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RSS icon Comments on Re: Re: How the West (And the Presidency?) Will be Won

1

Mostly good, but I still think that equality and universal health care are among the most important issues facing this country. Can't we move left on social issues, pick up the Mountain West, and still care about those things?

Posted by Fortunate to have health insurance | September 9, 2008 11:26 AM
2

providing universal health care and social justice.

if they abandon this and abandon the party's Raison d'être than eventually they will become just like the republicans, answering to the needs of a middle class. yes, you should win, but you should never abandon the working class and the thousands of east coast union workers who put you in power. its not all republicans who live in the dying towns of the rust belt. there is a reason why dying towns view dems with suspicion and is not all because theyre right wing religious nuts. yes, western states are doing better economically, but they also have huge poverty, failing schools like LA and bubbles could burst. to just focus on the educated is, dare i say, thats fucking elitist.

Posted by SeMe | September 9, 2008 11:42 AM
3

The Democratic Party has already turned that corner, and the Common Man is politically homeless.

Ironic, in that larger shares of the population are becoming economically redundant even in prosperous communities.

Posted by RonK, Seattle | September 9, 2008 12:02 PM
4

I think the party is acknowledging what we can actually affect on the national level. Education is first and foremost a local issue. Why the federal government continues to meddle with curriculum and instruction is beyond me. (Stick with equal access issues but leave the rest alone.) The real work of social justice happens on the local level.

I don't think that Democrats will ever lose our commitment to the "Big Tent" and the tenents of social justice that fundamentally inform our world view. We believe in community and know that diversity is a key component of thriving communities. We will never be the party of Wall Street. The way we talk and think will never enter the "them against us" bunker mentality of most Republicans. Evolution is good-- but it's also up to us to keep our party mission-focused and honest. Don't like what you see? Get involved. Go to your precinct meetings.

Posted by Suze | September 9, 2008 12:03 PM
5

I was wondering when you'd get around to that article. I thought the most interesting thing was Ritter's breakdown of voters:

1. Very liberal (the Democratic base): 20%

2. Fox News conservatives (government should play no role save law enforcement) 16%

3. Moral conservatives (religious right): 13%

4. Government pragmatists (open-minded centrists seeking well-functioning government) 37%

5. Moral pragmatists (conservative-minded centrists seeking well-functioning government) 14%

Percentages reflect Colorado, but probably generalize well to the nation.

Democrats have group 1 locked up. They will never get the votes of groups 2 and 3. To win the election, they must capture groups 4 and 5.

Posted by Sean | September 9, 2008 12:04 PM
6

drop the big tent issues for those of the middle class? never? look at the gays. how quickly did the gay rights movement focus on what was most important to upper middle class suburban gays rather than on the discrimination still drowning the poor urban ones. To say that the dems wont follow a new source of money is to forget how ugly political power broking needs to be .

Posted by naters | September 9, 2008 12:26 PM
7

no, but it's going to take some time to get there and is it really smart to get too invested in the west, esp the southwest, when they've reached a point where they cannot safely grow any bigger due to water issues?

Posted by michael strangeways | September 9, 2008 12:49 PM
8

I wholly agree with this analysis... long term.

The south is largely a lost cause. The dems will never win over significant numbers of evangelicals, nor should they try (they'd loose more from their base than they'd gain from evangelicals). The mountain west states have been moving to the center-left in the past decade, and are important in the future.

However, I still maintain that the trend is too slow. With the exception of NM and maybe CO, all of those states are polling for McCain, and have consistently polled McCain for the last couple of months. The democrats may pick up some of those states in future elections, but not this year. Plus, all of them are small electoral states. Winning Ohio (which is doable) gains you more electoral college votes than ALL of the mountain west states combined. And Idaho, like the south, is a lost cause.

The democrats should definitely work on this block of states to help pull them into the fold for future elections. But it is a failed strategy to throw all their effort into these states for this year. It won't happen. And if by some miracle the polls are all completely wrong and they did win all the mountain west states, it wouldn't make up for loosing a couple of critical swing states like OH.

In a tight race like this, strategically targeting important electoral college swing states is critical. This whole mountain west strategy ignores that.

Posted by Reverse Polarity | September 9, 2008 1:15 PM
9

The best strategy for winning Ohio is to keep Diebold from stealing it like they did in 2004.

Posted by Greg | September 9, 2008 1:19 PM
10

We're so fucked.

Posted by Demolator | September 9, 2008 1:30 PM
11

I'm torn. Because, yes, that does sound bad - completely neglecting the issues that matter to America's working class in the name of the educated? Ignoring social justice and opportunity in favor of more fashionable issues? It's the right-wing caricature of the party, and it's not a liberalism I care to be a part of.

But, OTOH, lately the American working class has so consistently voted against both its own interests and the interests of the educated that I can understand the pursuit of a strategy that basically gives up on them.

Posted by tsm | September 9, 2008 1:34 PM
12

@9: It'll be close, but Diebold isn't going to steal Ohio. We've now got a democratic governor and democratic sec. of state--and I just received a "vote early by mail" application in the mail. I don't remember receiving one of those last year!

Posted by Nora | September 9, 2008 1:36 PM
13

#8 nails it

Any time spent wondering about Nevada, Idaho, or Montana is a waste.

This article seems to throw all elections into one bag, when, ticket splitting is common in the west. Look at Washington, Kerry did well, not so for Gregoire.

Many Dem Governors at this moment may not mean a whole lot ref. the National ticket. And, any theory is up ended totally by Palin who is the best attraction for Western voters possible, absent the Lone Ranger or Clint Eastwood.

She hunts and fishes, does guns, has a plane, nice hubby, nice kids, plain speaking and fearless.... I think she is a great draw in the west. Mc Cain is not from Delaware or Chicago, either.

The Bible belt is a high growth area, why has all the population infusion not changed much?
Atlanta seems the exception.


Posted by John | September 9, 2008 1:46 PM
14

uh, Obama has polled very competitively in NV, MT and ND. The huge growth of Las Vegas, the only sizable population center in Nevada, with huge numbers of Californians is turning the state blue.

Posted by michael strangeways | September 9, 2008 1:56 PM
15

"Fuck the South" has been my mantra for 25 years. Fuck those fuckers.

Posted by max solomon | September 9, 2008 2:09 PM
16

Wouldn't focusing on the Midwest make more sense? more electoral votes the Mountain West, and more rational than the South?

Posted by vooodooo84 | September 9, 2008 2:29 PM
17

While I recognize the political pragmatism involved in this analysis, I too am disturbed by the notion of "abandoning the 'Bible Belt'" to the extent it means leaving lower-class minorities in particular to the mercy of white, evangelical Republicans.

Most of the major Civil Rights battles that turned the tide for the Democratic Party in the early 1960's occurred in exactly the part of the country Lizza is now saying we should essentially cede to the Radical Right. Maybe, given the current political climate, that seems like a defensible strategy, but it again goes to the heart of the Democratic Paradigm: that we stand on principles at least as much, if not more so than we do on sheer electibility.

It feels to me less like a change in tactics than it does a wholesale repudiation of our commitment to the underclass, and a betrayal of our core value of promoting equality in social and economic opportunity.

Posted by COMTE | September 9, 2008 2:42 PM
18

@17: I feel like I should point out that most of the major civil rights battles of the '60s were not about trying to identify with rural whites in the South.

Posted by Greg | September 9, 2008 5:10 PM

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