For A More Progressive House In 2012; Concede The White South

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

It depends. I love to see Blue Dogs go down in flames, but we can't afford to give up places like SW Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Arkansas. They're not DINOs, they're pro-labor populists who have been stolen by God, Guns, and Gays to vote Republican, and the Democrats continue to push to be the party of NYC upper-class hipsters as opposed to the party of the working man, be he in the coal mines of West Virginia, the slums of Detroit, or the factories of Newark.

[krazen1211]

My thoughts:

Wisconsin basically has 2 safe D seats (the Madison area and the Milwaukee proper) and 1 safe R seat (the Milwaukee suburbs). Every Wisconsin CD except for said Milwaukee suburbs seat went for Obama, thus it is possible to have 5 D pickups from there in 2012.

This part is quite delusional.

[krazen1211]

A lot of those 10 seats you mentioned were once held by Dems but only in the 2006-2008 cycle. They couldn't hold any of them through 2010, obviously; such seats are not reliable for them to form a long term majority.

The long-term trend in NY-NE, at least, is against the Republicans. 2010 was an extra-great year for GOP, so it obscures the trend a bit, but, unless the Republican party decides to seriously compete in the Northeast many of these districts will become harder and harder for them to keep (of course, we still have to see how redistricting would turn out). In fact, the only reasonably safe district (medium-term) for Republicans in NY, in my view, is NY-13 (BTW, I didn't count it above, even though it was freakily held by a Dem in 2008-2010) - not because it is conservative, but because Republicans double-up as "Staten Island Nationalists". Even that, though, could be gotten rid of with minimal gerrymandering (just attach a more liberal part of Brooklyn to the district than is attached to it now – though, of course, at least for the next 10 years Republicans in the state senate should be able to forestall this.
 Otherwise, I don’t  believe anything is safe Republican anymore in the entire NY-NE area – not even NY-3. Some districts are still competitive or even lean Republican of course, but the party decay in the region seems slow, but inexorable.  I am not saying
In the South, at least, there are blacks and Hispanics (guaranteed representation through VOA),  universities, northern ex-pats  - these provide some local base preventing Dems from extinction  and, at the very least, guaranteeing the Democratic party the role of the “official opposition”. There simply seems to be no natural reliable Republican constituency left anymore. I am still of the opinion that a decent third-party effort in the region could reduce the GOP to a minor party role in many places. Of course, much of the same can be told (in reverse) about the Mormon Triangle  - but UT, ID and WY will only have 7 House seats together , it’s a much smaller region.
NJ, of course, is very different, and the West Coast states have huge well-established and well-concentrated Republican minorities.
Ah, and the point I was making about Florida and NOVA is that when Dems talk about abandoning the South, they don’t mean abandoning those areas. There is still potential for recovery there. Also (baring possible gerrymanders), Dems wouldn’t be abandoning parts of NC and TX, and, given the local conditions, I don’t think they are ready to give up on AR. With exception of AR, though, none of this involves appealing to the “White Southern” electorate proper – Hispanics, carpetbaggers, students/academics, may be some bureaucrats in state capitals is what’s at stake. Elsewhere in the South, though, I think it’s a fair bet to conclude that Dems won’t be doing much, except in VOA districts. The white southerner is being given up for good.

That's a fair assessment. Upstate New York has gone from solid GOP to eternally swingy status in about 6 seats, and safe Dem in about 5 seats. Peter King will never lose, and for that matter, Chris Lee either if he left his shirt on, but the Democrats will always have a shot at all of the seats.

The rest of New England has already been won. This decade disposed of the 3 CT reps; at most the GOP will have a chance at 1 district.

The presence of a handful of white liberals in GA and TX doesn't help you though. Neither state will reach AL levels probably, but they probably still had a bit further to fall after 2008. In any case the black districts need some whites, and its really easy to supplement the black districts with hispanics and liberal whites; they live in the same place.

NoVA is tricky. The conservatives who work in DC have to go somewhere, and usually that's VA and not MD. Careful mapping can ensure they hold a district in NoVA for now, but I'm not sure how long that will last.

[ag]

Well, there are still 2 freshly'recovered R seats in New Hampshire that might go (and, probably, will, in time). And I wouldn't be too confindent of NY-3: neither King is eternal, nor the shape of his district. NY-13 is more reliable, paradoxically: it's Staten Island separatism at work.

As for NOVa, no amount of gerymandering is going to compensate for the fact that silver line is coming after 2014, expanding the DC suburbs and changing Loudon county forever. And even the relatively conservative overflow from DC is a lot more likely to vote Dem than much of VA.

[CatoMinor]

conceding the white south would look a little something like this:
(A couple errors on the map, but you get the gist of it.)



You may notice a few Africa-American districts red on the map, but I checked and the white vote slightly outnumbers them.

[Badger]

You're problem isn't Blue Dogs, it's the filibuster. Get rid of that and we would've had a public option last year.

Also, a president with balls.

A president with balls could have gotten a public option.

When Joe Lieberman decided to be a d$%k and turn his back on universal coverage as he'd campaigned for years just to spite the party base for growing fed up with him (not that I'm bitter about it or anything ), how does "balls" overcome a united block of Leiberman + 40 GOP votes against cloture (and probably Ben Nelson too after Lieberman cracked)?

[Badger]

As for the OP's proposition, I say "hell no". Yes, Dems can win some southern states based on migrant population combined with African-Americans, just as Obama did, and then make up the difference elsewhere in the growing West and increasingly anti-GOP NE. But why conceed that?

Look, outside of some urban areas like Austin and Nashville, most of the south will generally be last to catch up to the rest of the nation on social change. But I firmly believe that economic differences are the key to Democratic strength, and not just in the South either. Its just a matter of making the differences stark enough that non-union working class whites see a difference between the parties, rather than seeing both as basically bought and sold by big business and the rich with one party (the GOP) being "anti-tax" and the Democrats being "pro-tax".

Not easy in an increasingly post-industrial service-based economy, especially in light of Citizens United, but crucial nonetheless. Not just for Democrats to be politically strong, but because the economy truly is sickened from decades of treating a vibrent growing middle-class as a "nice possible side benefit" of economic policies, rather than the actual goal.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

You're problem isn't Blue Dogs, it's the filibuster. Get rid of that and we would've had a public option last year.

Also, a president with balls.

A president with balls could have gotten a public option.

When Joe Lieberman decided to be a d$%k and turn his back on universal coverage as he'd campaigned for years just to spite the party base for growing fed up with him (not that I'm bitter about it or anything ), how does "balls" overcome a united block of Leiberman + 40 GOP votes against cloture (and probably Ben Nelson too after Lieberman cracked)?

Remember when Scott Brown's win was supposed to be the death knell of health care reform, cause he was the filibuster-grabbing vote? And then remember when Obama decided after that the filibuster was unnecessary, pushing through the current system with the support of fewer than 60 Senators?

That. That is how.

[Mr.Phips]

You're problem isn't Blue Dogs, it's the filibuster. Get rid of that and we would've had a public option last year.

Also, a president with balls.

A president with balls could have gotten a public option.

When Joe Lieberman decided to be a d$%k and turn his back on universal coverage as he'd campaigned for years just to spite the party base for growing fed up with him (not that I'm bitter about it or anything ), how does "balls" overcome a united block of Leiberman + 40 GOP votes against cloture (and probably Ben Nelson too after Lieberman cracked)?

Remember when Scott Brown's win was supposed to be the death knell of health care reform, cause he was the filibuster-grabbing vote? And then remember when Obama decided after that the filibuster was unnecessary, pushing through the current system with the support of fewer than 60 Senators?

That. That is how.

The public option wouldnt have made it through reconcilliation. 

[Mehmentum]

You're problem isn't Blue Dogs, it's the filibuster. Get rid of that and we would've had a public option last year.

Also, a president with balls.

A president with balls could have gotten a public option.

When Joe Lieberman decided to be a d$%k and turn his back on universal coverage as he'd campaigned for years just to spite the party base for growing fed up with him (not that I'm bitter about it or anything ), how does "balls" overcome a united block of Leiberman + 40 GOP votes against cloture (and probably Ben Nelson too after Lieberman cracked)?

Remember when Scott Brown's win was supposed to be the death knell of health care reform, cause he was the filibuster-grabbing vote? And then remember when Obama decided after that the filibuster was unnecessary, pushing through the current system with the support of fewer than 60 Senators?

That. That is how.

The public option wouldnt have made it through reconcilliation. 

How come?

[Mr.Phips]

You're problem isn't Blue Dogs, it's the filibuster. Get rid of that and we would've had a public option last year.

Also, a president with balls.

A president with balls could have gotten a public option.

When Joe Lieberman decided to be a d$%k and turn his back on universal coverage as he'd campaigned for years just to spite the party base for growing fed up with him (not that I'm bitter about it or anything ), how does "balls" overcome a united block of Leiberman + 40 GOP votes against cloture (and probably Ben Nelson too after Lieberman cracked)?

Remember when Scott Brown's win was supposed to be the death knell of health care reform, cause he was the filibuster-grabbing vote? And then remember when Obama decided after that the filibuster was unnecessary, pushing through the current system with the support of fewer than 60 Senators?

That. That is how.

The public option wouldnt have made it through reconcilliation. 

How come?

Because anything that has to do with things other than money and the budgetcannot make it through reconciliation. 

[Badger]

You're problem isn't Blue Dogs, it's the filibuster. Get rid of that and we would've had a public option last year.

Also, a president with balls.

A president with balls could have gotten a public option.

When Joe Lieberman decided to be a d$%k and turn his back on universal coverage as he'd campaigned for years just to spite the party base for growing fed up with him (not that I'm bitter about it or anything ), how does "balls" overcome a united block of Leiberman + 40 GOP votes against cloture (and probably Ben Nelson too after Lieberman cracked)?

Remember when Scott Brown's win was supposed to be the death knell of health care reform, cause he was the filibuster-grabbing vote? And then remember when Obama decided after that the filibuster was unnecessary, pushing through the current system with the support of fewer than 60 Senators?

That. That is how.

The public option wouldnt have made it through reconcilliation. 

How come?

Because anything that has to do with things other than money and the budgetcannot make it through reconciliation. 

Bingo. The Senate had already passed a public option free plan by the time Brown won. After Leiberman stabbed everyone who ever voted for him in the back and dragged Ben Nelson off the reservation with him. Reconciliation couldn't "add" the public option back into the bill.