LA Times column: Dems need to whistle Dixie

At least one sun-dried coastal liberal understands that Democrats will have to "condescend" to us Southerners in order to win the White House. Here's guessing that it will take a little more than a catfish-and-cheese-grits photo-op to do it, too.

From Ron Brownstein of the LA Times (link):

Since President Bush's narrow reelection in November, many Democrats have looked longingly to the Mountain West as the party's best opportunity to rebuild an electoral college majority. And in the years ahead, states such as Colorado, Arizona and Nevada may indeed become more competitive political battlefields.

But new long-term population projections from the Census Bureau show that anyone who believes Democrats can consistently win the White House without puncturing the Republican dominance across the South is just whistling Dixie. The census projections present Democrats with an ominous equation: the South is growing in electoral clout even as the Republican hold on the region solidifies.

(snip...)

There are enough crosscurrents to discourage any simple assumption that demographic change guarantees Republican continuity in the White House. But one conclusion seems inescapable: Democrats need to expand their map. The states that favor them are shrinking in influence — which means the party will too unless it can challenge the Republican hold on the states, especially in the South, adding population and votes with each passing day.

The problem is a big one for Democrats, too. Al Gore abandoned the South (except for FL), and he lost. John Kerry said during the primary that Democrats "make the mistake of looking South" to win, and pointed to the fact that Al Gore lost New Hampshire by about 6,000 votes and would have thus won the presidency without a single Southern state. Translation: drop dead, rednecks!

One of the main reasons that the South will be a problem for liberals is because they are so arrogant and condescending, and Southerners simply are not. Libs don't want to get their hands dirty pressing the flesh with a bunch of hayseeds, so they try to win Western states instead (like Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada). The strategy hasn't worked very well, yet they keep repeating because they get close enough to (in their minds) justify the strategy. After all, why try to win a state full of ham-and-eggers if you don't have to, right guys? Isn't better to go to a fundraising snowlodge retreat in Aspen or desert hideaway in Santa Fe instead of a BBQ in Memphis or a crawfish boil in Baton Rouge?

Quite simply, Democrat politicos from outside of the South don't get it. More and more liberals like Brownstein are begrudingly understanding the need to compete in Dixie, but as long as the national party continues to lean on Northeastern effete liberals like John Kerry, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and Teddy (hiccup..blub-blub!) Kennedy...they will continue to go down in electoral defeat.