How Democrats can win votes from southern white male conservatives

[bluestateguy]

Remind them whose party it was that favored a more lenient, concilliatory reconstruction of the south after the Civil War.

Which Party favored humililliation and occupation of the south? Which party favored punishment of the south after the war to add insult to injury? Republicans!

Democrats wanted to welcome the South back into the nation, while Republicans wanted to make southerners second class citizens. That's how you win the conservative white vote in places like Shelby County, Alabama.

[Seeking Serenity]

1. Umm, no, that probably wouldn't be good

at least for the Party overall.

Democrats opposed Reconstruction, in part, because of the freedoms it was giving to freed slaves (if only to piss off the Southern Democrats). The Southern Democrats didn't like that, and soon after Reconstruction ended, Jim Crow came into full flower.

Not the most shining moment of our Party. I mean, what would we say to the Southern Democrat of today? "Remember, we were the Party that wanted to help your great-great-grandfather keeps them negroes in their place?"

Forget it.

(on edit: fix typos)

[Dangeresque]

2. Er...

...I don't think anyone down here actually *remembers* the Civil War, much less cares about it.

[LoZoccolo]

3. Yeah, people don't even remember what the Confederate flag looks like. n/t

[liberalpragmatist]

4. Um, the Republicans Were Right

The longstanding narrative has been that reconstruction was a failure and overreaching, but the general consensus among most modern historians was that reconstruction's principal failure was it didn't go far enough and that even in its limited form it allowed for significant changes in southern society which, had it been kept up, could've reintegrated the South into the national economy and brought full equality to blacks decades earlier.

Sorry. The Democrats have a shameful history in the second half of the 19th Century.

[ochazuke]

5. Yeah, that'll work.

But the Republicans would just remind African-Americans who freed the slaves.

[eurolefty]

6. Yep, which party did the original Ku Klux Klan support?

That'll get the coveted white supremacist vote. :silly:

[liberal N proud]

7. Could also paint a NASCAR with Kerry Edwards.

[arcos]

9. that didn't work for Bob Graham... n/t

[JI7]

8. and lose the black and other minority votes ?

sorry, but the democratic party of then is not the same as that of today.

[Francine Frensky]

10. I'm married to one: and if you really want to know, here's what they want

to go back to the 1950's. When blacks, women, foreigners, the handicapped, those from the "wrong side of the track", etc. were all marginalized. The playing field at work, at school, is a lot more crowded today. There's no guarantee that the white males will rise to the top, and they wish, at a mostly subconcious level, that things were "the way they used to be". Which of course was only beneficial for themselves alone (and their wives and families, which is why a lot of these southern women also vote republican).

These people USED to be democrats in name only, for the reasons you give, but they were never REAL dems, they were DIXIE-CRATS.... prime example: Zell Miller.

This strategy worked for 140 years, but it's over now. The repubs and racist types like Limbaugh have used subtle messages to convert the dixie-crats into solid right-wing republicans.

[TnDem]

11. Nope...Here's how to win the south...

Leave guns alone. This is the NUMBER ONE loser in the south and yet like a moth to a flame, northern Democrats just cannot leave it alone.

If you're Kerry, don't mention guns, don't allude to them and don't try and make yourself out to be something that you are not. Kerry is not a gun supporter nor has he ever been. That's fine and many people don't have a problem with that, but just stand on that and don't try to be one thing by supporting SB1431 and then another by posing with a trap shotgun. It may look good to urban folks, but rural voters in my state roll their eyes at such transparent politicking. I believe that Kerry is truly clueless as to what the AWB was all about and how people that DID know what it was about think he is not their friend.

Trust me folks..You just don't KNOW how many votes this loses us when Kerry tries and straddle a line he can't possibly straddle.