Tom Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie:How Democrats Can Win Without the South, asks, "Why Does the Non-Southern Strategy Drive People Batty?"

Because...the South is not monolithic and economic populism seems to be making a comeback and much of the South is ripe for it and because the web makes it easier to fight district by district and because good things are happening already in contested races and more good things are on the way and because people everywhere deserve a voice in a national party and because giving up is not a good strategy.

Other than that, and if renamed "...Without the Deep South," the thesis is just fine.

Previously.

Comments

[Jim Caserta]

2/4 of Mississippi's representatives are Democrats. Alabama 2/7, Georgia 6/13, South Carolina, 2/6 - total 12/36. The talk about a party abandoning a region should be about Republicans abandoning New England. Republican house seats: MA 0/10, RI 0/2, CT 1/5, VT 0/1, NH 0/2, ME 0/2, total 1/22

[Jim Caserta]

More of the south:
LA 2/7
FL 9/25
TN 5/9
NC 7/13
AR 3/4
These 5, 26/58 for a total of the 9 states of 38/94 = 40%. A percentage large enough that giving up on it should not even be considered.

[arcbender]

I've been all batty with these folks on Tapped all day today. I understand Schaller's broader thesis, that money needs to be targetted to the most-likely pick-ups. But this to me sounds like a political consultant trying to justify ignoring on the ground GOTV in the african-american community in favor of raising money for TV ads. It's the tiniest of percentages that can make one certain.

But what's revealing is the number of folks who want to take up Schaller's call to start, demonizing Southern Conservatism in the way the GOP has demonized "northeast liberals." There actually seem to be people who think this would move votes in the North, and who don't understand how thoroughly it would damage Democratic prospects in the South. (Really, a BOTCHED JOKE of Kerry almost did us in, what happens when Kerry means to be insulting us?)

I guess I have as much authority in commenting on Northern politics as these folks do about the South, but I had always given the North a little more credit than to believe that outright demagoguery about another region would elect people. I thought that only worked with right-wing Southern voters, and I can hardly imagine it working in a swing district in Indiana.

[Bubba]

A "botched joke of Kerry"?

Sure.