The South is BEAUTIFUL, and belongs to us ALL.

It would be a shame to throw it away.


LBJ said we would "lose The South for a generation".
Well, THAT generation is OVER.
The South is ripe for the picking.
The Youth in the South don't have that same deep mistrust and bigotry as their parents
(Thank You Sat TV and MTV).

If the Democratic Party would spend some money here,
avoid the Social Wedge Issues, and focus the Campaign on Populist Economic Issues (a la Huey Long),
we could OWN The South for the next generation.
We regularly interact with Hard Core Republicans & Tea Baggers.
We have discovered that generally they are decent people that have been mislead.
When presented with the choice between More Money in YOUR pocket OR
Gays can't get Married, most choose More Money in their Pocket.

Of course, The Democratic Party NEEDS to be able to point to where they have stood up for Working Americans
and NOT RICH Wall Street Bankers and Insurance Corporations.



In 2006, my wife & I moved from Big Blue Northern City (Minneapolis),
to Deep Red Rural South (Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas).
It is BEAUTIFUL here, and we are going to stay.


We don't hide our Liberalism,
but we also don't use it to draw battle lines of separation.
We have found that the Stealth approach of Planting Seeds, is more productive than hostile, In You Face, opposition.
Respect goes a LONG way toward opening hearts & minds.
Nobody will listen past the point where he/she is called "stupid", "bigot", or "Liar".

When asked WHY we vote for the Democrats,
we usually answer,
"We've had to WORK for a Living all our lives.
When the Democrats run things, it means more money in our pocket."
That simple answer goes a LONG way here.

We believe that we were more successful at giving people permission to vote for Obama here
than if we had stayed in Minneapolis.
One out of Three people up in these old mountains voted FOR "The Black Guy" in 2008,
and that was with ZERO dollars spent on campaigning in this area.
It won't take very much to push that past 50%.
Due to low population density, our LIBERAL vote weighs much here.

bvar22 & Starkraven,
turning The South Blue
one vote at a time.



The South is beautiful, and belongs to us ALL.
Don't throw it away.

"... and focus the Campaign on Populist Economic Issues (a la Huey Long)"

What you got right now is the best President that Wall Street ever purchased for itself. Good luck with the economic populism. As long as Obama is President that's the Republicans' issue not ours. If you were looking for an anti-populist, it would be very very difficult to find one more suited to that purpose than Obama, by his record. Geithner, Bernanke, no prosecutions of bankers, ball-busting deficits largely driven by various bailout programs, etc. etc. The only anomalous data point is the appointment of Elizabeth Warren, but she had enormous public support and it would have been very difficult to say no to her.

Now if you want to run Elizabeth Warren for President, sign me up to that agenda.

Hell, I'm already a liberal and it makes my eyes glaze over.

If you sell people on something and deliver something else you will end up having people feel betrayed and they will not trust you in the future.

Plain fact: Our President is Wall Street's best friend. Until we do something about that problem via pressure or primary, we have no sale on economic issues.

I have been forced to backtrack on several issues.
I campaigned for The Democrats in this area on the Public Option (among other things).
I explained that it would be like Medicare, but for EVERYBODY.

I've had to eat those words.
A World of Shit WILL hit the fan in 2014
when the Middle Class is FORCED to BUY Health Insurance they can't afford to use (High Co-Pay/High Deductible).

Oh Well.

Fail.

I'm not dissembling at all.

I do disassemble on occasion, when the task at hand requires me to take something apart.

I love President Obama -- and I want Single-Payer Health Insurance, a closure of Gitmo, a return to habeas corpus, an end to the harsh elements of the Patriot Act ...

but I'm smart enough to realize that our chances for all of this are better with Barack Obama than with anything the Republicans have to offer. And Independent parties are not yet viable, if ever. At this point I think the Green Party's best chance is to step in when the Republican Party holds it's collective nose and jumps off the edge of the Grand Canyon into obliteration.

In the meantime, I love my President even when I don't always agree with everything. Sometimes I even assume he may be three chess moves ahead of me!

What exactly leads you to believe he would support any of those things when his actions have shown the precise opposite intention?

Your realistic chance of getting any of that under Obama: zero. And seriously, you'd be laughed at trying to convince anyone outside the ever-shrinking circle of faithful believers that he is the horse to bet on for any of those objectives. The last one is particularly laughable, given his expansion of wars and security measures to a degree that might even embarrass his predecessor.

And even if he was right on all those things instead of dead wrong on all of them, few will matter if the economic mismanagement continues - and there is no sign it won't.

on an urge that the country at large is not ready for. Believe me, I relish the day with progressives are in the overwhelming majority. But that day is not here and won't arrive until another twenty years as the old, hardcore racists die off in numbers and are replaced with more thoughtful voters.

Hell, many of them were considered clowns
They went on TV and uttered idiotic stuff

But instead of caving and saying they couldn't do anything because... They got their act together. Pushed an agenda they believed in. And pulled the country to the right, all the time complaining about the 'liberal bias.'

How about the left try pulling that hard instead of saying how the country is not ready.
Poll after poll over the past two years has shown the country is ready for single payer, taxing the rich, etc.
But then we hear the public isn't ready because it's an expedient way to explain the epic fail on the part of the people in DC

We had the opportunity and the country was ready for it in 2006 and moreso in 2008. The Blue dogs and the DLC dems blew it for us by dividing and creating a blue dog caucus in the senate Evan Bayh is more to blame for the existence and strength of the current crop of tea partiers than any progressive.

They accomplished this by preventing progressive reform from getting out of committee whenever they could and by watering down every bold democratic initiative. They allowed the Republicans to have a free pass by providing token Fox news Democrats (note many of these Blue dogs and DLC'ers weren't even from supposedly red districts or states).

Hopefully the mood has not shifted so completely and hopefully the Democrats have learned from this mistake. Progressives already knew that running on economic issues hard and a bit to the left actually gets people out to vote here's hoping the democratic party has learned thisas well.

Obviously they don't seem to be too concerned about how popular she is.

Someone posts an nice innocuous thread about the South, you see an Obama yard sign and become enraged. What. The. Fuck.

is the suggestion that we could sell him as an economic populist. That's just asking us to lie to people outright and knowingly, and that in turn is the best way to duplicate the massive losses we had in 2010.

Obama is destroying this party with his allegiance to the war machine and to the banking clan and all the other corporatist beguilers. The lower and middle classes are being destroyed by financial policy, and after another year and a half of his relentless indifference this country will get rid of him just as surely they did his functionally ideological twin and immediate predecessor.

There is no way to honestly sell this guy using Democratic principles, and that is the "elephant in the room" for our party.

If you read my journal you can see I haven't exactly been silent about it, I'm generally not one for making OPs not about a specific article. Although I didn't tackle the internal party issues in this linked post, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/notesdev/94 is has part of what I believe to be justifiable grounds for objections. I suppose I'm due for an economics one sometime soon.

We had a good healthy debate on that thread too, the kind we need to be having across the board. (It's hard to respond to everybody though if you get a lot of replies.)

. . . . difference of just a few percentage points.

that post could be its own thread.

:applause: + :patriot:

And just 'informed' enough to be dangerous.
Telling them they are "stupid" sure won't get any votes and just reinforces the little they pay attention to.

Way to go, and keep up the good work ::bounce: :bounce:

It's the suburban white guys. There's just so many of them and it's like they vote republican for the same reason they watch football and drink beer. It's just what they do.

The folks that live in the mountains, in my findings seem to be apolitical, sometimes liberal, often from other areas (like you).

But yeah, it seems silly not to even try.

We just need to get the facts out.

this is a winner. As opposed to most I sold cash registers all over the state of Georgia. I know the rural area. There is a fundamental distrust of the "Northern party" which is how the democrats are perceived. The rural south will not change and the suburban family(the ones who generally moved south are very republican) Couple this with native suburban families and this is about impossible to overcome.

The truth of the matter is it is hot as hell down here. There was a reason why the south was not populated for most of the history of the country. It is too damn hot. No air conditioning and no one lives here.

and ginning up votes for a party while it's still Wall Street is worse than counterproductive

i spend a lot of time in the gungeon though, and if you listen to the anti gun posters over there, the south is just full of backwards, racist, hicks.

I have lived here for a long time and it is just not happening. My daughter is at UGA and Robert E. lee day is bigger that MLK day.

Where'd you come up with that? Is Robert E. Lee day a euphemism for all the History profs here who specialize in Civil War? cause I never heard of no one celebratin' no Robert E. Lee day here in Athens. MLK day on the other hand is celebrated in progressive style here with a "day on" doing community service. Really beautiful. Lots of UGA students participate. One year my son even won a community prize on MLK day for his poem about wanting a world with no weapons in which people were free to marry whom ever then wanted. I'm not kidding.

many years ago.

If you think Athens is progressive you are dreaming. I am in Norcross and most of the kids that are attending do not fall far from the tree. There is little intermingling of the races at UGA and my daughters years there were not many admitted to her freshman year. My son wanted to go with his best friend(African American) and room together in Athens this fall.His best friend is on the waiting list. My daughter told me that everyone sticks to their own kind in Athens.
Face it Georgia is just not progressive and I have been here 30 years.

There is a difference between Athens' long term residents and the students that cycle through. I'm a transplant to Athens (since about 10yrs ago). I think casting the place as evangelical christian, patriarchal, classist and eerily segregated like the rest of Georgia is not off base. Just wanted to make the point that there are plenty of progressives here as well. Looked up Robert E Lee day and Athens Banner Herald said a couple of years ago:"What were once events where entire communities turned out to decorate graves or see the veterans march, today's ceremonies are attended by only a few people, usually elderly." http://onlineathens.com/stories/042709/new_433205847.shtml

They usually celebrate it the Friday after Thanksgiving but still it is a state Holiday.

How can we when the Rethugs constantly bring them up?

You give them a choice.
Money in YOUR pocket OR Gays can't get married.
Pick One.

I've even been able to turn the "Abortion" issue into a kitchen table Pocket Book Issue.



The usual response is, "Gee. I hadn't really thought about it like that."

80% of the time.

I guess you speak from authority, living in Minnesota and all. Thanks for Michelle Bachmann!

There's the problem. There's so little to point to.

Sounds beautiful. Congrats to you for converting some of your neighbors :)

Its beauty sings in my heart.

As example, I'm every bit as concerned about teaching evolution in school as I am about public health care. They are connected, both scientifically and politically. Both affect the welfare of my grandchildren and of their children.

:hippie:

:kick:

Not a slam, but in the South, the church acts as kind of a community hub. It is less about God and more about community

That is why Atlanta has Atheist/Humanist Churches (yes, they do exist.)

It also has a few Metropolitan Churches (a very Gay friendly denomination.)

But just because a politician works a church, doesn't mean the churchgoers will get out and vote for him/her.

Except for my district, the most blue district in the South.

okay sure, partly for having grown up there without turning into a hateful backward-looking R-voter :p

But the South is amaaazingly beautiful, all over, and also full of beautiful truly Good people. The greatest people I've ever known are from the South!

What would you say to the people who are ticked off the democratic Convention is in Charlotte, a formerly red city turning blue?

Technically it's located in the South, but it's not Southern.

It hasn't been since all those bankers set up shop.

Of course, like most urban areas, Charlotte has been blue for a long time.

Does the name Harvey Gantt ring a bell?

as democrats we need to grow their size.

The state went blue for President Obama. There is a good chance that it stays blue. The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle liberal.

I love that dark red hollyhock in the last picture. As kids we used to catch bees in those big flowers for some stupid reason and put them in a jar and see who could catch the most without getting stung. Anyways seeing that reminded me of that.
I'm about 40 miles west of Siloam Spring Arksansas. Okie through and through I am

For some reason I can't get any hollyhocks to grow more than a foot high where I live now though. I'm trying again this year.

What, He is one of us? How can that be?
He must be one of the southern ones. Nothing to see, not to worry.


I have heard the south label used in many contexts. I find it funny mostly. It is creating a context to justify a position, interpretation.


So why not a song :)

Take The Long Way Home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nvT3_iSaHU

:shrug:

in the Louisiana state capital.

Every man a king means off with all their heads.

I'm working on a garden as well/ And the south is beautiful I love TN.

Pretty awesome.

Forget the sidelong jargon and describe what the South needs us to 'avoid' and why. Please. Be really clear.

the national party can't be seen as supportive of gay rights, secularism, and sensible gun regulation.

when if the OP said what they OP meant, it would be clear that the South does not belong to all of us, just to those who fit the bigoted standards of right wing Baggers. The OP suggests becoming Republicans to get the votes of right wingers.

from a Republican you'll ever meet.

What he's saying is don't put social issues out front. Campaign and govern on economic populism and ensure a decent standard of living for everyone. This doesn't mean disavowing social issues; it means emphasizing economics and brushing off objections to social issues with, "How does that help you get a job?" or "Is that really any of your business?"

Look at a bigot and see a deeply unhappy person who has to externalize his unhappiness. Every bigot I've ever met is miserable and angry and doesn't understand why.

Give people some economic security, and they loosen up. The Civil Rights Act passed during one of the most prosperous periods in our history.

when most of the electorate chooses to focus on social issues? Remember it wasn't the Democratic party or the GLBT community that decided to put their civil rights up for a popular vote. I've heard calls for the party and liberals to "quit putting social issues on the front burner" for some time now, and it seems to me that the folks making those calls yearn for a pre-1965 Democratic party.

For example, I remember the early years of the Reagan era.

There were still a few New Deal Dems in Congress at the time, and the Dems as a whole had a majority. But this was during the ascendancy of the DLC, which agreed with Reagan on 1) a military buildup, 2) intervention in Central America, 3) being "pro-business" (=pro-corporate),and 4) tax cuts for the wealthy. However, they were huge on social issues.

At that time, the predominant concern in rural areas was farm foreclosures. Now that middle class suburban people are getting foreclosed on, it's a big national issue, but when rural people were losing farms that had been in the family since the 1860s and were forced into working in gas station convenience stores, the Dems did NOTHING, despite pleas from rural state legislators and New Deal Dems.

Mind you, they still had a majority in Congress at this time.

Now if the Dems had gotten together and created a program of low-interest refinancing for independent farmers, they would have had the loyalty of the rural voters for generations. Even if Reagan had vetoed it, the Dems could have still proclaimed that only the Republicans were preventing them from helping independent farmers.

But they did nothing. I suspect that too many Dems were getting big contributions from agribusiness and didn't want to do anything to impede the agribusiness monster as it swallowed up America's farms.

Anyway, the result is that the farmers felt abandoned by everyone.

But along came the Republicans, nasty but extremely clever, and started campaigning on opposition to social issues. Their line was, "The Democrats just care about black people and yuppie women who want to be lawyers and sluts who want to have sex without consequences and people who don't want your children to sing Christmas carols in school."

So the rural mindset is, "At least the Republicans understand our values. We have no black people here, the women here are more concerned about keeping body and soul together than about becoming lawyers, we never liked the sexual revolution, and why shouldn't we sing Christmas carols if everyone in the district is some sort of Christian?"

You cannot campaign PRIMARILY on social issues and win a rural audience. You have to provide tangible results.

If the Obama administration had dug in its heels and taken Max Baucus instead of Dennis Kucinich in a ride no Airforce One and had instituted true single-payer health care, that would have taken a tremendous burden off the remaining self-employed farmers.

If the Obama administration had reinstated the usury laws that prevailed before Reagan instead of leaving interest rates high in its "credit card reform bill," struggling families would have had some hope of paying off their debts.

If the advent of the Obama administration had marked the beginning of new roads and bridges and social services for the large elderly population instead of new countries for rural youth to go die in, rural voters could have seen some advantages to voting Democratic.

Your average voter doesn't vote on lofty principles or team loyalties. They vote on specific issues, and if the Dems appear to be appealing to the yuppie vote (as many of the DLCers do), then the rural voters will ignore them and vote for the Republican, who at least pays lip service to their culture.

shouldn't bother them.

I get what you're saying. The party should do a better job on economic issues, however, it doesn't give these people a good excuse to vote Republican.

bigoted against the South will never see what you're saying or understand a word of it. "Look at a bigot and see a deeply unhappy person who has to externalize his unhappiness. Every bigot I've ever met is miserable and angry and doesn't understand why." Your excellent statement applies to all bigots.

& see just how well that turns the South blue. :eyes:

Thanks for making bvar's point for him.

dg

... to go around.

Massive fail

but they also must be "out front" on the issues. They must actually support equality.

I will not be silent so that that the Democrats can regain the South.

I can just see a DFL candidate going into Faribault or Stearns County and placing gay rights at the TOP of his priority list.

Epic fail.

It was putting abortion at the TOP of the DFL list that helped lose those areas to the hard-right Republicans, along with inaction on farm foreclosures.

I can, however, see a SUCCESSFUL DFL candidate countering taunts about gay rights with, "And why do you care so much about other people's personal lives? How is a couple that loves each other hurting you? We can't base laws on what some people find disturbing. Let's keep government out of people's bedrooms and put it back into the corporate boardrooms to go after the crooks in pinstripes who stole your farms and still want more and more and more sacrifice from people like you while they get tax cuts."

How would you know? You aren't one. You just hate the South as you have shown in other posts. I will never not call people out on their lies about the South.
We need the Big Tent to win folks, not just the narrow prism of West Coast Democrats.

I never said I "hated the south", I said I don't have a positive view of the region. Following members from discussion to discussion is against the rules, please review them (assuming you can read and comprehend written word).

Would never waste my time following you or anybody else. Sorry it worked out this way though. Would you defend something you had been fighting for for 40 years?
The insult about reading and comprehension could be applicable to some of my contemporaries years ago as the Congressional District I grew aware in, the Old KY 5th had the lowest graduation rate in the nation. I was blessed as a natural speed reader and had a family that read and talked politics for fun. My beef is that many feel that we can be discounted so easily by the people that agree with us on most issues. I have no personal problem with you but yes, my ire was raised. Hope you might take the time to look at it from another angle. Later

What you never see on this board is Californians taking the same extreme offense as southerners always do whenever the regions shortcomings are pointed out. Should I start several new threads admonishing the entire forum because certain members don't like my home state?



Simple question, do you really think the rest of the country should be like the south politically?

It means running a SMART campaign,
and focus on Kitchen Table Economic Issues.


I have found this relatively EASY to do,
and VERY productive in this area.

When Guns, Gays, or God come up,
simply respond,

"You know, unless we get some Economic Justice for Working Americans,
none of that is going to matter.
Are you better off now than you were 30 years ago?
(insert appropriate testimony highlighting how BAD it has gotten for the Working Class)
The RICH have been Stealing YOU blind for 30 years.
Lets FIX that problem first."

But one-in-three doesn't sound like a whole lot of support. Even Benton County, which is vying with Sebastian and Baxter counties for being the reddest county in the state, went 40% for Obama, and that was with McCain making a campaign stop in Rogers/Bentonville and Obama writing the county off. It's been in that 40-60 rut for a long time. But if you can draw voters away from the dark side, then more power to you.

I've worked on plenty of southern campaigns and I can tell you that trying to ignore the social issues and be economically populist doesn't work in the long run. Nor does finding candidates who can talk about Jesus and go hunting. Nor does playing hardball and attacking your opponent. Nor does showing up at Church and at the county fair.

All of these things will win you short term victories in years like 2006 and 2008 when the Republican brand was in the toilet. And then two years later, you use those same strategies and not only lose the gains you made in the past two cycles, but southern Democrats who have been in there for decades get wiped out too.

The fact is that nobody really has figured out how to get people to stop voting against their own economic interests. If they had, they would've done it already.

Lets use THAT model.

I'm with Norman Goldman the superb liberal radio host from California. He wishes the South would secede. He wishes California would secede. I wish the West coast states would secede. We'd be much better off than the rest of the states. And the whole US would be better off without the South, even thoiugh I have 10 relatives that live down there. Lots in Tenn and Texas and they are all Xtian Cons. I dont see the big deal. LET them do what they want. Maybe they would learn their lesson that way.

Fail.

--it is no longer really geographic.

Is that we are mad at the white republican southerners, not the black southerners, who are reliably Democratic. It would be foolish to cast them aside, or even worse, force then to go along with a rabidly right-wing independent South.

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I've heard Norman Goldman's rants against the South. After Alabama suffered through the tornadoes that killed, indiscriminately, college kids, infants, African Americans (the majority of people killed btw), elderly, ultraconservative and liberal and just-getting-by alike, I heard that asshole say "Let them dig out their own dead. Let them secede. We shouldn't do a thing for them." He last me that day. It was unconscionable cruel. NO one, not the most conservative idealogue in the world, deserves what he wished on those people.

Sure, let the South secede. This country doesn't need the Mississippi River. It doesn't need the oil in the Gulf or the seafood or Cape Canaveral. It doesn't need the culture or the music or the massive quantity of food the South ships north. Doesn't need the automobile and aerospace industry that is increasingly quartered there. The US doesn't need the wealth of literature that comes out of the region (more influential American fiction than any other), the beauty of the bayous and coastal areas, the astonishing wealth of African American and Caribbean influence. It doesn't need the myriad Vietnamese, Indian and Indonesian immigrants that found the heat and wet to be something they recognized and loved and so settled there, doesn't need the numerous Native American tribes that have rebounded when others in the country have struggled. It doesn't need the deep philosophical roots--often expressed in traditional Christian ways that can be problematic, yes, but that are asking questions that many others simply ignore, flawed as the answers might be. Take away the South and you take away the genesis of America, in all its terrible and fascinating struggle.

The cruel blinders of such so-called "liberalism" is blithe and smug and cruel, and I will never listen to Goldman again.

The first one wasn't. This isn't the 19th Century, and WMDs can be made by those that have the knowledge, and the resources. You want an NBC exchange in North America?

Here's hoping California secedes with the help of the San Andreas fault :cheers:

:toast:

But votes is votes, and citizens is citizens.

:hug:

It's better than a 'soda' or a 'pop' or whatever you call it :hide: with all the gooey sugary sweetness! :D

I realized they were radical right from the east coast. They wouldn't even talk to anyone who they suspected of being on the wrong side of 'their' social issues, not giving them the expected dog whistles.

They were from the east coast and said they were treated as scum for years because of place of origin prejudices there. They said, and I found over years of visiting, that in public situations the natives were nowhere as open-hearted, friendly or courteous as Texans, believe it or not.

Despite being the state of Fulbright and Clinton, it seemed an oppressive place that only worked if one had a good job or a large family. I truly love your place, that's what I dream of having, and wouldn't mind the heat and the cold to have it.

I hope your neighbors continue to support your freedom of speech and you continue to thrive. There is nothing like being surrounded by nature. My home in the Gulf coast was in town, but had that wonderful, lush greenery that speaks to the human soul.

Thanks for sharing a little piece of paradise.

same as it ever was.

the most challenging part is seeing the humanity in the other and giving them the space to choose to come along to your side. doesn't work for everybody, but it only needs to work for enough.

:)

and yes, the land and people of the South can be very beautiful. keep doing the good work.

His 50 State strategy was thought out while he campaigned for the DNC chair.

While he was DNC chair, we picked up a lot of votes in the South. After he left, we lost them.
I'm hoping he is giving a LOT of advice to DWS, and that she is listening to it.

And it's done more than it's share of bleeding.

And its history is fascinating. There are hundreds of thousands of good people there.

As a Michigander, though, it's hard for me to get past the southern senators and representatives who were so willing to throw the domestic auto industry away with nary a thought for the millions of people who would lose their jobs and the complete and utter devastation it would wreak on Michigan. The same people who embraced the right to work concept and enthusiastically welcomed import auto factories who actively union bust. I have a good friend who works for the UAW who spent three weeks in the south helping to try to organize one of the import factories. The fear their workers live in -- of even reading UAW material -- is disgusting. And its repeated across every import auto factory. The southern legislators are in cahoots with them to union bust, drag down wages, and dissolve the working middle class and I have a very hard time with that.

Kudos to you for your efforts to turn the south blue. I wish you well but you've got a very tough row to hoe.

Now let's see....who is the Michigan Governor???? What state has the Emergency Financial Manager situation??? Is that a Southern state???? Surely there isnt any active union busting going on in any northern states. That just couldn't happen right???

He won't last more than one term and could even be recalled. There might be active union busting but we aren't rolling over and taking it.

I cannot believe I'm seeing this oblivious post today.

TODAY THE SOUTH IS DROWNING. Real water, not literary metaphor.

Last week it was blown to bits by tornadoes.

Want the South to vote Democratic?

Get your ass out there and make sure every necessary federal program is doing its damned job. Make sure they know what Ryan and Boehner want to cut.

But above all, contact your local churches and relief organizations to find out what they're looking for to fill aid trucks. Or rent a truck. Fill it with water, diapers, wtf-ever and make sure it gets to people whose homes are under water along with their jobs.

And then, when the water has subsided, volunteer to help clean up with your Obama-Biden stickers still on your car. Work next to every exhausted redneck you can find and help them get their lives back.

PEOPLE REMEMBER THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED.

Seriously

I don't live there but I guess I'm a Southerner forever, having grown up in the deepest of the bayou South. These people live close to the life and death veil and not in airy irony. Help and you'll be helped. Love and you'll be loved in honest measure. Revile and you lose something with incredible value.

BTW: My wife is the ONLY First Responder for our area (60 square miles).
We are both officers and active Fire Fighters with our local Rural Fire Department.

We are on call 24/7,
and ARE the first ones to show up when someone needs help.

We ARE those things BEFORE we are Democrats.

If you don't plant the seeds, your garden can't grow.

Thank you for your beautiful post.

K/R

Or at least the many people I know & have grown up with my entire life! There is very little difference between the youth in the South & their parents! Both are extremely religious & the youth may even be more religious! The youth "might" be a little less racist but not by much! Again, maybe I just live in a pocket that is not like the rest of the South. However, considering I live about 20 miles South of Atlanta, Georgia the biggest city in the South I doubt it!

I am all for the Democrats trying to win back the South but all I am saying is DO NOT get your hopes up!!

that have been courted by the megachurch crowd.

Winning them will be harder, but not impossible, not if they see real economic benefits to voting Democratic.

greatly the further away from Atlanta you get. And we already have Atlanta so our only chance is to win over the Mega-Church crowd & that will not happen anytime soon!! You have to overcome race & religion!! That will take a decade or longer!

Oh yeah, and the North side of Atlanta you will have overcome race, religion & income because that is where most of the wealthy live.

But I would point out that it is the Republicans who concentrate on the wedge issues with great success. Dems do not run on these issues, though they are part of our platforms. Should we then abandon those issues? Allow complete restrictions on abortion, the withholding of civil rights from gays and other minorities, the teaching of creationism?
How much of our core beliefs should we discard to win.

NC & VA are nothing like AL or MS.

But it is true that the seat of organized prejudice (yes it's everywhere...but not carried out with pride everywhere) has moved...west. AZ anyone?

many of our Southern leaders are doing their damndest to turn it into a wasteland of suburban sprawl and pollution. But that's another story.

I used to try to use your style of argument in favor of Democrats but now I find myself just saying "the Democrats aren's AS BAD as the Republicans" so it's much harder for me to muster up a good argument. As several have already noted, the current leadership of the Democratic party has undermined most, if not all, of the traditional Democratic values that kept me in the party for over 40 years. I almost feel like national Democrats are 'stealth, center-right Republicans' who aren't going to change anything unless their constituents FORCE them to do that.

I've been hearing President Obama tell me how the economy is improving yet my business and most of my competitors are laying off employees during what would normally be our prime start-up period.

Yes, the Democrats are preferable to the Republicans in most instances, but that is not what I would call a Resounding Endorsement.

But, thanks for bringing up some great points about our neighbors and friends who call themselves 'conservatives'.

lets gave a shout out to

Terri Sewell
Mike Ross
Corrine Brown
Kathy Castor
Frederica Wilson
Ted Deutch
Debbie Wasserman
Alcee Hastings
Sanford Bishop
Hank Johnson
John Lewis
John Barrow
David Scott
Cedric Richmond
Bennie Thompson
George Butterfield
David Price
Mike McIntyre
Larry Kissell
Heath Schuler
Mel Watt
Brad Miller
Jim Clyburn
Jim Cooper
Steve Cohen
Al Green
Ruben Hinojosa
Silvestre Reyes
Sheila Jackson Lee
Charlie Gonzalez
Lloyd Doggett
Henry Cuellar
Gene Green
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Bobby Scott
Jim Moran
Gerry Connolly

paying attention. The guy is a disgrace to the Democratic party. I wish he'd just change his party affiliation and be done with it.

Same with Mrs. High-Profile-Dem Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She's from the Corporate Wing of the party. That's why she's gonna head up the DNC.

I'll be voting for a lot of Greens and Independents in the coming elections--due to people like Shuler and Wasserman Schultz.

guys like Ray Roberts, Olin Teague, Bill Poage, George Mahon, OC Fisher etc were basically republicans with a D next to there name

Sadly, social issues tend to be the distinguishing feature between conservatives and liberals.

But I'll tell you one issue that absolutely has to be dumped from the Democratic Party Platform, especially for the South:

Gun Control

And note I didn't say 'blue again,' as that would mean the Dixiecrats of yore.

My thoughts are that we are going to do more than just GOTV.

And part of it will involve actively re-shaping the attitudes of many.

And that won't be easy.

Reconstruction.

It was, essentially, the same THING that is enslaving all of us now. It just got them pretty bad back then and apparently not many spoke up about it, because "We" "won".

The Federal Government sent hundreds of school teachers from the North, to help with reconstruction

The Federal Government helped rebuild all that was destroyed in the various "Scorched Earth" policies

Yes, there were greedy carpetbaggers, but they were the minority, not the majority

Check out "Lies my Teacher Told Me" for the full story

Andrew Johnson?

. . . or maybe it was sold-out for a vote AGAINST the impeachment . . . ?

You had me at "the south is beautiful..." :-)

I totally agree...and the "elephant in the room" is that liberal voters in "the south" just need to show up at the polls more and it will send a statment to the politicians who are mistaken to believe the south is all conservatives. It isn't, it's just that conservatives vote more often and in larger numbers. The power-hungry see voting as a way to get what they want---power---and the people who want better government and a society that does not exploit others are less motivated to show up and vote. They have not made the connection that, by default, they will get the opposite of what they want by not showing up.

They do not desire power, and therefore, to seek power is not in their nature. But by being passive, they allow others to dominate and prevail.

That was very well said and illustrated :applause:
It looks, too, like we've started something around here ;)