Is there room for both African-Americans and white Southerners in the DP? [View All]

[BurtWorm]

Suppose the Democratic Party takes the position that no vote can be written off and makes a strictly economic appeal to white Southerners along the lines of "What has the GOP done for you lately?" Suppose it continues to debate this strategy of unraveling Nixon's Southern strategy in public fora and to make the case for white Southerners to return to the party. Can the Democratic Party succeed in winning with a message about class interests that cuts across race interests, that transcends the kind of politics Republicans have exploited since 1964, a politics that has ripped the party apart and redrawn the electoral map?

How can Democrats pursue class-based appeals without getting mired in their party's messy race-based history? Can the wounds around race be healed within the party? Isn't this what must be done if the touted Democratic majority is to re-emerge? Or should the party accept the ground the Republicans have taken in the South because of that history?

My own feeling is that if there is no room for both, if the issue cannot become class rather than race in the South (or among working and middle class whites who vote Republican against their economic interest no matter where they live), then we should stick with the friends we have.

But we might have to prepare ourselves to write off regaining control of Congress and state legislatures.