A Route for 2004 That Doesn't Go Through Dixie [View All]

[candy331]

Does anyone agree that this might have some validity to it? I think the racial issue has been used to truly polarize the South. Even though Southerners have the same issuses of jobs, healthcare,etc. they have been used for political advantages and cannot see that they are voting against their own interests. The Whites can't see that if things were returned to the pre civil rights era that they would still be hurting because jobs and the economy has changed. The jobs they could count on in the factories and mills(which Blacks couldn't get) are gone overseas never to return. Repugs offer Southern Whites pride of race and a religious right based on their misinterpretation of the Bible so the sheeple follow them. I am afraid that they think the "South will rise again" but to their chagrin the whole nation is teethering on the brink of falling. I believe that together we could stand longer but divided this country will fall sooner.

A Route for 2004 That Doesn't Go Through Dixie

By Thomas F. Schaller
Sunday, November 16, 2003; Page B01 Washingtonpost Solid Republican victories in the Kentucky and Mississippi governors' races, coupled with Howard Dean's clumsy overture to Confederate flag-waving Southerners, have raised anew the question of whether Democratic presidential candidates can compete in the South.


They can't.

And precisely because they can't, they should stop trying. Moving forward, the Democrats would be better served by simply conceding the South and redirecting their already scarce resources to more promising states where they're making gains, especially those in the Southwest.

I can imagine the laughter of party strategists -- and the ire of
Southern Democratic officials -- who subscribe to the prevailing wisdom that presidential elections are decided in the South. Indeed, pundits love to shout into the echo chamber that the last three Democratic presidents have come from the South.

This thinking is not only superficial and retrospective, but it could trigger a partisan realignment that would relegate the Democrats to minority status for a generation. Trying to recapture the South is a futile, counterproductive exercise for Democrats because the South is no longer the swing region. It has swung: Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" of 1968 has reached full fruition.

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