Whistling Past Dixie
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Samof94
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« on: January 24, 2021, 08:01:43 AM »

This book was a response against 2004 and suggested “abandoning the South”. In hindsight, it turned out to be very wrong and would be unthinkable to a modern Democratic strategist. Anyone here ever read it?
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Alcibiades
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« Reply #1 on: January 24, 2021, 08:12:29 AM »

In all fairness, the early 2000s vision of Democrats winning the South was very different to the current one. The former relied on winning back WWC Reagan-Clinton-Bush voters, while the latter is about taking advantage of demographic change and trends among college-educated suburbanites in select ‘New South’ states, such as Virginia and Georgia. The book was ultimately right that Blue Dogs in Arkansas and Tennessee were a lost cause for the Democrats, and not necessary to win a national majority.
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SInNYC
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« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2021, 11:48:18 AM »

I dont think it was wrong. All of Obama08, Obama12, and Biden20 would have won without a single Dixie elector, even if you count VA as Dixie. I would also argue that Obama08 was an example of Whistling Past Dixie, since it led to CO/NM becoming solid D.

Back then, the conventional wisdom was that Ds needed to nominate a southerner to win, and even the primaries were stacked to the south - Super Tuesday was created in 1988 as a regional southern primary early in the cycle. And then Obama won with a non-southern veep.

The Dixie strategy then was to appeal to the Bubba vote. Younger less racist voters have since moved to parts of the south, so circumstances change of course.
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TDAS04
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« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2021, 12:00:30 PM »

A generally good book, but underestimated Democratic prospects in Virginia and North Carolina.  That doesn’t mean it was wrong about the South as a whole for what was the foreseeable future in 2004.
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Samof94
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« Reply #4 on: January 24, 2021, 03:39:55 PM »

I dont think it was wrong. All of Obama08, Obama12, and Biden20 would have won without a single Dixie elector, even if you count VA as Dixie. I would also argue that Obama08 was an example of Whistling Past Dixie, since it led to CO/NM becoming solid D.

Back then, the conventional wisdom was that Ds needed to nominate a southerner to win, and even the primaries were stacked to the south - Super Tuesday was created in 1988 as a regional southern primary early in the cycle. And then Obama won with a non-southern veep.

The Dixie strategy then was to appeal to the Bubba vote. Younger less racist voters have since moved to parts of the south, so circumstances change of course.

That vote wouldn’t vote Democratic for dog catcher.
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Anzeigenhauptmeister
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« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2021, 03:40:59 PM »

Super Tuesday was created in 1988 as a regional southern primary early in the cycle. And then Obama won with a non-southern veep.

That's technically not correct.
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Sumner 1868
tara gilesbie
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« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2021, 09:39:37 PM »

The coalition Schaller proposed not only made sense but basically existed in 2008, but collapsed over Obama's failures. Making matters worse is that around 2013ish the DNC became obsessed with the Rainbow Confederacy Strategy mostly because it allowed them to receive corporate donors previously reserved for the GOP only.
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Samof94
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« Reply #7 on: March 24, 2021, 08:49:50 AM »

The coalition Schaller proposed not only made sense but basically existed in 2008, but collapsed over Obama's failures. Making matters worse is that around 2013ish the DNC became obsessed with the Rainbow Confederacy Strategy mostly because it allowed them to receive corporate donors previously reserved for the GOP only.
That coalition also relied heavily on non Southern white voters.
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Bootes Void
iamaganster123
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« Reply #8 on: March 24, 2021, 11:51:46 AM »

I remember reading some articles from that time period that every state save Florida was not worth contesting as they are all part of the Bible belt or jesusland or whatever
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If my soul was made of stone
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« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2021, 12:14:21 PM »

I remember reading some articles from that time period that every state save Florida was not worth contesting as they are all part of the Bible belt or jesusland or whatever

I think that the "Jesusland" meme immeasurably harmed 21st-century political discourse. Even when people like James Carville mocked red-leaning areas beforehand, there still wasn't the spirit to completely give up on them or their environs in the name of some moral superiority. The dichotomy of red vs blue areas also harms literacy of elections that don't use the Electoral College, as it obscures the fact that margins matter even in safe areas.

There still hasn't been a Democrat who's won the presidency without carrying any ex-Confederate states, and until that happens "the South" as a whole is not worth triaging based on elitist conceptions of what a Democratic-leaning area should be, especially since many of the Dems' core demographics are concentrated there.
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Devils30
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« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2021, 08:58:18 PM »

The book's premise was exactly correct, the Dems won Virginia because of DC, Richmond and not the rural southerners. Same goes with Georgia and Atlanta while NC is only competitive because of Charlotte and Raleigh.
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If my soul was made of stone
discovolante
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« Reply #11 on: March 25, 2021, 09:28:01 AM »

The book's premise was exactly correct, the Dems won Virginia because of DC, Richmond and not the rural southerners. Same goes with Georgia and Atlanta while NC is only competitive because of Charlotte and Raleigh.

That's a very revisionist take on North Carolina. Obama's victory there was as much built on rural areas remaining much less polarized than in states such as Georgia as his massive gains in the state's metropolitan areas. Clinton and Biden both overperformed Obama '08 massively in the metros, but the late-breaking rural slide in the state that was spurred on by the many nationalized tensions of the Obama years, along with exurban stagnation, prevented them from turning the state blue again.

While the rural South is still strongly Republican as a whole, turning out rural Black voters has always been key to Democratic victories there, as Biden and especially Ossoff and Warnock have demonstrated.
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Cayahougac
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« Reply #12 on: March 26, 2021, 01:29:06 PM »

There still hasn't been a Democrat who's won the presidency without carrying any ex-Confederate states, and until that happens "the South" as a whole is not worth triaging based on elitist conceptions of what a Democratic-leaning area should be, especially since many of the Dems' core demographics are concentrated there.
[/quote]

So basically the thesis of what's the matter with Kansas?
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