SurveyUSA: Majority of Oklahomans deem Casino Themed prom night "inappropriate"

[Albus Dumbledore]

Why is it the state's business to try enforcing morality as opposed to keeping the public order(cracking down on crimes like mugging/robbing)?

[Albus Dumbledore]

Oklahoma is quite possibly one of the worst states in the union.(the other contenders for that are Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Utah and Idaho) It's like Texas without any of Texas's redeeming points.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Harry, Mississippi democrats are owned by the religious right. Any state where the more liberal party is owned by the reactionary religious right is not one I want to ever find myself near.

[Albus Dumbledore]

You ignore their positions on social issues. How telling.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Talk like that will lead to the democrats being irrelevant due to having a platform consisting of giving the religious right whatever they want socially and pushing a socialist economic agenda.

[Albus Dumbledore]

The Supreme court which keeps being packed by republican judges eh? Keep on dreaming, Harry.

[Albus Dumbledore]

So you basically admit that your strategy would lead to the dems dying as a party plus national disaster(Unfettered republican rule) until till some new movement replaces the dems?

[Albus Dumbledore]

If the fundies were correct on social issues, instead of being the poorest region of the nation Dixie would be the most prosperous part of the nation. Instead it's the Boswash corridor and the west coast urban centers that are the richest. I Wonder why that is.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Lingering effects of slavery such as heightened social conservatism and defending 'traditional values' being seen by the poor as more important than pro-poor economic measures. You just proved my point.

[Albus Dumbledore]

So you want the dems to not win an election ever again due to the greens poaching alot of the core democrat coastal states because of your 'strategy' alienating the base?

[Albus Dumbledore]

Harry wishes to make the dems appeal to poor rural southerners as opposed to their traditional base. There's ways to make a new democrat coalition but that's not one of them. It'd turn the deep south dem but the core dem areas leave.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Uh huh. You may claim that but that's not the message I get from his posts. Oh it'd be very easy to make the dems more of a big tent party with nationwide appeal. Have them go federalist/states rights on social issues, moderate on economics(with a focus on effective economics as opposed to small government idealism and fiscal discipline) and favor a humble foreign policy.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Big business types are slowly moving to the dems and alot of the leftism comes from the aging 60s types. Once the baby boomers are gone we're ripe for... changes in both parties since they've been the ones to form and entrench the current coalitions. It may not be likely but I wouldn't rule it out.

[Albus Dumbledore]

If the republicans keep moving to becoming a blue-collar christian democratic party(think European style Christian Democracy), the unions and the Republicans would be a far better fit. Remember that blue-collar voters are social conservatives so the unions aren't really a good fit for the democrats as is.

[Albus Dumbledore]

Union voters tend to be socially conservative. If the republican platform evolves to be more economically appealing to them and retains it's social conservatism Union voters will love it. Remember that the rich/yuppies tend to be democrats and the working class(the white ones at least) tend to be republcian.

[Albus Dumbledore]

How optimistic and naive. Franzl, the future of the democrats isn't with the working class. The dems keep losing because they insist on trying (and failing) to appeal to voters who won't vote for them. If the democrats dropped the talk of protectionism/social justice they'd win more voters than now.(Basically, if a party is both socially and economically leftist it can be attacked by opponents on both populist grounds(damn college kids librul homo elite) or classist grounds(uppity  poors). However, a party that's either socially conservative/economically liberal or socially liberal/economically conservatism isn't so vulnerable to those types of attacks)

[Albus Dumbledore]

One usage of Populist means anti-elitist. The other usage more common on here is usage of it to describe social conservatives/economic statists

[Albus Dumbledore]

Left-wing economics aren't seen as anti-populist it's left-wing social positions that are.

[Albus Dumbledore]

That post was about how if a party is left on both scales it can be attacked in 2 ways. To succeed in US politics it's either economically left or socially left for workable coalitions.