I Gotta Southern Strategy For Ya Right Here.

[rucky]

Socioeconomic Issues
Poverty/Working Poor
Racial Inequality

Nationwide problems that affect the South more profoundly than other regions...

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2003/cb03-153.html

According to the official measure, the Midwest was the only region to have an increase in its poverty rate between 2001 and 2002, from 9.4 percent to 10.3 percent. The poverty rates in the Northeast (10.9 percent), South (13.8 percent) and West (12.4 percent) did not change.

The South has the highest poverty rate. (The poverty rates for the Midwest and the Northeast were not statistically different from one another.)


Under the money income measure, real median household income remained
statistically unchanged in three of the four regions between 2001 and 2002. The exception was the Midwest, where income declined 2.0 percent.
The South continued to have the lowest median household income of all four regions under this measure.


http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/rankings/PL1210000r.html

United States: Black or African American persons, percent, 2000
Area / Percent
United States 12.3
District of Columbia 60.0
Mississippi 36.3
Louisiana 32.5
South Carolina 29.5
Georgia 28.7
Maryland 27.9
Alabama 26.0
North Carolina 21.6
Virginia 19.6
Delaware 19.2

'Nuff Said?

[lastliberalintexas]

1. Yep

And the South also has traditionally low voter turnout rates. The South as a whole may be a lost cause, but there are certain states where Dems stand a very good chance of winning if we get turnout up. I think Louisiana should be our model- turnout the Dem voters, and we actually win elections!

[markus]

2. Like a broken record (remember those?) may I suggest . . .

That the strategy most likely to shake up the South is a proposal to make all Affirmative Action based on family income.

Let take it up a notch.

Bam!

[rucky]

3. Bam, indeed....

Take the race-baiting element out of the AA debate, and we've got ourselves a Class War (which has been my broken record message).

Of course the Repugs have been waging one for years, we've just never had the guts to call it what it is.

On a related note:

10% of Americans hold 73% of the nation's wealth.

that single stat blows the entire Repug economic & tax policies out of the water.

[mmonk]

4. A southern strategy that would work

is pay southerners the going rates for the work they do. Large companies go here because of right to work laws. But it needs to be framed the right way.

[Bombtrack]

5. I think that it will take a black democrat to do that

I hope that in 2012, if there is an open dem primary that Harold Ford is the nominee and he ushers that in

We can split the south with Edwards or Clark, or just win Florida with Kerry/Graham, and those are are only options if we don't want to let Bush write off the south and concentrate on all of the close 2000 Blue states

[mmonk]

6. Ford is a good strategy

as he is a popular politician in the south.