Winning Without the South
As I was traveling the country interviewing Democrats for my new book, Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, upon hearing the book’s title invariably some of them would shoot me an incredulous look and ask, “Can we?” Such is the state of conventional wisdom about Democrats and the South.
When I pressed them to clarify their skepticism, most Democrats offered one or both of two explanations. First, the South is simply too much turf to concede to win a presidential election or forge congressional majorities. And, second, that the three most recent Democratic presidents were southern.
Neither is true.
The 11 former Confederate states—the traditional definition of the South, and the one I use throughout the book—have held a remarkably stable in the share of House seats, and thus electoral votes, since the end of Reconstruction. The South’s share of electoral votes has ranged between 27 percent and 31 percent for the past 130 years. As the northeastern and midwestern states have lost political clout, the 13 western states of the Pacific Coast and interior West have gained congressional seats and electors. In fact, five of the more rural southern states have smaller congressional delegations than a century ago.
Only the growth of “outer South” states like Florida, Virginia and Texas have kept the region from losing clout overall, and much of the growth in these states comes from non-native southerners, including Florida transplants and Hispanic immigrants. Sure, the southern states are projected by Brookings Institution demographer William Frey to add 19 total electoral votes by 2030. But the southwestern states, plus California and Washington, will gain 12. A net gain of seven electors over 30 years is, by itself, no basis for focusing on the Southeast over the Southwest.
Taking a longer historical view, political history buffs will recall that, during the 72 years from the end of the Civil War until the New Deal, the Republicans won 14 of 18 presidential elections with almost no southern electors. Democratic presidential candidates James Cox, John Davis, and Alton Parker all carried the South, but none got above 35 percent of the electoral vote and they are trivia question answers today. As for Congress, to take one example, the Republican majorities swept into office in the 1920 elections constituted two-thirds of both chambers despite no southern senators and but a handful of southern representatives. The Democrats owned the South, but that ownership left them on the outside of national politics looking in.
The suggestion that a non-southern majority is numerically impossible therefore ignores American political history.
Lest these historical precedents seem antiquated, consider the four most recent presidential elections, in which Bill Clinton built a non-southern majority twice and Al Gore and John Kerry nearly did so as well.
A side-by-side comparison of Clinton’s 1992 performance with that of the Democratic president who preceded him, Jimmy Carter, is revealing. In 1976, Carter’s margin over Gerald Ford was 9.5 points larger in the 11 southern states than the 39 non-southern states: The Georgia governor won the South by 9.4 percent and lost the non-South by just 0.1 percent.
Fast forward a mere 16 years, and we find that Clinton fared 9.5 points worse in the South, losing to George H. W. Bush by 1.4 percent in the South but beating Bush by 8.1 percent everywhere else. That’s a 19-point net swing in the regional performance of the two Democratic nominees, and yet Carter lost his re-election—in which, incidentally, he still did better in the South than the non-South—while Clinton won again in 1996 with an ever greater South v. non-South disparity (11.6 points). Though he won four southern states in both his election and re-election—Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee both times, plus Georgia in 1992 and Florida in 1996—Clinton still amassed the requisite 270 electors without the southern states.
So, yes: Clinton and Carter and Lyndon Johnson were all southerners by birth and political background. But Clinton is distinct from his two predecessors because he is the first northern southern Democratic president in American history. And Gore and Kerry? But for seven thousand additional votes in New Hampshire, the Tennessean would have won the White House without a single southern electoral vote while winning the national popular vote, and the Massachusetts senator would have turned the trick in 2004 despite losing the popular vote he had converted just 60,000 Bush voters in Ohio.
Not only is a non-southern majority possible for Democrats, but in terms of the two parties’ coalitions and the natural progression of regional politics, it makes more sense. An abbreviated and oversimplified history of partisan realignments since the Civil War goes something like this: The northeastern states and what was then called the West (but today we know as the Midwest) were regionally aligned against the South until the New Deal; Franklin Roosevelt then converted the Northeast and appended it to the South in coaliton against the West; the civil rights movement then de-coupled the South from the Democrats, allowing the GOP to add it to its western base and outvote the coastal states.
The next logical step, therefore, is for Democrats to convert the block of 20 midwestern and interior western states contained in a diamond formed by connecting Cleveland to Helena to Las Vegas to Tucson and back to Cleveland. Most of the swing states from the 2000 and 2004 elections are contained within this polygon, and these states are less culturally conservative and racially polarized than the South. (They also have far higher rates of unionized employees or union families.) As for the congressional elections this cycle, all but a handful of the Republican-held seats the Democrats are presently targeting are outside the South.
To argue that Democrats must regain their majority by somehow converting the nation’s most conservative region first is strategically backward, a glaring example of what I call “extended ladder” politics.
Instead, to fill their partisan baskets as quickly and efficiently as possible the Democrats’ best strategy is to begin with the windfallen fruits in the Northeast, where the party is strongest but have yet to consolidate and maximize its majorities, particularly in Congress.
The low-hanging fruits of the Midwest, consistently the most competitive region in American politics for 60 years, are next. Midway up the tree are the southwestern and interior western seats and electors ready for plucking. Finally, at the top of the tree—where the tipped ladder is least stable and farthest from the ground—hang the once plentiful but now soured fruits of the South, particularly those of the Deep South at the treetops.
To start with the South is to advocate reaching past more proximate, more ripened fruits. It is precisely the strategy Karl Rove would love for Democrats to adopt, for it is the surest way to allow the Republicans’ “rolling realignment,” as Rove calls it, to continue rolling forward.
Comments (43)
The next logical step, therefore, is for Democrats to convert the block of 20 midwestern and interior western states contained in a diamond formed by connecting Cleveland to Helena to Las Vegas to Tucson and back to Cleveland.
LOL...much easier said then done. But you are right if the dems can carry on a regular basis most of the following states...Ohio, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana and Nevada (and maybe Missouri) plus hold onto the states in the midwest they already carry...they wouldn't need the south. But the devil is in the details...
October 4, 2006 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Loyalty to your country always; Loyalty to your government when it deserves it." Mark Twain
October 4, 2006 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, due to a browser hiccup, I just lost most of a much longer post, and since I have to get work done, I'll just hit the high points:
I'm not saying to contest the south over the southwest, but rather to not abandon any part of the country. By showing the Democratic flag in every house district in every state, we keep the Democratic narrative in play, even in districts where we lose time after time. In the end, it leads to a healthier national dialog, and one that is more condusive to favorable electoral results.
In short, this is a downright stupid argument to make.
October 4, 2006 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I missed a point. Stop obsessing about Presidential outcomes and focus more on control of the US Congress, as well as governorships. Dominance there is the key to winning at the Presidential level, and it's more important than the White House anyway, despite what drooling DC analysts like to think.
October 4, 2006 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're analysis is interesting. But what of Perot in 1992? Clinton won Montana w/ 39% Bush 35%, but Perot got 26%. Clinton did visit Montana and did not write it off. It was the year I moved to MT from NYC. I shook his hand. I still think it's all about the candidate. The failure is in the candidates and secondarily with the foolish "swing state" strategy. But primarily it's about finding a charismatic optimistic populist like a Clinton that then brings his/her message of hope to all the states. In 2000, Gore didn't hit the economic populist message hard enough and should have chosen the young but eloquent John Edwards who was on his short list instead of the lumpy mushy middler scoldy Lieberman. Then in 2004, Edwards was on the wrong end of the ticket. Edwards often says"you can walk and chew gum at the same time." We need to take big ideas to the American people and make them feel proud again. We should not abandon the country or the towns. We can take the West and the South.
"Loyalty to your country always; Loyalty to your government when it deserves it." Mark Twain
October 4, 2006 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
What a bleak country this would be if either party were seen to "own" regions and have safe seats throughout. What kind of democracy is that? It sounds more like Iraq than the United States. Far better to have two active parties in all regions with truly competitive elections instead of the shams we now have where the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of incumbents. Challenge the right in all 50 states. Offer all Americans a choice. Write off Dixie and you write off democracy.
October 4, 2006 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
What kind of democracy do we have? Well it is what it is. But we are like Iraq in that regard. The north and south have had issues with each other from day #1. We got the "killing each other" out of our systems almost 150 years ago but the cultural mores of the north and south are completely different and are a source of much friction. In Iraq they still haven't got the killing each other thingy out of their system...maybe someday they can peacefully coexist like we do in the US.
October 4, 2006 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you can sum up your argument as "focus on the Southwest rather than the Southeast", then I generally agree. But I don't think I buy into the argument you're using to make this case.
First of all, I think your Risk board analysis of American politics misses out on most of the important cultural trends of the past 50 years. The South has aligned itself culturally and politically with the rural midwest, great plains, and Appalachia. With the advent of interstate highways, the old regional differences have largely faded away. And the net winner, culturally, has been the South.
Wiser people than I have written entire books on this subject, but it doesn't require much knowledge of statistics to understand that Southern culture has come to dominate rural America. Wal-Mart. Country music. NASCAR. Pentecostal churches. George W. Bush. All Southern in origin, but all equally popular in Kansas. Anecdotally speaking, pickup trucks with confederate flags in West Virginia, a state that only exists because their ancestors rejected the Confederacy. I recently saw a pickup truck with a "Don't Blame Me, I Voted for Jefferson Davis" sticker in rural Illinois of all places. Illinois! Land of Lincoln! And while the plural of anecdote is not "data", it does add up to a convincing picture that regional differences aren't what they used to be.
Reconstruction is finally over. With a few idiosyncratic exceptions, such as Vermont, the great divide in American politics is now urban/suburban/rural, not Northern/Southern/Western. Ethnic politics still matter, too, of course, and those affect each party's success in each region, but regionalism seems to be a secondary function.
My take is that the Democrats can either target increasingly suburban states like Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Virginia by becoming an increasingly libertarian party. Or they can try to win in states with large blue-collar rural populations, like Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Ohio by becoming an increasingly populist party. Appealing to both groups would be very tricky, but maybe not impossible. It's going to require some very savvy politicking; a skill that has been in short supply lately.
October 4, 2006 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I should clarify that I agree completely with madison idea and DKC. We should campaign in all 50 states, not merely in a narrow group of swing states. The damage done to the brand names of "liberal" and "Democrat" by abandoning large swaths of the country to the right-wing spin machine for 20 years has been incalculable.
But at some point, campaigns do need to target their message and their money to win elections. My argument is that we should be thinking less in terms of regionalism than in terms of demographics.
October 4, 2006 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
President Bush's approval ratings are low in almost all states. SurveyUSA.com shows the only states where Bush had a better than 50 percent approval rating for September were Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Nebraska -- all Western states.
The red/blue divide is statistically a rural/urban divide, and only incidentally a regional divide.
I don't think the Democrats should give up on any region of the country. I especially think that would be a bad long-term strategy. Progressives need to be persistent, for as many years as it takes.
Why is this the time to give up on the South? Has the South suddenly become more unwinnable than it ever was before? The Republican party is facing its biggest disaster in years, and this is the time to give up?
To give up on one region is to suggest that the appeal of the progressives is based on narrow interests. That sends a bad message, and it suggests that progressives don't really believe in what they are saying. If we believe in what we are saying, we should say it to everybody. That is what Dr. King did.
Progressives in the South are perfectly capable of sending money to national candidates. Why write them off? Why tell them that they are dispensable?
October 4, 2006 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Savvy politicking" is what gives people the impression that the Democrats do not really believe in anything. That is why people lack confidence in the Democrats.
"Savvy politicking" assumes that the Democratic party is incapable of raising a viable candidate with convincing ideas. It is a substitute for effective leadership.
October 4, 2006 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would tend to disagree. The politicking has been anything but savvy for the past 6 years.
Maybe I'm a cynic, but it seems to me that as much as voters claim to want authenticity and leaders who stand on their principles, such people don't actually get very far in politics.
I agree that the Democrats need to stand for certain core values that they won't sell out under any circumstances. And I agree that the lack of this sort of backbone has contributed to their unpopularity. But elections are primarily won and lost by the marketing department. Jimmy Carter talked about Jesus and jacked up defense spending. Ronald Reagan raised taxes, cut and ran from Beirut, and signed disarmament treaties with the Soviets. Oddly, no one seems to remember these things. Politics are about perceptions.
October 4, 2006 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I seem to remember that when Carter ran for Governor of Georgia, he said different things to different people. I take your point, and I understand that there have to be priorities. I just don't want people to cave in to total cynicism, especially now, when the Republicans appear to be in serious trouble. Even a cynic would have to admit, I suspect, that the current situation cannot be read entirely on the basis of what has happened in the last six years. We don't know yet, but things might look quite different after the mid-term elections. We have to be open to creating new theories of winning.
October 4, 2006 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
On that, we can definitely agree.
October 4, 2006 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
West Virginia "only exists because their ancestors rejected the Confederacy"?
I think the Union army had a bit more to do with this than you are letting on.
I think that if the Democrats' focus is on "savvy politicking", they will continue to lose, or even when they win, they will be paralyzed and incapable of accomplishing anything, as was the case in the '90s. The Democrats need to have a unified national message and the best way to have a unified national message is to stop the wishy-washing pandering to Southerners approach to things. I do agree that there is an opening by preaching a more libertarian message than has been in the case in the past. But there is also more of a divide between the South and the rural Midwest than you are allowing. This is particularly true with respect to the issue of religion. The South is quite happy to comingle church and state, but that comingling is not as desired elsewhere in the nation.
October 4, 2006 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that's the country we've been living in for quite some time. There are far too many opportunities for regonialism in American politics for this political opportunity to be ignored. It is very difficult to try to formulate a national message that will sell both in Boston and in Tallahassee. So at some point you need to make a choice. Trying to be all things to all people is not going to be a winning strategy.
October 4, 2006 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I'm a cynic, but it seems to me that as much as voters claim to want authenticity and leaders who stand on their principles, such people don't actually get very far in politics.
I agree that the Democrats need to stand for certain core values that they won't sell out under any circumstances. And I agree that the lack of this sort of backbone has contributed to their unpopularity.
And I think this part of the problem too. I see the democratic party sell-out everything they stand for in an attempt to attract the southern vote. Talking about how tearing down the wall of seperation and having a more theocratic form of government. Getting wishy-washy on civil and women's rights in order to attract southern voters. We are trying to be more like them in terms of what we believe in culturally and not standing for what we believe in. I would like the south to vote for democrats. I support their right to worship their religion and live their lives how they see fit...but I will not start changing what I believe in and becoming more like them to "convince" them to support the politicians and policies I do. That is a step backwards as far as I am concerned...
October 4, 2006 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Congress is more important than the White House?
That has really not been true for quite some time. While this relative power balance may have been the original intention of the Constitution, the reality is that the Executive Branch has had far more power than Congress for, oh, about the past fifty years.
The "drooling" comment should be beneath you.
October 4, 2006 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
This entire premise is so offensive and wrong that I'm not even sure where to begin, comment-wise.
Let me get this straight: Your premise is that we in the South are so backwards that you will simply never be able to reach us. And that's fine. Cause you don't need us anyway.
First of all, I have some issues with your methodolgy in that I think you're overstating your case. The democrats may be able to win without winning the South- which is really what your data shows- but I really don't think they can win nationally and totally lose the South either. Furthermore, your theory's strongest application is really only the presidential race. In house races, gubernatorial races, senate, court, local bodies- a.k.a. where most of the country's law making gets done- you have to have a strong showing in the South to compete. This theory also ignores the fact that the conservative attitudes of the South are shared by much of the mid-west. Are you going to write them off too?
Philosophically, there are two main issues. First, WE LIVE IN A DEMOCRACY. It's the democratic party for Heaven's sakes. You just simply can't go around writing off whole chunks of people and governing around them if a democracy is going to survive.
Second, if you were to try to do that, you'd lose much of the conflict that forces good government. Yes, maybe the South is more difficult. But our response to that should be to try and come up with better ideas. In the party's quest to be more then the quasi-conservative Presidential yes-men IT became post 9-11, all it's managed to do so far is become quasi-liberal no-men. The solution to that is not to simply break off the part of the country that doesn't work on!
October 4, 2006 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that the strategy to take is not to ignore the South, but rather to stop obsessing about it. There is a lot of ground for the Democrats to make up in other parts of the country. Consider this: all of the following "blue" states have Republican governors right now:
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, California, and Vermont. While obsessing about trying to make gains in the South, the Democratic party has sat by idly while Republicans have grabbed Governor's Mansions all over "blue territory". Many of these governors won elections due to the contrarian natures of their respective populations - voters in Massachusetts and Maryland sometimes get tired of single-party dominance and put a Republican in the State House to counter-balance a Democratic state legislature. But it's also true that these long stretches where major states like New York and California have Republican governors are not good for the Democratic party.
October 4, 2006 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
The religious right is a concern. Perhaps they will stay at home for the mid-term elections. But in 2008? That seems to be up for grabs all over again.
Even so, remember that the Presidency is not the only elected office. The South is not monolithic, and there may be opportunities for progress that you are writing off.
Where do you think Carter, Johnson (the Civil Rights Johnson, not the Vietnam War Johnson), Clinton and Gore came from?
October 4, 2006 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to say- if the Dems aren't putting their money up there in CT, I'm not sure where they're spending it. Cause we don't see a whole heck of a lot of national dem. efforts down here in 'Bama either. Occasional handwringing, yes- but action, not so much.
The bigger question has got to be what the heck is wrong with the party!
October 4, 2006 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some very nice analysis here. Two questions about it, however:
1. In the heart of your potential Democratic polygon (Helena--Vegas--Tuscon--Cleveland) lie a handful of states which are, in presidential, congressional, and even local terms, certainly "high-hanging fruit": South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. Together they have almost as many electoral votes as Florida. This is a significant bloc of out-of-reach states.
2. Why not a Sunbelt strategy? *Every* elected president since Johnson has been from the Sunbelt. The Sunbelt features a solidly Democratic behemoth (CA), the two winnable Southwestern states (AZ and NM), and the three winnable Southern states: (FL, LA, and AR). Long term voting trends show Louisiana as a prime Democratic pickup target, with Arkansas and Florida only a bit less attractive. If long term voting trends had carried through in 2004, Kerry would have won Louisiana (Bush won it comfortably, but Kerry never campaigned there).
Another reason to be attracted to these three Southern states (esp. LA and AR) is that the old Southern Democrats are almost completely gone. Democratic power in AR and LA is here to stay, and is not some remnant that will eventually wake up and become Republican.
I agree much of the South is unwinnable. But those states are no less winnable than a bulk of the Mountain West/Plains, and as others have mentioned the South is not monolithic.
October 4, 2006 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting point, but keep in mind, Schaller's talking about an effective electoral strategy and not enhancing democracy.
October 4, 2006 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prof. Schaller,
Would an effort to turn out the large bloc of dormant African American voters in the South be insignificant?
October 4, 2006 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, so just for the sake of the argument, let's forget about the progressive white Southerners for a moment. If you write off the South, you are disenfranchising a lot of black people.
Sorry - I was typing this in just as you were making another post. We agree with each other!
October 4, 2006 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
The first and more narrow response to this criticism is that presidents are not elected by the popular vote, but by electoral votes from states that elect them in a winner-take all system. Move to a popular vote and I'd be happy to mobilize Democratic voters in Houston, Memphis and Atlanta. Trying to win Alabama by coming up with better ideas, nominating Southern candidates, etc. is an electoral strategy is doomed to lose at least short- and mid-term. Party ID and ideology matters. We're never going to be closer to these voters (not talking about the whole South, but many people in many states there) than the GOP is and never close to enough of them to win a state like AL.
More broadly, two points: "coming up with better ideas" is not a very good strategy because on ideas the Democrats already win for almost every issue. If 2000 and 2004 had been about ideas and not the people running, they would been relative Democratic landslides (though perhaps not in the South). But if by "better ideas" you mean "more conservative ideas", then you've had your wish in the past 14 years. The party is more conservative now. But there is a limit to this, just as there is a limit to how much lowering prices will help a business. Continuing to change our ideas until we start kicking butt in Alabama is like lowering your prices on milk until even the lactose intolerant will buy it.
Lastly, democracy is not all about persuasion. Every party makes persuasive appeals. But in any given election cycle, relatively few people change their minds (thankfully--for general sanity). Resources are limited, there are a limited amount of people whose minds are changable, and a limited number of places where a handful of mind changers will have an electoral effect. "Governing around" your opposition rather than attempting to achieve near unanimity is indeed what representative democracy is about. That's the whole premise of the post--not that we should kick Southern voters out of the country.
October 4, 2006 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Indiana...has...a 7-2 House delegation."
I'm willing to bet that after election day that goes to a 5-4 Democratic advantage. The 2d, 8th, and 9th districts will all switch.
Still the point that regions are not the best focus of strategy is well-taken. It doesn't save all that much money to campaign in Indiana instead of Arizona just because the former is closer to more swing states. Campaign in all winnable states, as resources permit.
But the slogan "fight everywhere" is fine to a point. I support Dean's long-term 50-state project. Yet "fight everywhere" as a presidential campaign strategy it is, frankly, stupid. Resources and time are limited. Bush "wrote off" California and most of the Northeast in 2004 (a really huge chunk of electoral votes), and won. His winning campaign strategy was every bit as 'narrow-minded', if not moreso, than the 'forget the South' strategy presented here. The GOP has been thumbing their noses at what voters in New York, Boston, and LA think for 12 years, and have done quite well with it.
October 4, 2006 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you didn't get it straight.
He wrote:
But you read:
In your nom de guerre, you reference a state that recently rejected, by a huge margin, a tax increase to improve one the worst school systems in the nation. The overwhelming consensus among 'bamans is that the schools are just fine as they are.
When less than 40% of the residents of a state think a top-quality education is important, it is difficult (at least for me) to see how Democratic political strategy benefits from making that state a high-value target. It is not that the minority group is unimportant, it is that political strategy relies on funding for execution, and it is strategically a better plan to target a state where the "progressive" minority might be 45% or 48% or some other number closer to the tipping point.
Finally, the really important battles are fought at the local front. State and local elections are where the candidates are vetted for national office. One of the most glaring failures of the Democratic Party has been the emphasis on national politics at the expense of local and state. All of the significant successes of conservative Republicans for the past 20 years have been built on powerful local organizations. They built a political pyramid, leading straight to the White House.
Alabama or any other outlier state will not come into the reach of a national Democratic political strategy until the Democratic Party in that state is strong enough to significantly impact and/or control local elections. It is, or should be, the responsibility of organizations like the DNC to coordinate that growth and make it happen. I believe Howard Dean knows this, and as a result, the prospects are brighter.
Thanks.
mp
If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong
October 4, 2006 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sir, I don't buy from Amazon and you shouldn't be plugging a pro-Republican, anti-union company.
I will, however, look for your book somewhere else, like the decidedly blue Powells Books.
Thanks.
mp
If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong
October 4, 2006 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
One somehwat minor point I don't see anyone else making: Florida is not really the South. Northern Florida: yes, that's pure Dixie. But take everything from Tampa-Orlando-Daytona south, and you've got something that is not Dixie at all (and wasn't even in the CSA days since hardly anyone lived there except the Seminoles back then.) What you have instead is a sui generis fusion of some Southern (but as a small minority) elements, New England, New York, the Great Lakes, Latin America, and even Native America. If you split the state in two on the dividing line I mentioned, the southern part would trend Democrat rather decidedly.
October 4, 2006 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jimmy Carter talked about Jesus and jacked up defense spending.
********************************************
That wasn't his going in position. Spending on defense only really went up in his last couple of years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when he got mugged by reality. He cut spending to begin with.
This is in constant 2000 dollars with 1976 Ford's last year in for comparison.
1976 $252.7B
1977 $250.6B
1978 $251.1B
1979 $257.4B
1980 $267.1B
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/pdf/hist.pdf
October 4, 2006 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post. I gained a similar notion from this book.
October 4, 2006 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Where we go wrong is to try to clone Republican positions in the South. The Democrats are entirely gutless. They've got to have an alternative agenda that makes sense to intelligent people. If that can win in the South, great, if not sell it elsewhere but becoming Bubbacrats because we're convinced everyone in the South is stupid is not only bad for the South and Democrats, it's bad for the country.
We need one party that is willing to talk up to Americans and ask them to vote like reasoning reasonable adults.
October 4, 2006 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
thanks for the tip. i put it on my wish list. ;-)
i just got off the phone with my wife, too, where i had just been saying that the republicans had a clear strategy, starting with school boards and working their way up the political ladder to the national legislature and the white house. we need to do that, too!
thanks.
mp
If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.
-- Louis Armstrong
October 4, 2006 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The question depends on what you mean by power.
Congress can't send troops somewhere, but that is not in its job description. What it can do is remove any government official from office. Who is more powerful, the CEO or the Board of Directors?
The President serves at Congress' pleasure, as he may discover soon. Remember that it was only 35 years ago a President was facing certain removal from office, and resigned.
October 5, 2006 5:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
See my below follow-up to my own post, and the comments within. I don't mean it as a presidential strategy. Sure, any given presidential campaign will need to pick its playing field, but as a party, ceding 1/3 of the country before the starting gun isn't a good strategy.
We have to stop obsessing about the White House!
October 5, 2006 5:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Congress in and of itself may not be more powerful than the White House, although I still think that the power the Executive Branch currently enjoys exists because of decisions at the congressional level to cede it, which could be reversed with enough political will. But anyway, I'm speaking about Congress, the Governorships, and the state legislatures. Thankfully, the past couple of years have seen Democratic activists rediscovering their state governments, and realizing that progressive reforms can often times be implimented there more easily and successfully than at the national level.
October 5, 2006 5:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are absolutely correct that we have to start locally. And locally, the democrats in the South have been struggling along better then you probably think. Witness Alabama, where, just to name a few, we have a black dem. congressman and a female dem. lt. gov...
who is going to lose this gubernatorial election because she has no PLAN.
Liberal ideas are great- as another commentator mentioned, if the battle was fought solely on ideas, we'd win it, hands-down. The democratic party's problem is that it's not been turning those ideas into easily understood plans for the future. An example of what I mean: Bob Riley, the current GOP AL governor, has come out with a plan. He's been a good governor- sensible, moderate, and honorable. Yes, the state has problems, but he's telling us how he's going to continue fixing those problems. Baxley? Well, her only plan seems to be to alternately bash him and tell us how good of a Christian she is. She's having a hard time convincing me she's fit to govern- and I want her to win desparately. It was always going to be a tough race, but she had a chance back in June, had she manage to put togather some sort of PLAN based on those vaunted liberal ideas.
You mention the education thing. I certainly supported the 2003 tax reforms, and almost every one since. The fact that it was defeated was not because Alabamians don't care about education. It was defeated because there was no clear showing of how it was actually going to help education. (Also, there were some messy state politics going on, but I won't get into that here).
This whole thing is indicative to me not of the South's uber-conservativeness, but rather of a party's failing to connect to voters. And my point is that writing a book about how that's somehow okay to continue doing does not help the situation, and really only confirms our beliefs that the Democratic party doesn't care about or respect the South at all.
October 5, 2006 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd give West Virginians the lion's share of the credit.
My "savvy politicking" comment also seems to have been taken diffently than it was intended. I don't think Democrats should focus on political smoke and mirrors to win votes. I simply think they need to be smarter about making a conscious, good faith effort to represent the interests of suburban and rural voters and address their concerns.I agree that there are genuine differences between the rural South and the rural midwest (my family is from the latter and my in-laws are from the former, so I have some experience with this cultural divide.) But it's clear to me that these differences are diminishing with time, and regionalism is no longer as potent a force in American politics as it has been throughout most of our nation's history. It's a mistake to assume that one party can still write off an entire region of the country and win elections, because there is too much overlap in the cultural values of voters from different regions of the country.
October 5, 2006 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
True, and by the same token Reagan only raised taxes and negotiated with the Soviets after he had likewise been mugged by reality.
The point was to illustrate that we don't necessarily remember politicians by their actions. We remember them by their image. I'm not going to channel George Lakoff and blame all of the Democrats' problems on "framing", but I think one would have to be catatonic not to conclude that Republicans have won the marketing war for about 25 years running.
October 5, 2006 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. Writing off the South is divisive, and it can only make things worse. I welcome any help we can get from the national Democratic party.
October 5, 2006 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
The influence of the religious right is not monolithic, either. Asheville, NC, has a strong New Age flavor anymore, and Atlanta has what they call a "metaphysical community."
October 5, 2006 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink