Hilary to vote no on Roberts.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Oerdin
No, their stategy seems to revolve around pretending bigots, white trash, and religious wackos don't exist while the Republican strategy is to court the white trash, bigots, and religious wackos.

Then all the Dem pundits after the election shouldn't have been so adamant in their condemnation of the southern red states as uneducated white trash religious freaks or for that matter anyone who associates themself with the oppositional party as the same.

Smearing the other candidate as distasteful as that may be works. Smearing the voters I do not see as an advantageous proposition.

[Dinner]

TV pundits /= the party's position.

TV pundits = say anything for ratings.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Oerdin
TV pundits /= the party's position.

TV pundits = say anything for ratings.

And yet it has been indelibly indoctrinated into yours as well as most other Americans POV.

[Dinner]

True.

[lord of the mark]

*waves hand

Im a democrat, i lived in Jacksonville for 3 years, and I DONT consider southerners in general to be white trash, bigots, and religious wackos.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Nor I. But then again you and I have first hand knowledge of the subject.

[Dinner]

I don't consider them in general to be such but I did say that type of vote was strong in the south. Big difference between saying everyone is X and saying there are a lot of X in a given location.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I don't consider them in general to be such but I did say that type of vote was strong in the south. Big difference between saying everyone is X and saying there are a lot of X in a given location.

Regardless my point simply was for Dems to be taken seriously in the south they need to break the stereotype they themselves have established (eiter willingly and knowingly or otherwise) for themselves as condescending to southerners thinking them little better than hillbilly hicks with poor dental hygene and a penchant for all things Jesus.

Until the demonization of the voters stop little headway will be made.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I don't consider them in general to be such but I did say that type of vote was strong in the south. Big difference between saying everyone is X and saying there are a lot of X in a given location.

If white trash means whites below the poverty line, there are quite a few. And many of them can and will vote Dem. And are no more deserving of being called trash than black, jews, gays, or anyone else are.

There are plenty of religious people in the south. Most are not whacko. Those who are insistent on the US a a christian nation or who intensely hate gays are few in number, and will never vote Dem anyway. There are many others who are uncomofratble with many social tredns in the US - if we want to be a serious party we need to take there concerns seriously.

Bigots - the south has made incredible strides on race, and I would say there are few bigots there. Those whom there are will not vote Dem anyway.

There IS a swing vote in the South, one that tends to be uncomfortable with GOP stands on economics, that is moderatly conservative on social issues, and that is more hawkish than nothern Dems. We ned to appeal them by taking their issues seriously - regional pride worked in 1976, by 1980 they had moved past it.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

LotM has the idea.

[lord of the mark]

interestingly enough, in 200o it was widely repoted that Joe Leiberman was popular with Southern audiences. To me that argues that said audiences were NOT bigoted, but were looking for someone who could relate to their cultural concerns. A jew from Stamford, Connecticut who could talk comfortably about God, was better than someone who "looked" more like them, but who could not so talk.

[Ramo]

Red state Dem governors are almost uniformly extremely popular: Warner, Frudenthal, Henry, Schweitzer, Easley, Sebelius, Manchin, Napolitano, and Richardson are all doing quite well (the chief exception being that Blanco who was hit hard by Katrina, and to a lesser extent Brendesen who's facing problems from his health care cuts). I'm not too excited about any of these folks except Schweitzer, but he's too inexperienced to run right now (having been Gov. only since this January); and by 2012, Obama and Spitzer would have enough experience to run for POTUS, disqualifying him. Of these guys, only Warner and Richardson seem to be in the running, but I get a feeling that Napolitano might make a run as well. Richardson's an uninspiring speaker, and frankly Warner's not that much better. They both have moderate creds and strong resumes, but haven't yet made gestures to the left needed to win the nomination (as, i.e. Edwards did in the last nomination). Napolitano would be in the same boat. Governors are hard to pidgeonhole ideologically, so these moderates can pivot to the left come primary season.

Clark's an interesting possibility. He seems to have picked up much of the the netroot Deaniac support (look at who the guys at Daily Kos are supporting). A lot of his support overlaps with Feingold (who I'm backing). The netroots are both of their bases, but given that Clark doesn't have to do any voting (like Gore), the netroots can more easily mold him in the shape of their own views than they can with Feingold (Feingold - like the other Senators - have to deal with "ZOMGFM TRAITOR" every time something like the Roberts vote comes). It doesn't help that he's a twice divorced Jew, so percieved as "unelectable" in some quarters.

Biden's campaign is Joementum redux. From the Dem activists, he's seen as a shill for credit card companies (as the Bankruptcy vote indicated). BAnd ayh is well to the right of the Democratic Party as a whole (and has the votes to prove it), and won't get any traction.

Hillary, in terms of votes, is clearly in the center-left of the Dem Senate caucus (like Kerry), but she has been making a lot of bipartisan overtures. The basic problem is that the ~40% of the electorate that watches Fox News and are still supporting Dear Leader even after Katrina aren't ever going to change their mind about her. At the same time, she leaves herself open for a strong assault from the left in the primaries.

Edwards still has a shot (in part because Katrina put poverty front and center in the American consciousness - for a few days anyways), but he needs to do something in the next few years to bolster his resume.

Kerry's a dud, without any visible support.

As for the Republicans, the polls say that McCain and Guilliani are the front runners, but the latter simply isn't going to happen, and the former won't happen unless the right gets seriously splintered. If McCain decides not to run, Hagel would play a similar part in the process. Battling McHagel in the far right corner, you have Brownback and Tancredo. Between the moderates and the bat**** crazies are Allen, Romney (who Rove seems to be backing), Barbour, and Huckabee. I'm not going to try predicting what happens there, but I've heard that Allen has the potential to unite the fundies and corporatists (as Shrub had).

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
interestingly enough, in 200o it was widely repoted that Joe Leiberman was popular with Southern audiences. To me that argues that said audiences were NOT bigoted, but were looking for someone who could relate to their cultural concerns. A jew from Stamford, Connecticut who could talk comfortably about God, was better than someone who "looked" more like them, but who could not so talk.

No, but it does mean that Leiberman would have been bad for the country.

[DinoDoc]

My small list of political hopes:

1) Roberts doesn't turn out to be another Souter.
2) The Democrats either a) find someone competent that isn't a complete jack ass when it comes to video games or failing that b) continue to listen to Oerdin and his ilk by continueing the demonization of the South and alienating potential voters. I'd be happy with either one.

[chequita guevara]

white trash = white folks who go on Jerry Springer and similar type shows. That's a big chunk of the Southern population, and the reason why the South leads in all those catagories of things they are against: infidelity, divorce, out of wedlock children, drug use, crime, etc. God damn drama people, always gotta have a ****ing crisis in their lives. The term is inherently racist, as it carries the assumption that white people should not be trash and that trash normally isn't white.

Bigotry = the South has taken great strides in overcoming its past, but let's not fool ourselves. They had a long way to come back from, and bigotry is still rampant among the former group of folks, as well as many of the older, more proper, Southerners. Bunnygrrl was extremely unhappy in Jacksonville because of the attitudes displayed towards her.

Religious whackos = the politics of Jacksonville was controlled by a single church, the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville (Rev. Jerry Vines, of the Mohammmed was a pediphile comment). To claim that religious extremism is not part of Southern culture is just daft. Interestingly, when a Republican governor in Alabama attempted to appeal to people's Christian duty to help their neighbors and comfort the poor, his measure was defeated. I'm not so sure this aspect of their faith can be counted on to woo them away from the GOP.

Also consider, that until a generation ago, the South was solidly Democratic, so the Democrats are not ignorant of the South. I think certain Southern states might be able to be split, where they have large numbers of Yankee ex-pats. But uber Xian S. Carolina will be solidly evil for some time.