I’ve been doing some analysis of historical electoral college voting maps, and I hope to have it ready to share soon. There are some interesting history lessons on these maps about how politics in America has evolved over time. One thing struck me in examining the recent ones: The conversion of the South from a Democrat stronghold to a Republican stronghold wasn’t a complete and instantaneous thing. In fact, the two most recent Democrat presidents (Carter and Clinton) were both Southerners who pulled significant electoral votes from Southern states.
This, of course, suggests an obvious potential strategy for Democrats: Nominate Southerners in the future and you’ll do better in the electoral college. Picking up a few Southern states can allow the Northern Alliance to get enough votes to push you over the magic 270. This is an obvious thing, one I’ve thought about before, and one I’m sure many Democratic movers and shakers have thought about. But Bob Novak points out a problem resulting from Tuesday’s election:
In the wake of
Kerry’s unimpressive candidacy, Democrats ponder the alternative of
Howard Dean’s radicalism that is even further removed from the
political mainstream. The more attractive course would be a return to
the artful Southerner model of Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton —
conservative in style, liberal in substance. But with the Republican
sweep in Dixie, there are no such Democrats to choose from — certainly
not Sen. John Edwards, who as vice presidential candidate exerted no
impact in his own state of North Carolina. Sen. Hillary Clinton as the
presidential nominee in 2008 would only compound the party’s dilemma [Source].
This is something that hadn’t quite struck me before. Even if the Dems might want to nominate more candidates on the mold of Bill Clinton, they will find it increasingly difficult to do so. There are only two basic offices that put you in position to run for the presidency: senator and governor (vice-president doesn’t count since vice-presidents are almost invariably senators or governors first). You have to be one of these two things before you are likely to be perceived as a credible presidential candidate.
But the Dems can’t come up with a Southern nominee if there are no Southern Democratic senators and governors. We’re not at the zero number just yet, but we’re getting close, with Republicans holding all but four Southern senatorships and a similar number of governors, and many of these are not suitable presidential candidates for a variety of reasons. Not every senator or governor makes a good candidate for president: Just look at Howard Dean (a governor) or Ted Kennedy (a senator).
If the Republican consolidation presently underway in the South gets to a certain point, it may become impossible for Democrats to pursue a Southern strategy for lack of potential candidates, quite apart from the increasing radicalization of the party (which would disincline them to nominate a moderate Southern Democrat).
It may be possible for them to raid other red state areas for candidates with Southern appeal, but not for long if the consolidation continues apace there as well.
The only politician who comes to mind is Evan Bayh, Democratic governor of Indiana. Indiana’s not the south, but it’s rural, religious, and socially conservative. That Bayh’s been successful there means he’d likely be more acceptable to Southerners than any Northeastern pol.
We could always hope and pray that the Democrats learn the lessons of this last election and take on a pro-life platform. That would make elections really interesting!
Evan Bayh was the first name to come to my mind, also. Conventional wisdom points to Hillary Clinton in 2008. I’m not so sure. If Kerry, a Mass. liberal, couldn’t get any southern states, what makes folks think Mrs. Clinton, a NY/IL liberal, can get any southern states. She might have a shot at OH, but maybe not. The Republicans would have an even easier time getting their base out against Clinton than they did against Kerry.
Other names… Bill Richardson from NM, Ed Rendell from PA?
I thought this was interesting.
http://www.democratsforlife.org/index.html
One other comment, I’m a registered Republican but I think that if the Democrats embrace a “pro-life” position that they would become the majority party again.
Of course reading some of the Democratic reaction, like the NYTimes Paul Krugman, that won’t be happening anytime in the foreseeable future.
Speaking as a pro-life, Catholic, Democrat, I can tell you there has been more than alittle discussion over whether the Democratic Party even needs the electoral votes of the Old Confederacy.
However, an issue that arises is whether the rejection of a “southern strategy” of our own would necessarily turn off enough voters in Northern states with, shall we say, red state sensibilities. I’m thinking of the central section of Pennsylvania, Indiana and, apparently, significant parts of Ohio.
I do not believe that this election was the monumental landslide some are painting it as, but it certainly has significance. I’m reminded of the SNL skit after the first ’92 primaries “message received, you’re pissed”.
But please let’s never forget that the Republican Party “won” the South, and the Democratic Party “lost” the South on the strenght of the most vile, hateful, racist propoganda imaginable in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act. It’s really not something to be proud of.
Jon:
I love Bill Clinton and wish he could’ve run again, like Reagan at the end of his second term, Clinton most likely could’ve won.
But I’m really concerned about a Hilary Clinton candidacy in ’08. She’s the perfect example of a candidate with vast appeal among primary voters, but who would be incredibly polarizing in a general election. When you add to the people who voted for Bush this time all the people who would never elect a woman president (from either party) I fear for the results.
The left-wing of the party begrudgingly accepted Bill Clinton over Jerry Brown in ’92 and John Kerry over Howard Dean in ’04. I hope we give someone like Bayh a chance in ’08. I believe a Bayh/Vilsack ticket would have broader cultural and issue appeal.
“But please let’s never forget that the Republican Party “won” the South, and the Democratic Party “lost” the South on the strenght of the most vile, hateful, racist propoganda imaginable in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act. It’s really not something to be proud of.”
I categorize that sentiment with the Paul Krugman wing of the Democratic Party. Speaking as someone who has lived significant portion of my life in both the north (PA,OH,NJ) and the south (AL,GA,TN), that sentiment is wrong, though I will grant it may represent a significant portion of the current Democratic party.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that the 19th-century Democratic Party was the *conservative* party of its day. The modern Republican Party *began* as the liberal, rule-from-Washington party of its day. Only in the 20th-century was there a major flip-flop of both parties to opposite ends of the political spectrum.
In short, the South has always been red; it’s the major parties that have changed their colors.
Jon: With all due respect, Nixon’s “southern strategy” has been well documented by none other than his own advisors.
And it was no coincidence that Ronald Reagan praised “states rights” in Philadelphia, Mississipi.
I’m not suggesting the only base of current support for Republicans in the South in racist, but it was undoubtedly the deciding factor that moved the region from D to R in the ’60s. And the convenient resurrection of the confederate flag issue in the ’02 midterm elections demonstrates that it still has some resonance.
And Mia is right. The parties shifted when the Democrats rejected Jim Crow and embraced the Civil Rights Act, thus spawning the Dixie-crats who today reside quite comfortably within the southern Republican Party.
Esquire, That’s ok. I understand that disappointment over the election is probably still fresh. Take a week. If you still buy into the “southern Republicans are the old 60s racists” claptrap in today’s 21st Century country, then I’ll just add you to the list of folks to not take seriously.
Esquire, if you look at actual history instead of perceived history a little more, I belive that you will find that the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed ONLY with the help of the Republicans in Congress. More Republicans (or at least a higher percentage of them vs the Dems) supported it than did the Democrats.
Also, if you look at the integration issues of the day and prior it seems that the obstuctionists in the South were all good old boy Democrats. How can they be obstructionists then, pass the Civil Rights Act (supposedly on their own without Republicas) and then join said Republicans because they had been betrayed? Why join a party that in actuality was more responisble for the passing of Civil Rights than the one they left?
Sure, there’s a lot of racism in America. I find most of it on the Left with their nanny-state mentality toward all minorities and special interests groups. They are told that they can’t do anything on their own without the help of a Really Big Government(tm) run by Democrats.
I saw one anaysis yesterday that showed if the same states had been won twenty years ago that Kerry would have been elected. Obviously the shift in the South from one quarter of the electorate to one third of it has had a major impact.
Senator Miller had a column in the Alantic Journal (AJC) that spelled this out and especially the reverse shift in parties for Senators.
Another factor is not only the pool of Democrat Senators shrinking, but historically we have preferred Governors over Senators. JFK was the last Senator to be elected. More damaging to them is the shrinking number of governors.
Tim, my point was that the Democrats who opposed integration simply left the party, via the Dixiecrat party, for the Republicans.
Many of the Republicans who supported integration are cut from the same cloth as those derided as RINO’s now.
Jon, you’re really overstating my point. I simply pointed out, whatever the basis for Republican support in the South today, it was won a few decades ago in a rather shameful fashion.
There is a significant element of truth in what Esquire is saying here. I plan on blogging on this soon. The accusation that racism is a major or even a significant element in the Republican party today is absurd, but the segregation issue did play a significant role in the Southern shift in the 1960s.
It is also true that originally the Republicans were the party of Big Government and liberalism, while the Democrats were the party of smaller government and conservativism. How the transition happened is something I’ll be blogging about soon. It was more than just the events of the sixties that did it.
Jimmy–My pet theory is that 1964–1980 saw a dramatic shift in the leadership and ideology of both parties that has only recently filtered all the way down to the electorate. I look forward to your thoughts on the matter.
Esquire, the GOP won the South because the South was the Slave Power.
The GOP a hundred years later, started the civil rights movement as far as federal legislation was concerned.
The Democrats were and are the Party of slavery, Jim Crow and abortion.
Jon, Jon, the GOP got started because the Whig Party – the conservative party of its day, would not take a firm stand on the Abolition issue. Had nothing to do with “rule from Washington” that was the Democrat Party, attempting to extend the Slave Power throughout the Free States and into Mexico. The South only had borrowed the notion of States Rights when it became plain to them that we northern farmers who worked our -own- fields weren’t about to stand for manstealers on our free soil. We hid the slaves and helped them get to Canada, we pioneered Bleeding Kansas to make it Free, suffering the wrath of the Southron militias. We volunteered to fight and die to free the slaves. That is family history, slaver propagandists and slavery revisionists aren’t going to change our minds on that. We know. Our great-great grandfathers were there.
While the southern issue is important (remember that the South was a Republican stronghold immediately after the Civil War), I believe that the more important regional issue today is the coasts vs. the rest of the country (which I’ll call the heartland for lack of a better term).
Most of the recently elected presidents (the Bushes, Clinton, Carter, LBJ, Eisenhower, Truman) came from the heartland, and those that didn’t (Nixon, Reagan, Kennedy, FDR) had some significant appeal to the heartland.
It isn’t a requirement that a President come from the heartland (some STILL question whether the elder Bush is a Texan), but it IS a requirement that a President APPEAL to the heartland in some way. You can’t win the country by campaigning in New York and Los Angeles (or in Boston and Berkeley).
Circuit, you can’t seriously compare the Democractic and Republican parties of the mid- to late-19th Century with their current incarnations. They’ve essentially switched hats.
And Ontario, the South was only a “Republican stronghold” immediately after the Civil War because of Reconstruction governments imposed upon the treasonous states by Washington. That led to the post-Reconstruction backlash with Jim Crow, etc.
Circuit Rider:
I appreciate your contributions to this blog and always look forward to reading your comments.
I believe in looking history squarely in the eyes and acknowledging the good and the evil it contains. This means acknowledging not only the history of racism and opporession in the South, it also means acknowledging the good things about the South. It further means acknolwedging the history of racism and oppression in the North, as well as the good things about the North.
The motives on *both* sides in the Civil War were more complicated than you are making it appear (in particular the characterization of Northern soldiers’ reasons for fighting is particularly problematic as slavery did not become a war goal until 1863; the war began with Lincoln promising to leave the slaves alone).
In any event, I am not prepared to have this issue discussed in purely “dump on the South”/Northern triumphalist terms. This language has the effect of poisoning the atmosphere and thus gets us into the territory of a Rule 1 violation.
the war began with Lincoln promising to leave the slaves alone
I am mostly ignorant of American history, but in just this past election we had John Kerry say he was against gay “marriage” and George Bush come out in favour of it.
We all know what they really meant.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates, and family history as to why Great-great Grandfather Strader and great-great Grandfather Sampson Smith did the things that they did, suggest a different story. The first moved to the Kansas prairie as a Methodist lay preacher to be an abolitionist vote in Kansas Territory, and the other off to join the Iowa Cavalry at the age of 16 “to free the slaves”. Although that unit -might- have been sent to Colorado to protect the surviving Cheyenne after Sand Creek.
Jimmy,
Yes, in fact I like Sweet Tea and real BBQ and real chili. Up here in northern Iowa and Minnesota they make something they -call- chili. It has ground beef, beans, tomatoes and onions in it. But no chilis.