The author of this article reeks on anti-southern sentiment. I hate it when fools like him write about how the south is full of dumb racists who refuse to embrace "change." I'm sure no one talked about the south breaking the shackles of the confederacy when they voted Republican for the first time in 1972 after being solidly Democrat since the Civil War.
Isn't this after the realignment of the Solid South in 1964 when the national Democratic Party, led by Lyndon Johnson, embraced civil rights for African Americans, advocated desegregation and integration of public schools, and became the "liberal" party? Let us not forget the conservative Republican Barry Goldwater. The South is still the Confederacy in terms of ideology; the ideologies of the national parties just flipped because of the issue of civil rights. This is still pretty evident in the South where, unfortunately, the Republican Party is the white people's party and the Democratic Party is the black people's party. Which leads me into the topic of this thread...
Democrats cannot and must not give up on the South. The 50-State Strategy has worked very well for the Democrats. Because of it, we have gone to places where Democrats were thought to never win (Idaho-Walt Minnick, Wyoming-Dave Freudenthal, Utah-Jim Matheson) and have succeeded. I think over time we'll see the South crack; it has started already with Virginia slowly but surely become a slightly blue state and North Carolina is quickly turning into a battleground state. Georgia was also really close due to the large black turnout in 2008, and given the demographic changes in the state I would argue that it could turn into a battleground state if Atlanta continues increasing. Florida will always be a true swing state regardless that it's located in the South; it's not as Dixieish as southern Georgia and Alabama. I argue that Democrats can reclaim the South. Take Mississippi for example: Kentucky voted more for McCain in 2008 than it did (but, not that surprising given that Mississippi has the largest black population of any state in the country). We know from Bill Clinton that Democrats CAN win the Appalachian states of Kentucky and Tennessee and West Virginia, as well as the Deep South states like Arkansas and Louisiana. That leaves Alabama, which may be quite a stretch for Democrats to win, but I think it can be accomplished. Oh, and South Carolina with its large African American population can also easily go Democratic.
On a side note, I do think the South would be easier to win than say for that swath of Great Plains states from North Dakota all the way down to Texas. I, personally, consider this region of the country more Republican than the South.
I think what 2008 taught us was that the West has gone from a Republican stronghold to a true battleground where Democrats are becoming increasingly more successful. Save for the GOP bastions of Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, at the federal level I would argue that Democrats can and will win all the Western states of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Montana in a presidential election (possibly even 2012).
