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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCan Democrats Win Back the Deep South?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/can-democrats-win-back-the-deep-south/277123/A volunteer for President Obama's 2012 campaign in Wilson, North Carolina. (Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)
A few weeks ago, municipal elections were held in Mississippi. The state Republican Party concentrated its efforts on four traditional GOP strongholds -- Tupelo, Meridian, Starkville, and the picturesque Gulf Coast burg of Ocean Springs.
But on Election Day, June 4, Mississippi Republicans got a rude shock: They lost all four.
Tupelo got its first Democratic mayor in nearly 30 years, a 37-year-old trial lawyer. Meridian got its first black mayor ever. Ocean Springs' Democratic incumbent won a third term to preside over an all-Republican board of aldermen. Mississippi Democrats proclaimed it "Blue Tuesday."
"It's been a long time coming," Percy Bland, the 42-year-old mayor-elect of Meridian, told me. "We haven't had a Democratic mayor in Meridian since '76. And we won it running away, when people thought it would be very close." To win 54 percent of the vote, he said, he had to attract support from blacks and whites, Democrats, Republicans, and independents. In April, Bland had found a stuffed dog hanging from a noose outside his insurance business. In his victory speech, he paid tribute to the three civil-rights workers murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in nearby Philadelphia in 1961. They died, he said, so the people of Meridian could vote.
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MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)For some reason, "We suck less, assholes" resonates less than "See? We got into office and your lives got better."
Weird.
xchrom
(108,903 posts)progressive idea -- communicated with a resonate populist platform will.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)instead of pandering to them, things would change immediately.
I see almost no hope of this happening. Civil War II is more likely than Grayson/Sanders Dems taking the party back from Reid and Obama
Chathamization
(1,638 posts)until they are pushed to do so. The party isn't going to move on it's own.
Harmony Blue
(3,978 posts)"we suck less" or "we are less evil" doesn't generate excitement with the voter base.
Agony
(2,605 posts)I like you better than that Third Way Asshole!
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)Just posted this link yesterday in another thread, and the migration patterns into Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and Florida look very promising for Democrats. I felt hopeless about Mississippi until reading this Atlantic article, thanks for posting.
socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)Yes, but it will take a return to the left populist stances that Democrats held and actually campaigned on during the 30s to win widespread races in the Deep South. Think an updated Huey Long type of populism. A cap on top end wealth and redistributing that downwards to everybody else.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)and the 30s in the south was a highly racist decade, but Huey actually used the racism inherent in the system to raise living standards for ALL of the citizens of Louisiana including the black citizenry.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)PDittie
(8,322 posts)for a generation or two. But Texas CAN be won much sooner, and when that happens, the South -- and with it, the GOP -- are immediately irrelevant. I would think this scenario is particularly important to accomplish if the SCOTUS strikes down the VRA.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Mass
(27,315 posts)Sadly, it seems the Democratic Party is ready to accept anybody who wants to come in, whatever they stand for.
So, yes, the Democratic Party can win the Deep South back. The question is: "What Democratic Party?".
I am not saying a true Democrat could not win. I am just concerned that the natural inclination will be to run former Republicans who change party because the GOP has move too far to the right or because it is not that popular.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)Rod Walker
(187 posts)LonePirate
(13,431 posts)Making the Repubs campaign in GA instead of other places like MI, OH, PA, or WI would itself be a win. As soon as GA or TX becomes reliably purple, the Repubs have no clear path to victory whatsoever.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)the demographics look extremely encouraging with the trend irreversible
Recursion
(56,582 posts)I question some of that background reporting. The mayor's an old high school friend of mine and to my knowledge never really faced a serious challenge from what's-his-name.
bahrbearian
(13,466 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)That's the 50 state strategy. I'm not sure what people think that phrase means.
Also, when it works, it winds up electing the blue dogs that its proponents then complain about loudly.
ananda
(28,874 posts).. I just don't know.
But we can sure try!
backwoodsbob
(6,001 posts)we just have to show that we are the party of the common man...something we have been woefully bad at lately.
If we had listened to Howard Dean in 2008 with his common sense politics and his vision we wouldn't be in this mess.
I wish I could go back to 2008 and vote for Dean
kentuck
(111,110 posts)IN, KY, WV, MO, and VA? That will be the turning point for our Party when that happens. VA and MO have slipped somewhat to the Democrats but there is a long way to go in the other states.
carolinayellowdog
(3,247 posts)Scroll through the maps in reverse time and you can see how recently KY, WV, and TN went for Clinton twice-- and how many southern states Carter carried in 1976.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)and it shall be an 80-20 legislative passage from that point forward
building today moving forward to a new tomorrow
Which is why the those against the President are doing all they can to attempt to prolong the enevitable debate, but its also why 95% of the democratic party just doesn't care about the petty issues smears dejour.