Even a broken clock . . .
This is the end of the Southern Strategy. Or at least, it should be.
The reason Romney has a strong, 13-point edge among all white working class voters, according to the P.R.R.I. findings, is that in the South his margin is huge. In the rest of the country, the white working class is much more closely divided.
Among southern working class whites, Romney leads by 40 points, 62-22, an extraordinary gap.
The story in the rest of the country is different. In the West, where Colorado and Nevada are battleground states, Romney leads by a modest 5 points, 46-41. In the Northeast, which Obama is expected to sweep, except perhaps for New Hampshire, Romney holds a 4-point advantage among working class whites, 42-38. In the Midwest, where Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin are in play, Obama actually leads among working class whites by 8 points (44-36).
The numbers above come from an outstanding article in the Sunday New York Times that you might have missed titled "
What's wrong with Pennsylvania?" by Thomas Edsall. In the article, Edsall explains that Republicans thought they could win states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio and elsewhere based on the high polling numbers Republicans were getting from working class white people. The problem with that theory is that the popularity Republicans enjoy with working class white people shrinks drastically when you go north of the Mason-Dixon line.
More below the Orange Cloud of Contemplation . . .
Now, when I say stupid white people, I mean people like this guy . . .
When I met Kevin Balzer, a Romney supporter who is a Mack Truck supervisor, I asked him why his state looks likely to back Obama. “People are stupid,” he said.
City and state officials, he went on,
eliminated civics from our curriculum. The students don’t know about civics, they don’t know about our history, our government, our constitution. Politicians say they are going to give people things for free to get elected. That is what’s happening in Pennsylvania, especially in Lehigh Valley.
Balzer added that “the white guys got pushed out” of Allentown and neighboring communities, in part by a wave of Hispanic immigration. Balzer, who joined the exodus to areas outside of Allentown, said he and others want to “get away from the whole erosion of the country.”
"NYTimes"
Bold text added by the diarist
I think it's pretty obvious who is going to get all the free stuff in the eyes of Mr. Balzer. Not white people who work and are in the 53%, that's for sure. Yes, Republicans like Mr. Balzer have built there whole world around lazy "welfare queens" i.e. brown people, and the poor victimized whites who have to pay for it all, and they think that "the white guys are getting pushed out" not just in their towns, but in this whole country, and that is where the desire to “get away from the whole erosion of the country” comes from. This is the core Republican voter, a know nothing who thinks his views on the Constitution are the ONLY views that are true, a guy who thinks white people are being pushed out while non-whites are getting free stuff at their expense, and outside of the south and the least populated states of the country there are not enough stupid white people left to win the Presidency for Republicans using Lee Atwater's "Southern Strategy". I mean come on, does anyone want to guess why Republicans are winning southern working class white voters by 40 points? Let's just say it's not because Obama is a White Sox fan.
Now that Republicans have alienated everyone who isn't white in sufficient numbers they are more married to the Southern Strategy than ever before. What's making it even harder is that outside of the south and the rural mountain west it is just harder and harder to find new stupid racist white people who are willing to believe the bullshit they hear on Fox News ad nauseum. That is why the Republican party is desperately seeking stupid white people, people who blame the economy on socialism, or black people, or immigrants, dumb white people who will never blame rich white people or corporations for their low wages and crumbling infrastructure, stupid white people who think that Mitt Romney is one of the Duke's of Hazzard instead of what he really is, which is Boss Hog.
This should be the end of the Southern Strategy, because on the Presidential level the Southern Strategy simply doesn't work anymore. Sure the GOP will always be able to keep a filibuster in the Senate and create deadlock and hostage situations on behalf of the special interests that they serve, the GOP might even hold a gerrymandered majority in the House of Reps during low turnout years, they'll even win a few Governors mansions in southern and low population rural states, but the Presidency is off the table until the GOP gives up on the Southern Strategy and tells the loudest extremists in their party to pipe down, and frankly the inmates are running the asylum that is the modern GOP, so I don't see that happening anytime soon, do you?
Just remember, the next time some pundit says that Obama and Democrats have a problem with white working class voters, remember, what they really mean is that stupid southern white people have a problem with Obama. I can only wonder why that might be?