Attention Democrats: Looking South Isn't a Mistake

As of today, the Democrats control only 18% of Senate seats and only 37% of House seats in the US Congress from the traditional southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.  In 1989, Southern Democrats held 68% of their seats in both Houses.

In order to EARN the right to again represent the voters from the South, Democrats must again learn to represent their interests.  That means a return to the great American ethic of the "common good", and a battle against the social Darwinism of today's Conservative majority.
Somehow, Congressional Democrats and Washington insiders decided to champion "free trade" thanks to the urging of the DLC under the Clinton Administration.  Ross Perot warned that manufacturing jobs would disappear, and disappear they did.  Between 1998 and 2003, the price of "free" trade was 1.8 million American manufacturing jobs.  While urban and suburban areas across the Northeast were able to offset these losses, rural and Southern areas were hit extremely hard, opening the way for the right-wing's "culture wars".

Across rural America, those "culture wars" have led people away from the perception that the Democratic Party is the party of working people.

Hell bent on picking up votes and power, reactionary Republicans with their $300 million per year messaging machine behind them, have been able to convince a once-confident Democratic base of every kind of falsehood imaginable.  Power-hungry, right-wing Republicans have been able to label the Democrats as traitorous, babykilling, Christ-hating, fanatics intent on taking homes and guns away from hard-working law-abiding lower-income, less-educated white folks.  Without an economic reason to support and defend Democrats, rural and Southern voters were willing to believe every lie spewed by likes of Hannity, O'Riley, Coulter, and Limbaugh and the politicians they helped to put in power.

As the lies and failures of Conservatism become increasingly obvious nationwide, it's clear that Democrats need a new agenda.  It's clear that Democrats must take bold steps to re-invigorate Democratic support in rural and southern states.

Mark Warner was able to do just this, working hard across party lines to bring good jobs to rural Virginia, and Warner's work is not done.

Democratic candidates like Jim Webb are leading the way back to a Democratic majority.  With a strong footing in principled American patriotism, effective national security, real "family values," and rewards for hard work, the potential exists for a new enduring Democratic majority that can lift up the nation and the world in the 21st century much the way Roosevelt's New Deal did in the 20th century. 

Attention Democrats! Representing the nation won't happen until you start to represent rural workers and the South again.  That means building jobs for working class Americans especially in rural America. 

Looking South isn't a mistake, it's a necessity.

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