A new "Solid South" ?

[jravnsbo]

Another open Senate seat in LA, and it looks like AG Inyoube may challenge Rep Johns int eh primary.

It will be the solid South in the Senate after Nov 2, 2004.

[CHRISTOPHER MICHAE]

Another open Senate seat in LA, and it looks like AG Inyoube may challenge Rep Johns int eh primary.

It will be the solid South in the Senate after Nov 2, 2004.

Breaux's retirement is not a good thing for the Senate. He is of a dying Centrist breed. Hopefully, another Dem will win his seat.

[jravnsbo]

chris- looks like Rep Vitter will be GOP Nominee and Dems originally thought Rep Johns, a Blue Dog Coalaition member, but now Attorney General Inyoub who came in 2d to Blanco in the primary for Gov this year is looking like he may run too.

[Gustaf]

Your discussion seem to have the underlying sentiment that there is something "wrong" with geographical differences. Why? People in the south are more conservative and those in the northeast are more liberal. You seem to be suggesting either a) many southerners are liberals but haven't realised it yet, or b) the Democrats should give up their political ideals, turning themselves into a shadow of the GOP to get more voters. Or c) I just don't get American politics.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

a) many southerners are liberals but haven't realised it yet,

I think this is true, at least on economic issues. If more people realized how much the New Right is robbing them, then the GOP would quickly find the South and Midwest out of their reach.

[CHRISTOPHER MICHAE]

I agree... but how can they do it?

I'll tell you how! If *Bill Clinton* comes out in support of Wesley Clark and possibly an Edwards or Graham Vice Presidency. If Pres. Clinton would rally Southerners as if it was him that was running for the White House and seeking his first term. OH HOW I LONG FOR THE GOOD OLE' DAYS! 92'-2000'

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I agree... but how can they do it?

By telling the truth about the economy being in terrible shape for most of the past 24 years.

[Jacob]

I think it's safe to say that the South is fertile ground for the GOP. They've shown that they can play down there, but some states, such as Arkansas, are still Democratic leaning.

[jravnsbo]

well until the dems nominate dean, then it will lean back to the gop as it did in 2000.

[Frodo]

so, how do the growing metropolises like the Raleigh-Durham triangle in north-central North Carolina, the Washington metropolitan area in northern Virginia which has been trending more Democratic as the suburbs have aged, and elsewhere throughout the South (especially the upper South) fit into all this talk about the new Republican 'Solid South'?  much of the Republican gains have occurred as a direct result if the growth of the suburbs -yet, Democrats have been gaining back lost ground as these suburbs mature, as has happened in northern Virginia -Fairfax County has voted for its first Democrat in decades.  Arlington and Alexandria were once swing counties (the last time it went Republican nationally, Arlington voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980), and yet they have become solidly Democratic.  who is to say this same process that has given Republicans such control throughout Dixie, won't be their undoing as the suburbs mature and become more urbanized with time?     

[True Federalist]

In a very real sense, the Democrat's troubles in the South can be traced to the United Textile Workers General Strike of 1934.  Roosevelt didn't want to antagonize southern congressional Democrats that he needed to pass his New Deal legislation.  Northern industrial unions provided no assitance to the lintheads. For these and other reasons, the strike was crushed and left Southern mill workers with the abiding impression that unions don't work. With economic populism largely discredited among Southerners, it doesn't work very well as an issue down here.  As the traditional, reflexive anti-Republican voting patterns disappeared, the Democrats primary emphasis on economic populism and civil rights left Southern whites with no reason to vote Democrat as neither issue was seen as something which would help them personally.  On the other hand, the Republican emphasis on America-first and being religion-friendly does resonate down here.  It will be some time before Democrats can win more than occassional victories in the South when the Republicans stumble.  The Democrats need to find a theme that resonates here with a majority of voters or they need for the South to change so that the Republican themes don't resonate.

[Sibboleth]

Good point about the strike...  would never have turned out like that over here. BTW, why all the bumping of the prehistoric threads?

[Storebought]

BTW, why all the bumping of the prehistoric threads?

The style of debate back in the day was much classier than that coming out now.

It's like people now are trying their damndest to portray political caricatures ("Bush STOLE Ohio".."Whites are the MASTER RACE"..."Only the RICH know what's best for (you) POOR people"...etc.)

[opebo]

Dean believes that
a.) We are not at war

Well, we are but of course the war is a fake.  About half of Americans understand this, or at least think it was a big waste of time:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/washpost/20050316/ts_washpost/a37812_2005mar15

b.) the popular wartime president with an impeccable reuptation is a fraud of the first order

Um, he is a fraud.  Among what groups does he have an 'impeccable reputation'?  I suppose among 50.73% of Americans - the other 48.27% see right through him.

c.) he believes the USA is just one of the nations, and not a particularly moral one at that...
You are the chosen people!"

In this also he is completely correct.  Of course it is true most Americans are too deluded to face this fact.
Chosen people!  What nonsense.

[Josh/Devilman88]

I think the South will always be Solid..

[dazzleman]

[
Well, we are but of course the war is a fake.  About half of Americans understand this, or at least think it was a big waste of time:

Yes, I guess what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 was a fake.  Right.  You must be smoking some real good s**t in Thailand.

[phk]

[
Well, we are but of course the war is a fake.  About half of Americans understand this, or at least think it was a big waste of time:

Yes, I guess what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 was a fake.  Right.  You must be smoking some real good s**t in Thailand.

Hilarious, you believe 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi.

[??????????]

In a very real sense, the Democrat's troubles in the South can be traced to the United Textile Workers General Strike of 1934.  Roosevelt didn't want to antagonize southern congressional Democrats that he needed to pass his New Deal legislation.  Northern industrial unions provided no assitance to the lintheads. For these and other reasons, the strike was crushed and left Southern mill workers with the abiding impression that unions don't work. With economic populism largely discredited among Southerners, it doesn't work very well as an issue down here.  As the traditional, reflexive anti-Republican voting patterns disappeared, the Democrats primary emphasis on economic populism and civil rights left Southern whites with no reason to vote Democrat as neither issue was seen as something which would help them personally.  On the other hand, the Republican emphasis on America-first and being religion-friendly does resonate down here.  It will be some time before Democrats can win more than occassional victories in the South when the Republicans stumble.  The Democrats need to find a theme that resonates here with a majority of voters or they need for the South to change so that the Republican themes don't resonate.

I have a question for you Ernest. If this happened so early on and you said that really started the change things then why did FDR win so huge in the deep south during his elections and the south really didn't start to split until 48-52?

[True Federalist]

I have a question for you Ernest. If this happened so early on and you said that really started the change things then why did FDR win so huge in the deep south during his elections and the south really didn't start to split until 48-52?

   A combination of inertia and the fact in a good deal of the South, there was no other functioning party other than the Democrats. As an extreme example, between 1900 and 1944, the South Carolina Democratic Presidential candidate won over 90% each year.  Besides in 1940 and 1944, just like in 2004, war, not the economy was the central issue, and Roosevelt had certainly done his part to make certain that our military was prepared.
   By 1948, cooperation between the GOP and Southern Democrats on issues such as Taft-Hartley was fairly common. (Northern and Southern Democrats were a single party in name only.) The Dixiecrat split over Civil Rights finally broke up the one party tradition of the South and once that happened Southern voters began to see that you could decide a race during the general election instead of the primary.  Had the South had an effective two party system earlier, its split from the Northern Democrats would have come earlier than it did.  Instead, where we once had Northern and Southern wings of the Democratic Party we now have Northern and Southern Wings of the Republican Party. (If you don't believe that GOP has sectional wings, do you also believe that Olympia has more than a Snowe-ball's chance in hell of winning a Republican Presidential nomination?)
   Besides, the South needed a catalyst for change.  More than anyone else, Strom Thurmond was that catalyst.  Strom contributed to this shift not just with his Dixiecrat campaign in 1948 and his switch to the GOP in 1964, but with his 1954 Senate write-in campaign that challenged and weakened the established Democatic party structure in South Carolina. 

[Beet]

In a very real sense, the Democrat's troubles in the South can be traced to the United Textile Workers General Strike of 1934.  Roosevelt didn't want to antagonize southern congressional Democrats that he needed to pass his New Deal legislation.  Northern industrial unions provided no assitance to the lintheads.

I have a question... why did the FDR feel a need to represent Northern industrial unions but not Southern textile unions? How could the Textile Strike of 1934 be decisive when it was just one year prior to the passage of the NLRA?

[True Federalist]

NRLA or not, the mill owners had already hired replacement workers and the strike leaders remained black-balled even after the NRLA.  The message received was loud and clear.  Don’t stick your neck out calling for a union or it will get cut off.

[Beet]

NRLA or not, the mill owners had already hired replacement workers and the strike leaders remained black-balled even after the NRLA.  The message received was loud and clear.  Don’t stick your neck out calling for a union or it will get cut off.

Heh, I just remembered the problem with asking 2 questions at once is only the 2nd one will get answered. This strike is intriguing to me because it seems to go against the idea that urban industrial forces were indirectly responsible for the Democratic schism and subsequent transformation. If these forces might have been harnessed in the South, the interesting thing is why they were not, while they were in the North.

[Frodo]

We will know the South will have become truly solidly Republican when the GOP takes control of the Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama legislatures -until then, I will continue to view the region as merely Republican-leaning, but still competitive for Democrats if the right candidate is nominated. 

[memphis]

We will know the South will have become truly solidly Republican when the GOP takes control of the Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama legislatures -until then, I will continue to view the region as merely Republican-leaning, but still competitive for Democrats if the right candidate is nominated. 

I like that you say "when" and not "if." So true.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Given that the parties tend to ideolgocially shift every few decades dixie iwll probably not be solid GOP in 2020