Whistling Past Dixie

[Samof94]

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?

[Samof94]

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.

[Samof94]

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.