not the premise of your OP.)

Why doesn't your profile show your Home State?

[lwcon]

86. The premise of the OP...

... is that the rest of the country is stuck with the authoritarian government that southern voters resoundingly vote for.

Is my profile supposed to show my home state? It's Massachusetts, which I was proud of when it voted against Nixon, and ashamed of when it voted for Reagan. I'm proud of it for voting for Democrats for President since, but ashamed of it for allowing people like Mitt Romney to be our governor.

Please say "hi" to President Gore if you see him, and be sure to thank all the southern voters for standing behind him.

___

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[Lex]

80. Wow. How ignorant. I think you yourself prove your post invalid

by being so backward and uninformed.

[lwcon]

81. Please post the electoral results that contradict me

Show how the majority voting tendencies of southern states are actually something less than disastrous for the country as a whole.
___

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[Bridget Burke]

83. What does your OP say about electoral results?

Gosh--you changed your argument after your realized you were on thin ice.

[Lex]

85. Yeah, I noticed that too. Typical of a lousy debater and someone who

began with little to no substance in their original OP.

[Bridget Burke]

87. Well, he cut & pasted his blog entry into the OP.

He's begun several DU discussions from the same source.

But he's generally ignored in the blogosphere. (Wonder why?)

[lwcon]

89. Sorry I'm not famous like you

It must be your substantive arguments that have taken you straight to the top!

___

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[lwcon]

88. Wow, Lex, you've run rings around me logically

Nowhere in the original post would you get the idea I was talking about national politics, and the presidency in particular.

I must have been referring to Jeb Bush.

___

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[Lex]

91. LOL!

Pitiful.

[Lex]

84. What's disastrous for the country are idiotic separatists.

nt

[lwcon]

90. Y'all win!

I admit I was wrong to think that Southern states are continually voting for very bad national politicians for very bad reasons.

You've made your point with a preponderance of evidence, and your neighbors who voted for Reagan and two Bushes are to be praised for their contribution to our country.

I hope we'll never again see a DUer be as boneheaded as I was by suggesting that these states should be criticized -- or, heaven forbid, mocked -- for these voting patterns.

___

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[Clark2008]

92. How about we stop with the stereotyping of Southerners and

LISTEN to us rather than preach at us.

That probably would help your case just a wee bit better.

Southerners are NOT children who need the constant Northern chiding. As a matter of fact, if you'd get your noses out of our business, we'd stop with the reverse psychology on y'all. I swear, if y'all had SHUT UP about the flag thing, it would have been gone off of state house years ago. It was stubborness to your nosiness that has kept it up.

[LaurenG]

97. Locking

Flamebait