How can Dems improve with rural whites?

[RINO Tom]

Abandon all of their current economic and social policies.

Nice lazy response.  Democrats won plenty of rural Whites literally three elections ago with nearly exactly the same policies on paper.  Obviously, whatever Democrats' actual problems are with "rural Whites" (as if all are exactly the same), your answer leaves a lot to be desired.

[RINO Tom]

invent time travel and prevent facebook and twitter from happening

If we're going to utilize time travel, I actually think it's not nominating Al Gore.  While at the time he appeared to be a "White Southern Democrat" who'd "do well in the South," he represents a shockingly stark contrast with regard to cultural attitudes to every Democrat before him.  Al Gore's nomination and eventual defeat legitimized politically active and ideological Democrats who prioritized issues pertaining to social and cultural liberalism/progressivism, and they started to frame themselves in a binary against George W. Bush and all that he stood for.  This was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, then nominating a "polished, New England liberal" to defeat this war-mongering cowboy, and an Ivy-League educated Obama who pushed more for shedding "outdated" cultural ideas than any Democrat before him.  Yes, Kerry and Obama (and even Clinton and Biden) retained basic, pro-working class rhetoric literally inherent for any Democrat, but it's become slowly (maybe even subconsciously??) less prevalent every four years.

[RINO Tom]

invent time travel and prevent facebook and twitter from happening

If we're going to utilize time travel, I actually think it's not nominating Al Gore.  While at the time he appeared to be a "White Southern Democrat" who'd "do well in the South," he represents a shockingly stark contrast with regard to cultural attitudes to every Democrat before him.  Al Gore's nomination and eventual defeat legitimized politically active and ideological Democrats who prioritized issues pertaining to social and cultural liberalism/progressivism, and they started to frame themselves in a binary against George W. Bush and all that he stood for.  This was kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, then nominating a "polished, New England liberal" to defeat this war-mongering cowboy, and an Ivy-League educated Obama who pushed more for shedding "outdated" cultural ideas than any Democrat before him.  Yes, Kerry and Obama (and even Clinton and Biden) retained basic, pro-working class rhetoric literally inherent for any Democrat, but it's become slowly (maybe even subconsciously??) less prevalent every four years.

So you’d rather they have nominated a ‘real southerner’ like gephardt or graham?

I wouldn’t “rather” anything, and the candidate didn’t need to be a Southerner at all.  It just had to be someone who came across as less snobby than Al Gore.