Krugman: a regional realignment
Fri Nov 10, 2006 at 09:00:53 AM PDT
In Krugman's column today (and Times Select is
free this week), he says this:
Moreover, the new Democratic majority may well be much more effective than the majority the party lost in 1994. Thanks to a great regional realignment, in which a solid Northeast has replaced the solid South, Democratic control no longer depends on a bloc of Dixiecrats whose ideological sympathies were often with the other side of the aisle.
I have some thoughts about this. Follow me to the flip:
For one thing, he's right. We picked up the house with very little help in the Old Confederacy, as CNN's
map illustrates. Seats that flipped are shown in the map in light blue. So, it's pretty graphic to look at that map and see the huge swath through the northeast and into the midwest.
There are still seats that are undecided, but, at the moment, we only flipped 3 seats in the entire Old Confederacy, and two of those were instances where we got a 'perfect storm' affecting the incumbent (Delay's seat and Foley's seat). So, thus far, the only Dem who took on a Repub seat and won without the whole scandal/write-in thing in Delay and Foley's seats was Heath Shuler (who probably is more philosophically in-tune with the old Dixiecrats than he is to Nancy Pelosi). Yes, Larry Kissel may make it two. Even if it's two; there were that many in just New Hampshire!
There are two things I find interesting in these results. One I just mentioned: New Hampshire. It's a bellweather. Growing up in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, you learn early that our neighbors to the north are 'conservative', especially as compared to those of us in the People's Republic :-). Which they are.
To a point.
There was a Democratic Storm in NH. I'm sure some of it was local, because both houses of the state legislature turned Dem (for the first time since 1912). But a lot of it was disgust with the national Repub party. Why is that? Tax cuts? Nope, they love tax cuts in NH. The war? I'm sure that's part of it. But the other two parts? The deficit, and Schiavo. New Hampshirites don't like taxes but they like deficits even less--the whole 'flinty frugal New Englander' thing. And the NH conservativism is most definitely libertarian-leaning. They don't want you in their wallet but they don't want you in their bedrooms either. Any regulation of personal behavior tends to go down in flames in NH--this is a state that proudly rejected a law mandating helmets for motorcycle drivers. Laws mandating seat belt use go down in flames up there. The government interfering in a private family decision about death? Complete anathema to most New Hampshirites.
So, part of my point is that some of the 'dems' we trumpet down south wouldn't get elected as dogcatcher in NH as a Repub. Shuler? Ford? Not. A. Chance.
But we took NH. Big-time.
We also took a huge swatch of seats throughout the northeast and the midwest. The northeast is getting deeper blue--and those Repubs that are holding onto their seats up here, it's people voting for the person. Christopher Shays is well-liked in his district; people vote for him despite, not because, of the R after his name. If he retires in 2008--if any of the northeast R's retire--that seat is Dem, guaranteed, unless the Repubs radically realign their party.
THe midwest--and, to a lesser extent, the Plains and the Mountain West--are the battleground.
This is vivid in the house, and with one partial exception in the Senate. Of the six seats we took in the Senate, two were in the Northeast. One was clearly in the midwest, and one in the Mountain West. Missouri is a border state, but more midwestern than anything. Virginia is clearly a southern state of the Old Confederacy; but northern Virginia isn't very 'southern'.
Am I saying we can control this country without the South? Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying. Now, this is not a disagreement with Dean's 50 State Strategy. We may not have won some of the races we challenged, but we forced the Repubs to spend money. This is always a good thing. But should we count on winning majorities based on the South? Nope.
Honestly, I have to admit I'm thrilled that we took the Senate without relying on Harold Ford. He's the wrong skin color to be a true 'dixiecrat' but boy does he talk like one on certain things.
Which brings up another point: this whole 'we won by electing conservative dems' crap. No, we didn't. THere will always be a few: Shuler, at least a couple of 'em in Indiana. But neither of the folks elected in NH are conservatives. John Hall isn't a conservative. Patrick Murphy, Michael Accuri. We elected progressives, especially in the Northeast.
I certainly think we should contest all seats, all states, all the time. But I also think we can win without the south, we can win without running DINOs, and we can win without relying on the likes of Harold Ford.
29 seats so far. 26 in areas that aren't the south. Fully ten in NH, NY, CT and PA. About that in a swath from Indiana to Iowa. That's where we win.
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