Sullivan concludes:
- The 10 Regions approach also puts the perplexing question of what the Democratic Party needs to do about the South in a different light. Right now, common wisdom is that the party must reduce the Republican margin in Appalachia by somehow neutralizing the "guns, God, and gays" issues that have doomed Democrats in rural areas. But it could be just as important to build on the party's foundation in Southern Lowlands, which is more urban, better-educated, and more populated by racial minorities than the other Southern regions (indeed, Southern Lowlands has the highest percentage of blacks in the population, nearly 28 percent, of any of our 10 regions). In states like Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the Democrats compensate for their weakness in rural areas by rolling up big margins in major cities and holding their own in the suburbs. Unless the party manages to nominate a Democrat with strong appeal for white rural voters (and those are getting hard to find), it will have to think about doing the same thing in North Carolina, Virginia, and especially Florida, where the Southern Lowlands cities of Daytona Beach and Orlando could combine with the El Norte southern tip to offset the Southern Comfort Gulf Coast and panhandle.
Despite what you may have heard about the 2004 election, the 100 flowers still bloom and will continue to do so largely unfettered. Fear not the great cultural/political clampdown, for it isn't coming.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Hal Pawluk
A vote for Bush means exactly what Bush says it means.
No amount of whining is going to change that.
Because his god tells him that's what a leader does.
2 - Eric Olsen
actually, a vote means what the voter says it means - that's why we have such things as polling. Voting is basically binary - the decisions that lead to it rarely are
3 - boomcrashbaby
Eric, I understand that a vote for Bush this election doesn't necessarily mean that the voter wants a return to medieval times, my fear though is that those who speak loudest on tv as well as paleo-cons here like Reporterette BELIEVE that it does. And Bush is spooning them late at night when Laura is asleep.
When I talk about all the discrimination and oppression I face, it's there, it's real and I do face it, but the majority of people are tolerant, even most Republicans out here. Of course all the Republicans we happen to know personally are lawyers so they know tolerance while at the same time being able to offend EVERYBODY.
It's the power this administration thinks it has, and the power the right wing thinks it's been given the go-ahead with, that scares me. I hope and I pray you are right, and I want nothing more than you to be able to say 'I told you so'.
on another note, this election has caused most people to quit talking about Iraq. Here's a bunch of pictures that you won't find in the mainstream media.
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/
4 - curt
boom -
just visited the fallujahpictures.blogspot...sort of a sobering view on the reality of the invasion and occupation, isn't it?
real citizens - men, women and children (sights you won't see on a florida college campus); and real american soldiers - those brave enough to actually enlist (and able to take orders)...
...killed or maimed.
5 - Jim Carruthers
I wonder, next year, how willing Eric will want to wear a "I voted for Bush" badge in public on the streets (hint, make sure to wear a cup). Not so much, I suspect when everything goes down the sewer.
6 - Natalie Davis
Yeah. Disappointed. Eric and Frank Rich's good points notwithstanding, there is a war brewing. Dubya insists he's going to spend his political capital and that means ugliness is on the way, whatever well-meaning people who voted for the terrorist-and-thief think.
7 - Eric Olsen
Boom, I hope I am right too, but that doesn't mean the election was not at least partially a (temporary I assume) rearguard action against tolerance and equality - I don't blame you for being concerned.
Re the pics: war sucks, does anyone not believe that war sucks, is in fact, hell? But if you're going to do it, you do it and you do it to win. This is reality.
8 - Eric Olsen
Nat, I appreciate being credited as well-meaning. I believe there are those who are trying to foment cultural conflict, but they will not succeed in anything but the shortest term. Just look at the demographics, the real political realities of red, blue and purple: the larger arrow will continue to move in a positive direction.
9 - Avedon
In my case, I just thought it best to return Bush to office to (attempt to) finish what he began regarding the war on terror.
The question I'm struggling with right now is just what it is he started. Is what's going on in Iraq a feature or a bug?
10 - Eric Olsen
I see Iraq as part of the war on terror, that mission must be completed while we continue to work with Afghanistan and continue to vigorously pursue al Qaeda throughout the globe. We have to deal with nukes in North Korea and prevent them in Iran - it's a perilous and difficult time.
11 - Natalie Davis
I hope you are correct about the larger arrow, Eric, but I am not as positive as you. In fact, I have lost whatever faith I had in 51 percent of those who voted. Bad stuff is coming -- or worse stuff, rather, considering things were intolerably bad as they were. Your guy, bought and paid for by the Religious Wrong, has political capital to spend, and he means to spend it. Good people with means ought to flee and flee fast.
12 - Natalie Davis
Oh -- and think about those who can't flee, those who are beaten down by the policies Bush votes, intentionally or not, supported, those who live every day without legal equality or economic justice, those who suffer because of the Bush gang. If you think a war isn't brewing, please think again. Some of us have had it. Things are going to get ugly.
13 - boomcrashbaby
shhhh.
14 - Hal Pawluk
There is hardly any need to pursue terrorists in Iraq - virtually all of them are home-grown and there for the taking.
The problem is all the other terrorists around the world, who rather than going to Iraq have spread far and wide, gaining new converts as they went because of hte carnage created in Iraq.
The problem has gone far beyond Al Qaeda (and the very few leaders captured).
15 - alethinos59
Eric... I like what you're trying to say here... We all know that the Republicans AND the Democrats are both bedding big business. Historical records show that Big Business doesn't really care if there is a Dem or Rep in the White House. Oh certain people scream about TAXES but Federal taxes are amazingly low and HAVE BEEN for nearly 30 years.
But the problem is that Bush and his ilk are riding a TIGER that they may very well not be able to dismount... Insanity once unleashed is damn hard to lure back. We have plenty of examples of this in the last 100 years...
16 - RJ
"Good people with means ought to flee and flee fast."
Go!
17 - RJ
"If you think a war isn't brewing, please think again. Some of us have had it. Things are going to get ugly."
Are you threatening violence?
I thought that was against your "religion"...
18 - andy marsh
RJ - don't worry, the left doesn't have any guns anyway!
19 - Mark Saleski
geezuz! don't you guys ever get tired of playing with these lame stereotypes?
i can play too:
no, the left doesn't have guns, we've got books.
duh.
20 - andy marsh
gonna throw 'em?
21 - Eric Olsen
Anyway, my main point is the "sides" don't exist nearly to the extent perceived, that there are a very large number of people - probably the plurality - who don't identify with the hardline agenda of either the right or the left, who pick and choose, who weigh priorities from election to election, and who may well go the other way next time around if they feel the pendulum is too far from the center.
22 - Mac Diva
. . .and that's why the most Right Wing regime since the Reagan years was just elected. Not. The people who voted for Bush voted for all the bad things that are going to happen under his very hard line regime. They can wiggle as much they want, but we should not let them off the hook.
23 - Eric Olsen
whatever you say Boss
24 - Hal Pawluk
If you had ever seen one, you'd know it would hurt to get hit by a book.
25 - andy marsh
HA HA!!! That was humor...I get it!!! I've seen 'em...we burn them all the time!!!