[EDIT: The IfSS has now posted its own fantastic diary on the Kromm article. I'm not deleting mine thanks to the links and other miscellany, but I'd highly urge any interested parties to go check out the IfSS' take
here.]
Hey folks, Chris Kromm over at the Institute for Southern Studies (Blogging for a Progressive South) has published a
thought-provoking essay rebutting some claims by Tom Schaller and others that the South is a completely lost cause, and that it's unnecessary for Democrats to think seriously about competing there. This is in addition to the excellent comments
made by Jerome Armstrong over at MyDD this week. I'll get into some thoughts of his here in a minute.
Kromm lays out some compelling reasons to consider last week's win/loss record as anything but a case for abandonment of the states south of the Mason Dixon. (Virginia Senate seat handing us the magical 51, anyone?)
[flippity flip]
For one thing, Republicans are on the wrong end of some compelling demographic sticks taking shape in the South. The population of the region is
growing by leaps and bounds, and a lot of those new residents are young people and Latinos.
But perhaps even more importantly, exit polls in the region reveal that the South - far from being a conservative monolith - is deeply contested political territory. Here are results from CNN's exit polls of those voting in House races:
* The race divide. 62% of Southern whites voted Republican, while 87% of African-Americans, 57% of Latinos, and 52% of "others" voted Democrat. This is ominous for Republicans, given that the four states nationally with the fastest-growing Latino population are in the South, and Georgia and Mississippi are on the brink of joining Texas as so-called "majority minority" states.
* Young Southerners. In 2006, they preferred Democrats 51% to 48%.
* Class war. 55% of Southerners making under $50,000 a year - 40% of those polled - voted Democrat. The 13% of those polled in a union household favored Democrats 56% to 44%.
* Conflicting faiths. Southern Protestants -- 70% of those polled - voted Republican by a 58% to 41% margin, but all other faith groups favored Democrats. More than one out of four Southern white evangelicals (27%) - perceived as the hardened core of the Republican Party - voted for Democrats in 2006.
* Gender and marriage. Surprisingly, Southern married women were the staunchest GOP supporters in 2006, with only 40% voting for Democrats (41% of married men did). By contrast, 60% of Southern unmarried men, and 63% of unmarried women, favored Democrats in 2006.
Two pictures emerge from this and other data. One is that the Republican Party is increasingly the party not of "the South" in general, as some pundits claim, but older, wealthy and white Southern voters - a base that puts the GOP on the wrong side of all the key demographic trends unfolding in the South.
My own thoughts on the subject are that this whole issue is a straw man, given the Democrats' wins on the ground in governorships, state legislatures, and Congressional seats. But we're talking about the big kahuna - winning a Presidential election here, right?
I just did some fiddling over at 270towin.com, and the situation is indisputable. In addition to the fact that one would have to win WI, MI, AZ, PA and OH - none of them a sure thing - to win the Presidency without a single Southern state, the margins are exceedingly thin. This seems to beg the concept of the 50-state strategy completely. Given the Republicans consistently outfundraise us, giving them a smaller target to focus on with their vastly larger resources hardly seems to make sense. (You saw this phenom at work - Dems handing Republicans a tiny target to hit - in the handful of counties recounted in Florida in 2000. The only way we're going to have a chance, as we witnessed last week, is if we make these buggers work their asses off on the ground all over the place.)
So, based on that theory alone, I'd argue against "giving up" on any region of the country, even the Midwest, which for some reason is spared the same ire that's doused on the South for reasons I know not. (I have to wonder if the same people posting angry pictures of anti-gay protesters in many of the Harold Ford threads realize most of those photos are of followers of Fred Phelps, pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. I grew up nearby, so I know 'em when I see 'em. I have to wonder if any of those folks have made the acquaintance of Randall Terry or Joe Scheidler, as I did in Wichita one summer. Unfortunately, hatred based on rights afforded to gays, blacks or women knows no geographic bounds.)
Which brings me to Jerome's excellent story.
I lived in the south, in rural Arkansas near Tennessee for six years in my 20's, and I recall from the instances I was confronted by racism how it shocked my SoCal worldview. We can hope it goes away, and work toward that goal through education, but we can't ignore it in the meantime. We still have work to do in the south (and everywhere) to get rid of racism, and frankly, and it's the Democratic Party's work to do. The national Democratic Party has an historical obligation to win the battle of ideas in the south, and to opt out of that, or to run against it, would constitute a moral failure.
A huge percentage of U.S. blacks live in the South, and it appears as though Latinos' numbers will soon rival them. If we are to hand off the mantle of civil rights reform, I hardly think that ought to be a decision that should be made without any consideration of its moral weight.
I wonder if the same people bashing Ford for putting the Ten Commandments on his business card are even aware that Martin Luther King was an ordained minister. The civil rights movement in specific is a terrific example of a movement borne from and led by Southerners, with a ton of appreciated assistance from Northerners who drove down in packs to ride and march with Dr. King.
I realize this is going to stir the stuff again, and I fully expect to see the same map that gets posted a lot about the correlation between slave states and states that voted for Bush, but I think we ignore some of this information at our peril.
I've been receiving some good feedback on comments I'm posting in threads about factors that are weighing in on what's been happening down here (national Dems' abandonment of this region, whilst the Republicans fight like hell to keep it, George Bush visiting constantly, GOP having bought talking heads to go on the radio and television to grandstand and demonize Democrats and individual issues, and it all goes unaddressed, Republicans propose lightning-rod social issue ballot initiatives that state Sem Senators vote for, then lose in the general, state legislature Democrats oppose same and get no support from their own party, etc.) I'm encouraged by the folks who are interested in engaging to help, not simply writing off everyone down here as a brace of hicks and rednecks (especially the ones that bother to post diaries on and read Daily Kos. ;) There are a lot of us, praise the Lord...)
One thing I get asked all the time is how folks outside the region can help. Unfortunately, I think the issue that'll make the most difference is money for education, but there are some fine and worthy organizations most deserving of your time and interest. You can always hop on a bus and come down here to help us during election year, but in the meantime, here's a list of outfits to check out:
* National Civil Rights Museum - Dr. King was shot in the parking lot at the old Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, and now it's the finest museum on the history of civil, union and women's rights you'll ever see
* Highlander Research and Education Center - "The Highlander Center was founded in 1932 to serve as an adult education center for community workers involved in social and economic justice movements. The goal of Highlander was and is to provide education and support to poor and working people fighting economic injustice, poverty, prejudice, and environmental destruction. We help grassroots leaders create the tools necessary for building broad-based movements for change."
* Nashville Peace & Justice Center - The Nashville Peace and Justice Center is a community based coalition of organizations and individuals working to promote equity and to create a peaceful, just, and sustainable society through reflection, education, and non-violent action.
There are way too many to list here, so I'm going to write a diary soon with a slew of Southern links. Hopefully some other folks will join me.