When should Democrats make a play for Mississippi?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Grab your guns, boys! Tonight we take back Dixie!

You can have it, if you will trade us PA, MI and WI. Throw in IA and CO for good measure.

[DINGO Joe]

Just out of curiosity I looked at the 1944 election

South Carolina had 8 electoral votes and cast a total of about 100,000 votes and Roosevelt won 88%

Mississippi had 9 electoral votes and cast 180,000 votes and Roosevelt won 94%

Kansas had 8 electoral votes and cast 730,000 votes and Roosevelt only won 39%

But FDR actually had more votes in Kansas than SC and Mississippi combined.

Democracy just wasn't the South's thing.

[justfollowingtheelections]

When it becomes a black-majority state.

^ This. Whites aren't going to vote Dem, and they can't increase their percentage of the black vote very much. It's going to take a growing black population to put Mississippi in play for the Democrats.

Working class whites will vote Dem if we tailor our message the right way. We can win Mississippi today if we create a biracial coalition of working class whites and blacks in Mississippi centered on economic issues.

I actually think this is going to happen eventually. The Democrats will start picking up working class whites while the Republicans get wealthier minorities.

Fixed that for you?

And I hope so. A class-centered coalition would be much better, IMO, than the current racial paradigm that defines American politics.

Yes, thank you. I completely agree. It annoys me somewhat when my wealthy Asian friends talk about how they hate Republicans. Much like how I imagine it bugs you when working class whites dislike Obama.

So you admit Republicans are the party that cares only about the rich and their interests?

No, not at all. I said a class based coalition would be better, not that it's the current state of affairs.

Don't mean to disappoint you but if US politics were class-based, the republican party would cease to exist as those who struggle to get by vastly outnumber those who lead comfortable lives in the US.  And with income inequality getting worse I don't see that changing anytime soon.  Without god, guns, gays and the fear of Black Panthers led by Rev. Wright and Al Sharpton taking over the country the only people left to vote for the GOP would be guys like Donald Trump.

[justfollowingtheelections]

Just out of curiosity I looked at the 1944 election

South Carolina had 8 electoral votes and cast a total of about 100,000 votes and Roosevelt won 88%

Mississippi had 9 electoral votes and cast 180,000 votes and Roosevelt won 94%

Kansas had 8 electoral votes and cast 730,000 votes and Roosevelt only won 39%

But FDR actually had more votes in Kansas than SC and Mississippi combined.

Democracy just wasn't the South's thing.

And that was in 1944!  I can only imagine what it was like in, say, 1876...

[DC Al Fine]

When it becomes a black-majority state.

^ This. Whites aren't going to vote Dem, and they can't increase their percentage of the black vote very much. It's going to take a growing black population to put Mississippi in play for the Democrats.

Working class whites will vote Dem if we tailor our message the right way. We can win Mississippi today if we create a biracial coalition of working class whites and blacks in Mississippi centered on economic issues.

I actually think this is going to happen eventually. The Democrats will start picking up working class whites while the Republicans get wealthier minorities.

Fixed that for you?

And I hope so. A class-centered coalition would be much better, IMO, than the current racial paradigm that defines American politics.

Yes, thank you. I completely agree. It annoys me somewhat when my wealthy Asian friends talk about how they hate Republicans. Much like how I imagine it bugs you when working class whites dislike Obama.

So you admit Republicans are the party that cares only about the rich and their interests?

No, not at all. I said a class based coalition would be better, not that it's the current state of affairs.

Don't mean to disappoint you but if US politics were class-based, the republican party would cease to exist as those who struggle to get by vastly outnumber those who lead comfortable lives in the US.  And with income inequality getting worse I don't see that changing anytime soon.  Without god, guns, gays and the fear of Black Panthers led by Rev. Wright and Al Sharpton taking over the country the only people left to vote for the GOP would be guys like Donald Trump.

I'm not even going to get into the "who does the GOP represent" thing. More importantly is the nature of politics. No party is ever going to be able to consistently win 2/3+ of the vote. Even if what you say about the GOP is true, cleavages would start emerging in the Democratic party pretty rapidly.

[heatmaster]

When all the racist's have died out or gone away

[memphis]

The only 'play' I could think of would be some kind of jobs-program for Mississippi blacks to move to Atlanta.

It would make a lot more sense to go the other way. You'd have to depopulate the state of MS of blacks to make Georgia Democratic.