The New Southern Strategy By Bob Moser, The Nation

[Demeter]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=138042

Real Democrats

Bob Moser


Just one year ago--hell, even a few months ago--the unanimous view among the Democrats' strategic sages was that the only drama in the South this fall would be whether the region's few remaining statewide Democratic office-holders could hold on to their jobs. Could Senator Bill Nelson hold off Katherine Harris, America's tackiest theocrat, in Florida? Could Gov. Phil Bredesen show his conservative cojones by cutting enough folks off state health care to hold on in ultra-red Tennessee?

After the 2004 wipeout of five Democratic Senate seats in the South, many national Democrats were pleased to think that their long-running debate--can we win in the Dixie, and should we even try?--had been settled. Settled in the negative, that is. Thomas Schaller's recent book, Whistling Past Dixie, brought together years' worth of poll-tested memoranda in calling for the Democratic Party to kiss off the nation's largest region. It was just a more polite version of one of the most popular post-election blogs from the bitterness of late 2004: "Fuck the South."

Tonight, the South--aka "Jesusland"--has a message for those national Democratic wizards: No, fuck you. If the Senate lands in Democratic hands, it'll be thanks to Claire McCaskill's triumph in Missouri and Jim Webb's stunning win in Virginia over the man who was once conservative Republicans' great hope for the White House in 2008. It will not be thanks to the candidate who ran the sort of Southern campaign the sages called "perfect"--Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee, who went far beyond triangulation and out-Republicaned his opponent with hard lines on gay marriage, immigration, national defense, guns, and an array of Bible quotes that could whip John Ashcroft in a holiness contest any day.

McCaskill, a hard-nosed former prosecutor, and Webb, a tough-as-beef-jerky former Republican cabinet officer, are nobody's idea of wild-eyed liberals. But they both ran campaigns that stubbornly bucked conventional wisdom for Southern Democrats running statewide in the last two decades. Running against hardcore Christian conservative incumbents, neither of them triangulated. They were unwaveringly pro-choice; they called for sharp changes in Iraq policy; McCaskill opposed anti-gay marriage hoo-ha; and they ran as old-fashioned, blue-collar, labor-embracing economic populists. As what used to be called Democrats, that is.

"It's back to the traditional Democratic Party, which was founded on the health of the working person," Webb told me earlier this fall. In her victory speech this morning, McCaskill highlighted the same theme: "Once again," she said, "the Democratic Party has claimed Harry Truman's Senate seat for the working people of Missouri."

[David__77]

1. Ford did go overboard with Jesus and gay stuff.

He should not have endorsed the "Federal Marriage Amendment." He should have stopped at the state level. He should have kept focused on economic and corruption issues. Make no mistake, I wish he had won.

[bemildred]

2. Maybe next time he will be wiser. nt

[lanlady]

3. Moser's dead wrong about Virginia

It wasn't working class Virginia that put Webb over the top. He did win a couple of pockets of "deep Virginia" (for ex., around Blacksburg, home to Virginia Tech) but it was the affluent, educated, white collar suburbs of DC that won it for Webb. The Washington Post has a good article about the No. Va. phenomenon:

http://tinyurl.com/yewbnv

Another factor that helped Webb: my county, Prince William, is loaded with career military who work at the Pentagon or at Quantico. Many, many of them voted for Webb too because 1) he has a son in Iraq and 2) he's a military guy, unlike Allen.