How many DUers are old enough to have experienced our bad losses?

[starroute]

83. That is one really fucked-up view of history

The Republicans were able to run up a streak of presidential victories for three reasons.

The most important was the Civil Rights Act and Nixon's Southern Strategy that first slowly pried the South away from the Democrats and then cemented it firmly to the GOP. In 1976 and 1992, the Democrats were still able to win by running Southern moderates. But after Obama, that's never going to be possible again. The Democrats need a new coalition -- which largely means appealing to minorities and young people while regaining a working-class base, particularly in the Midwest. And that's not a centrist strategy.

The second was that the Republicans were able to come across as the Daddy party during the period of insecurity following the 1960s. But they've already blown that by selling out to the clown circus.

And the third was that the New Deal approach was wearing a bit thin in the knees and the last generation of New Deal liberals was timid and unappealing. But we're beyond that too.

So the real challenge is to establish a base among the newly disenfranchised. And that won't be done with a replay of late 20th century centrism.