Thanks for highlighting this, Lowell.

Whistle past :this:, ya'll.

Doesn't sound too progressive to me!  Was the SP asleep as we won the Senate with the help of Virginia and when the NC House and Senate turned blue?  NC has had 4 consecutive terms with Dems in the governors mansion.  Write off the south? Not!!!!!

BTW, Lowell, it is really great to see you back at RK!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully I'll be able to keep doing this for a while.  It really depends on the job situation...many federal (and other) jobs don't allow blogging, or at least discourage it. So, we'll see, if and when I am gainfully employed again! :)

I should have said: Was the other blogger (WP --"werewolf prophet") asleep as the South has begun turning blue.  actually agree with SP.

As we all now know so well, Steve Jarding and Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, in their book, "Foxes in the Henhouse", have explained in great detail how to win back the South politically.

And then those two gentlemen worked tirelessly on Jim Webb's successful U. S. Senate campaign here in "purple state" Virginia to prove their theories to be correct in practice.

Time to continue to spread the word further south, and west; we can - and will - win.

Thanks!

Steve

Note that some are claiming that a growing South and a shrinking North are a good thing for the GOP.  Of course, that's ignoring the fact that this is because Northerns (who tend to be moderates or liberals) are MOVING to the South (and thus making that region more moderate and liberal).

Or Raleigh Durham.  Or Asheville.  Or Atlanta.  Or many other places in the south.  Also, please note the rapidly changing demographic makeup of America, particularly the rapid increase in Latino population in ths South and the rest of the country.  We don't know what the voting patterns of these people will be when America reaches "majority minority" at some point.  What we DO know is that this demographic change represents a dynamic force in Southern, and overall American, politics that is hard to predict.

I am older then a baby boomer, but I feel quite a few of these baby boomers will follow what I have done. Gotten out of the extreme cold weather. So as reported by some the south is in for a big change politically when these boomers retire. Quite a few of these boomers are out spoken like myself and I hope they can get along better then what I have in the local Supervisor Meetings. Most of us from the north are tired of the "Good Old Boy Syndrone" which is still alive and well here in the mountain areas of Virginia. If these people get just a little involved, I will predict an enormous change in the political stucture of the south. Evidence is a reality in some areas and I am looking for a full blown change in the future. I just hope I am around to see it.

is whether the people with a "Southern mentality" are a lost cause. 

To simply frame the issue as geographical is not really addressing it properly.  The South aspect has come in due to simplistic maps (the Red in 2004 and other national elections) and generic stereotypes of people living in the southern parts of the country.

Like many stereotypes, this "southerner" the dKos people refer to is an accurate portrayal of many individuals.  But the disconnect is that those individuals are not necessarily living in Southern states, therefore making the question of writing off the geographical South absurd.

But the question of working to win over those with a "Southern mentality" is legitimate.  Do we Progressives (and Liberals?) have enough goals in common with these people to have a shot at winning them over?  Is it just a question of marketing and education - undoing the mind fuck provided by the Karl Roves of the past 30 years?  Or do these people really have a completely different mentality that can not and will not overlap with ours - leading to the conclusion that we should write them off?

Eric - people like this we probably shouldn't work too hard on -
http://www.spiegel.d...

From my historical and geographical perspective - and btw this is a cellphone photo from the commute this a.m. to illustrate - http://www.skatha.co...

... so from my perspective and mentality, which is admittedly unfashionable in its territoriality, the attitudes of both Tom Schaller and Bob Marshall are paternalistic classist elitism on the part of those who consider themselves special enough to define the mold in which they think I should live, and the very essence of who I am and how I ought "be" even if their visions differ.

What about my vision?  What about my neighbor's vision? The part of my psyche that they both tap into is Southern rebelliousness. Add a layer of feminism and the gap widens. 

If those attitudes are shaped in part by whatever lingering effects the Civil War and/or Reconstruction had on this region, so damn be it. Push me into "will die for dirt" mode and I don't care... and if I feel this way, what do my more middle-of-the-road neighbors think?

Southern liberalism is not new and it's not a rarity.  Elliott and Rosel Schewel are good examples when it comes to leadership. I think of them when there's this talk of a "lost South" and it only makes me angrier.

One of the problems that this cultural divide accelerates is that when it comes to this particular subject, native Virginia liberals often have more in common with native Virginia conservatives than anyone else. A lot of people don't bother discussing the matter, because they're tired of a lifetime of it all. Consider the consequences.

The dialog has degenerated into the absurd.  I swear some of these people eat a bite of grits and think they can lecture the entire Southeastern United States.  So a bite of kimchi makes them experts on Korea?  Or just imagine a thread where people say, well nowadays they have watermelon in some of the better restaurants in NYC.

We get involved and fight, but for what?  So Tom Schaller can lecture "about" the South?  We get it from both sides - both foreign (in the Southern sense) and domestic. We get it from Marshall, Robertson and Falwell. If we complain, it's our Southern loser mentality and persecution complex. For a lot of people, it's on the table to throw in with apolitical independents when it comes to this subject. Why seek out disrespect from those who we hoped were on the same team?  Thomas Road Baptist is offering over 60 free classes to the community.  Maybe they are more interesting or important.

Actually TRBC offers me a better deal than any progressive outfit I can think of.  That is a reality that we need to acknowledge.

 

when Florida and Louisiana are under 20 feet of water perhaps the people living on their boathouses there will have an epiphany about the folly of the Republican enviro policy of the last 30 years.

BTW, Jacksonian populism was a populism only for people of the right color. Jackson will eventually be removed from the $20 for presiding over the deaths of tens of thousands of native American men, women, and children. IMHO, Dems should scrap the "JJ" dinner tradition for a "JFK dinner" - Jefferson, Franklin, King (and Kennedy is implied).

"BTW, Jacksonian populism was a populism only for people of the right color. Jackson will eventually be removed from the $20 for presiding over the deaths of tens of thousands of native American men, women, and children. IMHO, Dems should scrap the "JJ" dinner tradition for a "JFK dinner" - Jefferson, Franklin, King (and Kennedy is implied)"

The word on emphasis here is "was a populism only for people of the right color." Alot of those people, Jackson, Calhoun, Lee, had a different sense of freedom and liberty.  In their time, there were Indians populating other parts of the US AND there were countries like Britian,Spain still trying to define America. So if you take the Jackson-Calhoun view, you were fighting for the Union's survival.  Now how many of us today refer to the US as the Union?  My point exactly.  Yes women and blacks were kept out of Jacksonian Democracy but I disagree that that qualifies it as anything less.  Jackson came to office after a contested election in 1824 (much like Bush vs. Gore) in which JQ Adams won but only because Henry Clay dropped out of the presidential race and gave his votes to Adams,Clay was Speaker of the House, on the condition that Adams make him Secretary of State. This caused several things to happen.  The Democratic-Republican Party,which Jefferson founded, ruptured and a division of Jackson follwers called themselves Jackson Democrats. They vowed revenge which came in 1828, which limited Adams to one term.

At the time of the 1824 election the Union,there's that word again, was growing from the original 13 colonies to states like Kentucky and Tennessee, which had not been there at the American Revolution.  The settlers settling these states were backwoods fronteirsmen. They did not see Adams as their hero. They say Adams as a crusty eastern elite. The feeling was mutual. Adams thought,and others in Washington agreed that, the Union was what the founding fathers wanted it to be, a Republic. But if Jackson leads these dirty backwoods men into the White House, then the Union will turn into a Democracy and Democracy is one step closer to anarchy and dictatorship. Jacksonian Democracy,which is really starting from the corrupt bargain election and ending at the 1860 election, is really about the emergence of the frontiersman who didn't have to own property, to be included into the say of the direction of the country.  In otherwards, honoring Jackson with a dinner is not doing a disservice for democracy.  Jackson was the first popularly elected president, and the first to be a military hero.

No one advocates judging Andrew Jackson or any other figure outside their historical context. After all, if we were to judge Jackson by today's standards, he'd be on the level of a Slobodan Milosevic, who also made history in Serbia with his sweeping victory in a 1990 election that was democratic and uncontested (and also led genocides).

But the case of Jackson-led genocides (he personally led military assaults on native villages and is generally regarded as the primary perpetrator behind the Indian Removal Act of 1830) is far different than, for instance, the case of the many signers who happened to be slave owners. So, let Jackson keep his hero status with a large asterisk indicating that while he had a role in getting us to where we are now, his values are a partial and distant reflection of our present values.

In some ways, it's about opportunity cost. There is room for just one person on the $20 bill and there is only one dinner on the scale of JJ per year. Is there any  danger in surrounding ourselves with heroes whose values are out of step with current needs? Why do we put anyone on a pedestal if not to say, 'this person sets a good example for us.'?

Could one of the problems in Iraq be that the people fighting there have not been shown any heroes whose qualities and values are relevant to solving the present quandary?

http://www.historica...

Just a run down of why we celebrate Jackson.

He helped found the modern Democratic Party and the two party system

He was one of a handful of 19th century presidents that argued for a stronger executive branch. In this day and age of the modern presidency-especially Dubya's reign of error, one can forget that the presidency was not always this way and that the Congress was the most powerful branch of all three.

Jackson strengthen the presidency by using the veto power

And he also threatened to kill anyone who would argue for seccessition.  If all you know is Jackson and the trail of tears, read his Proclamation on Nullification.  One of his famous quotes is "the federal union it must be preserved"
On this and the subject of Democratic dinners, there was this dinner honoring Thomas Jefferson,and John C. Calhoun, the chief nullifier was there and he, like Jackson, owning slaves and being from the south, invited Jackson, thinking Jackson would side on his side.  So Jackson proposes a toast and looks directly at Calhoun, and says "to the Union," to which Calhoun replied "next to our liberties most dear."

Now back to the serious part, I think because of the diversity of our country, along with the fact that History is not emphasized on these No Child Left Behind type legislation, you're getting a group of people that Now Jackson from the twenty at best and at worst from the trail of tears.  He's a bit like Washington in that he's a mystery of a person we don't pay attention to.  Now I do think its ironic that he's on the twenty, because he helped destroy the Second Bank of the US.  Anyrate,in my travels around the ACDC I noticed there was this fundraiser called the Kennedy-King dinner. This is named after Robert Kennedy and Dr. King. I wouldn't be totally opposed if we combine the two dinners and call it the Jefferson-Jackson-Kennedy- King dinner, on the theory as one other poster said, that each name symbolizes the progression of democracy.  What do ya think? 

very nice...JJKK is a mouthful, but really very nicely captures the idea of progression of democracy and its evolving definition. The goalposts of democracy are moving, as well they should.

The fundamental rights of humans to participate in their own self-governance has been enshrined for over 50 years in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and we've hit a bump in the road lately. But here's the kicker:

How much democracy we have or have not enjoyed in recent years has yet to be determined and it depends on us. If we let them get away with lying and stealing, then they fooled us and what we had was oligarchy or, more aptly, cleptocracy. PR and manipulation of the media are what allow hairy cleptocracies (like Russia) to masquerade (or go in drag) as ladies of liberty and democracy. If we now hold them accountable according to the rule of law, then we had democracy. I'm not really expecting Cheney to retire to a chain gang, but one can hope.

That's a great story of the toast to the Union by Action Jackson and Calhoun. Of course, the very idea of a Union was first proposed in writing by Franklin with the 1754 Albany Plan.

 

Hi David - Nice coincidence; I was just emailing an old friend of ours - my colleague Brian from Wake Forest - and as I stopped back here for some info. for him I saw your name. I was just saying to Brian that Richmond needs a professional organization - a "Mudcat Institute or Council" say - to advance the Jarding/Saunders paradigm throughout the South, the West and the Midwest as I described below - possibly at the U. of Richmond (if you are in Virginia, maybe you can lobby it with Brian). Email and we'll chat: quigleydude@yahoo.com. Recall the Russian pilot hat I got when you came back from Russia - 'bout '89? My kids still wear it. - Bernie Quigley, Haverhill, NH

And he killed the Bank, something which should have stayed dead.

http://www.themoneym...

we create the Southern Progressive Party that way we don't have to deal with the NE dems that write us off.

North and South are Symbiotes, like heart and mind, yin and yang, Logos and Eros, Particle and Wave. They are a binary force: they cannot be separate or the same and must be held together by a unifying force, a mandela, which used to be Washington, D.C.
http://quigleyinexil...

more along the lines of a party within a party then a brake away. One to organize southern progressives into a stronger more unified voice that can allow us to have a greater influence on the direction of the Democratic Party.

I was born and raised in New England but raised my kids in North Carolina and Virginia - my wife's family is Virginian & we live half our lives there. It is true that New England largely would like to write off the South in my experience. (When I was an editor in New York I once introduced my wife to a colleague and said she was from North Carolina. He said, "Why?") But as Jarding and Mudcat Saunders point out in their "Foxes . . ."  book, the South and the heartland hold the cards today and the electoral votes; it is the northeast that needs to adjust to that & I think they have issues with that. The South is traditionally Democratic and populist. It can well be again. Jim Webb opens the gate to a Democratic party with Southern characteristics.

Part of the north/south (and the overall party, for that matter) rift in my view is that northern elected democrats tend to be old party dems that have been elected and reelected over and over again; while southern voters are bringing new blood with new ideas and loyalties to the party that doesn’t necessarily sit well with the elites. The new generation of dems is less attached to the party will and more oriented to the will of the voters who are generally progressive but not necessarily full on liberals (true for new democrats everywhere but the southern democratic party, I would argue, is more dominated by the new dems). The New England states are “almost” maxed out for gains and the largest potential for expansion is here in the south, but that can not happen if we are ignored and the only way to force the party to listen and take us seriously is to collectively pressure them as a unified voice of Southern Progressives.

I absolutely agree. The North has been losing influence since 1946 as population and work headed South and as indegeneous Southerners - black and white - awakened to new economy. The Democrats have lost to Nixon and to Reagon 49 states to one if I recall and they could be about to send an unelectable candidate up again. Steve Jarding points out in his "Foxes . . ." book that if Dems lose again like that the party could well be finished for good. I think that could well happen. But a new party will grow. That is exactly what happened in the 1850s with the Whigs; the North had the power then - the South has it now.

The south has the momentum. However, unless we harness that momentum and press a unifid “New Democrat” philosophy, southern progressivism will never be taken seriously within the party. Now, I do not have the knowledge, financing, connections, ect… to create an organization but, I would certainly support one to that brings southern progressives together and strengthen our position with in the party. 

I'm replying to pretty much every poster that has been debating the North-South thing in the Democratic Party. Wasn't 2006 a big year for Democrats in the western states of Montana,Colorado,Wyoming and area states? I had thought that with the GOP nominating Trent Lott as Minority Whip among other things, that it was the GOP that had the southern problem,am I missing something here?

2006 was a very good year for Democrats in so-called red states; perhaps it will be a turning point. Jim Webb presents a new direction and it is being felt accross the Democratic Party. This paradigm should carry through all the South, the Midwest, the West and the Southwest. Virginia has opened a new model with Mark Warner; a model forstered by Steve Jarding and Mudcat Saunders. The great victory was in Jim Webb's election which Jarding advanced as well. I would say Wes Clark is also advancing this model on a national level as he has been tirelessly crossing the country up to the November elections with selected Democrats that fit a model geared to win in red states. Clark was matched with McCain these last few days in the WaPost in their positions on Iraq. In this he can be seen as the representative spokesperson for the Dems. Right now, Kathleen Sebelius, Gov. of Kansas, Mark Warner, Wes Clark and Jim Web present a new political culture of progressive politics and management excellence that can win every state in the heartland and can appeal to the NE as well. Tom Vilsack as well, but I think there are substantive issues with his candidacy. In my opinion the urban professional constituency of the NE states are in the same kind of denial as they were in in the early 1990s when the idea arose that we would all be dot.com millionaires although it was clear to all that those stocks were undercapitalized. That didn't stop people from investing. A book then by a most prominent WaPost reporter claimed that the stock market would go up to 35,000, in complete denial of the realities of the business cycle. The Stallings book presents the same denial to the same group, claiming that the NE states can win without the red states. The two mainstream candidates they present at the moment are unelectable and there is the same hysteria surrounding them that surrounded the dot.com boom. I see this as following the Stallings model. This view (Stallings) of abandoning the South and the heartland is not only obviously immoral, but nearsighted. Jenkins and Saunders have opened a winning formula in Virginia and their book is the bible and roadmap for a Progressive movement in the South, Midwest and West. I believe Mudcat is working for John Edwards now but I wish he would go over to General Clark: Tedy Bruschi says when you throw a block, the opponent has to feel it - Clark does that with skill to perfection. Clark could bring to America what Jim Webb brought to Virginia. I think a new group could be formed now within the Dem. party to forster this new direction, much as the DLC was formed back when to fit earlier demographics. I'd claim that for symbolic reasons, it should be formed in Richmond, the traditional capitol of the South. (Last Spring I had dinner in Tysons Corner with two newly hatched Vanderbilt grads about a blogging enterprise they were starting. One was from Texas. He said with all innocense that he couldn't really imagine Virginia to be a Southern state. My aging mother-in-law, who is Virginia old-school, doesn't think of Texas to be a Southern state or anything at all really but a bunch of bushes.)

I've written a bunch of articles about this in the last year. For anyone interested:

"The New Democrats" at http://quigleyblog.b...

"A Democratic Party with Southern Characteristics" at
http://quigleyblog.b...

"The Mudcat Paradigm" at
http://quigleyblog.b...

BQ:  You're correct about Mudcat supporting and working with Edwards, and I'm virtually certain that he won't switch to Clark - or anyone else - for that matter.

Mud and I have discussed this topic several times, he's been working with Edwards for quite a while, and I think he's going to stick with Edwards for the long haul.

As we know, Edwards will be a very good candidate, but Clark would be better/best.

Thanks!

Steve

Chould be good in the debates having three candidates with red state potential – Clark, Edwards and Vilsack. Would be even better if Sebelius could be pressed into service. Will create a new Democratic environment appealing to the heartland. I also see protocol problems for Clark which Edwards can fix: Senator Clinton has been handmaid and fellow traveler to the neocon perspective from the beginning – her position today on Iraq is indefensible. But Clark is friend & Arkansas colleague of Bill – he also served under Bill as Commander in Chief. He can’t well attack his wife. As a Senate colleague, Edwards can treat her as an equal.

are not being over looked. if they feel enough momentum and that they have a strong common bond with each other as the southern states do then they should organize themselves as well to further a west/mid-western prospective. In my view the south has that cohesive interstate bond that can allow for such an organization consisting of average people as well as elected officials to thrive.