2004 Democratic Primary

[agcatter]

You"re dreaming if you think conservative Va, Mississippi, or South Carolina vote will vote Dem.  I've said this before but kerry, Dean, and company couldn't carry those states if Robert E. Lee was their VP.  And kentucky?  Come on.  Don't look for any Dem noninee to even set foot in those states.  However, I'd love for them to waste time and resources there.  It would be about like the money and time Bush wasted in California the last wk of the 2000 campaign.

[agcatter]

Exactly.  No Northern Dem has carried Kentucky since 1952.  Bush carried 103 out of 118 Kentucky counties and took the state by 16 points in 2000.  Trust me.  Kentucky is not in play.  

I'll go even further.  The entire South is not in play in 2000.  A northern Democrat has not carried a single Southern state since John Kennedy in 1960.  (Actually, there was one exception - Humphry in 1968did win Tx - a fluke when Johnson was President and Nixon and Wallace split the conservative vote).  Senator Miller has it right.  The national Democratic Party has managed to alienate the entire South in presidential elections.  Sorry Governor Dean.  You're wasting your time.

[agcatter]

Ok, justify them.  I've gotta hear this.

[agcatter]

Realpolitik,
The political South is obviously of interest to you as you've posted several threads dealing with the subject.  It's always been of interest to me as well.  I did my graduate thesis  over presidential politics in the modern South.  I mention that not to claim that I'm in ANY way an expert on the subject, but rather to illustrate that, just like you, the topic has always been of great interest to me.

First, let me say that West Virginia could easily go Democratic in the next election.  I don't think it will, but it was always a Democratic state at the presidential level and has been carried twice since 1968 by northern liberals Humphry and Dukakis.  I think Gore's environmental stance as well as the general cultural drift was just too much for Gore to overcome in the last election.

However, I firmly believe that any Northern Liberal Democrat loses big in any of the other Southern states you cite, and the historic trends confirm that.

The Democrats have nominated four Northern Liberals since 1960 - Humphry (68), McGovern (72), Mondale (84), and Dukakis (88).  None of these candidates even came close to carrying the states of NC, Tenn, Virginia, Florida, Arkansas, or La.

Democratic perentages 68, 72, 84, 88:

Ark    -  31, 31, 38, 42
La.    -  30, 31, 38, 44
Va.    - 32, 30, 37, 39
Ga.   -  27, 25, 40, 40
NC    -  29, 28, 42, 42
Tenn - 28, 30, 42, 42
Fla    - 31, 28, 35, 39

Ronald Reagan had far more success in liberal Massachussetts than any of the above candidates had in any of these Southern states.  The above percentages were achieved by Northern Democrats rounding up 92% of the black vote in states with anywhere from 20 to 36% of voting population being black.  This means they were garnering no more than 25% or less of the white southern voters.  Unless that changes drastically, these results will repeat over and over.  I don't see Howard Dean changing this equation do you?

[agcatter]

Be careful about trying to take congressional voting patterns and using them to predict what happens at the presidential level in the South.

Southern congressional candidates in rural areas do NOT run on the same platform as the John Kerrys and Howard Deans.  Southern whites have been splitting their tickets for years while they vote in droves against the national nominee.

The scary thing about Howard Dean isn't that he wants the votes of whites with pickup trucks and confederate decals.  it's that he actually thinks he can get them.  Good luck Howard.  You're going to need it.

For the posters who think Howard Dean can be competitive in Florida, what are you guys smoking?

[agcatter]

Clinton ran as a Southern moderate.  Dean and Kerry are neither southern nor moderate.  They are much less likely to get the votes of southern whites than even Gore.  Bush carried Louisiana by 8 pts.  He beats Dean or Kerry by between 12 and 15 in 2004.

[agcatter]

Neither do any of these three since they aren't going to be nomiated.

[agcatter]

Ryan,
How do you see the La. governor's race?

[agcatter]

No northern Democrat has carried Georgia since 1960.  Southernor Clinton couldn't even beat inept Dole there in 96.  And it gets worse.  In 2000 southernor Gore got drilled by 12 points by Bush.

[agcatter]

Sounds like it's a classic case of the better candidate (Jindal) vs. the candidate with the biggest base.  Could go either way, but it appears it will be a cliffhanger.

[agcatter]

If the Dems nominate Dean then game over before it even really gets started.  No way this country elects Howard Dean after what happened 9-11.  I have no idea what the Democrats think they're doing.

[agcatter]

I also thought Dean looked rether relaxed on Hardball.  He answered every question honestly and didn't pull any punches.

I've changed my mind.  Democrats SHOULD nominate this man.