In my last diary, I mentioned that if you get the religious right's lies, distortions and scare tactics out of the picture, "we'll own this country forever." At least one commenter wondered what I meant. I figured it was understood, but let's spell it out. If you eliminate the religious right from the picture, the Republican fortress collapses like a house of cards.
For more than a quarter-century, the religious right has scared people in the South and Southwest into voting Republican by playing up talk of abortion, gay rights and other cultural issues. Never mind that the Repubs give it to us in the neck every time on the issues that really count, and the borderline (and in some cases, outright) criminal behavior of the current administration. All that matters is that Democrats are godless, baby-killing, pro-queer libruls, and putting them in government will send America down the moral sewer.
The result--districts that send Repubs to Congress by ludicrously high margins even though demographics and economics dictate that the people in these districts have absolutely no business voting Republican. But now it looks like we're about to win a large chunk of them back--and in the process, finish the job that was started in 1992.
I've said several times that the Clintons saved the Democratic Party by getting Reagan Democrats in the Northeast, West and Midwest to come to their senses and realize that Reagan and Bush Sr. were screwing them over. The result? The Republican "lock" on the Electoral College has long since been picked, replaced with something close to a Democratic lock. In the last four elections (counting the current cycle and based on past trends), we've started out with DC, California, Illinois, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Washington, Hawaii and New England (except for ME-2) locked up tight. That's 171 electoral votes in the bag right out of the gate. Now throw in the prohibitive advantage we have in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, ME-2, Oregon, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Voila--in a normal election year, the Democrats start out with 245 electoral votes, with only 25 more needed to claim the White House. But where are those 25 votes? With few exceptions, in the South and Southwest--the religious right's heartland.
As we also know, 1994 largely happened because many districts in the South that had been tilting Republican for eons finally elected Republicans to Congress. Granted, most of those areas (the Atlanta burbs immediately come to mind) should be written off as lost to us for the forseeable future. However, in the areas where we have a chance, we haven't made a serious effort to win them back until now (the notable exception being Florida). Look at LA-5, for instance--the second-poorest district in the state even BEFORE Katrina, and one of the poorest districts in the country. And yet, aside from Rodney Alexander's brief stint as a Democrat, it's been in Repub hands since 1996 and gave Shrub his second-highest total in the entire state in both 2000 and 2004. What's wrong with this picture?
Now look at 2008. Obama has committed to fighting for North Carolina and Virginia--the two former Confederate states other than Florida that have long been most likely to flip, and both in the religious right's heartland. Granted, Virginia's been helped along by the blue tide sweeping in from Northern Virginia, but still, it's encouraging. We need only look at four Southern districts that have flipped in the 2006-08 period to see what happens when we make such an effort--NC-11, LA-6, MS-1 and IN-8 (granted, Indiana may be a midwestern state, but IN-8 is more Southern than anything). Going into November, Brad Ellsworth is practically a shoo-in for a second term, Heath Shuler is in fairly good shape and the only thing that could take out Don Cazayoux and Travis Childers is a massive Republican landslide.
We've also been helped by a generational change among born-agains. Many born-again GenXers (like yours truly) have never bought the religious right's bill of goods, and more of us are becoming more politically engaged.
The religious right has operated basically by digging holes under the Democrats. But you know the old saying--"He who digs a hole under others falls into it himself." It may take a few more cycles, but with more efforts like this, we may not only ease the religious right into that hole--but shovel dirt on it.