Hasn't the "West" strategy been the basis of Howard Dean's talking points for the last few years? With Obama shown to be competitive in states like Montana, North Dakota, and Alaska, it could finally come to fruitation.
I remember reading about a book a few years ago where the author suggested that the Democratic party try to isolate the Republican party as the socially conservative party of the South (huh, that would practically be a near reversal of 100 years ago), which seems like a good idea in theory. The fiscal irresponsibility of the Bush presidency should help turn some eyes of "small-government" Westerners that neither big party is really libertarian and/or small government as they would wish for. Hopefully gun control continues to fade away as an issue as well, would be nice if there were fewer of those single-issue voters out West screwing us over.
Don't forget that the south has change significantly and some of those policy position put forward to go for the West will have significant appeal in the south as well. Fiscal responsibility, dump gun control, atleast tone down the rhetoric on Abortion and you could easily see North Carolina and Arkansas slide back into the Democratic collumn. As well as narrow the margins of the GOP in GA,SC,MS,TX. AL,TN,KY,WV, LA would require a more Populist approach as opposed to Libertarian.
Take as my proof Virginia. For 200 years the state was dominated by the rural South and Central areas of the state. Now more and more the Northern Suburban area is getting more influence. Another example is the GOP Presidential priamry in Georgia. Mitt Romney came in 3rd with 29% but he was only down by 4%inspite of all of his support coming from the Suburbs of Atlanta and Savannah. He won not a single one of Georgia's rural counties yets still got almost 30%. 10 years ago that would only have yielded Romney 15% or maybe 20%.
So I don't get how it would be "Whistling Past Dixie" on the contrary I would think it would divide the South into two groups and not the old two division either(cotton states vs border states), provide the Democrats with 3 or 4 states they currently can't get and ruin the GOP base of power. That might just be the smartest campagin strategy the Democrats have used since the New Deal Coalition.
