Liberals in the South: Don't Write Us Off

Should the Democratic Party fight to regain the South or write it off?

Probably shouldn't ask a Kentuckian right now, given that we're still nursing hurt feelings over being the one and only state in the nation without a Barack Obama campaign headquarters.

But Thomas Schaller and Bob Moser are debating the proposition in Salon, and it's hard to find two more opposite views of Democratic politics in the South.

(More after the jump.)

Schaller, of course, is the author of "Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without The South", the book that advised the national Democratic Party to abandon southern red states to the wingnut freakazoids and concentrate on wooing the purple West.

Moser makes precisely the opposite case in his book, "Blue Dixie: Awakening the South's Democratic Majority", arguing that Democrats can't win national elections without the South.

Schaller is a patronising jerk, with his "that rarest of all birds, the white southern liberal!" condescension. Just among my limited acquaintance in my small rural county, there are at least a dozen white southern liberals - and half of them are middle-aged men. No, that wasn't enough to carry our county for Obama (though he did take several precincts), but we aren't museum specimens for northerners to gawk at, either.

As Molly Ivins often wrote, there's nothing in this world tougher than a Southern liberal. We've fought the bullies and their dead-wrong politics our entire lives, and can out-debate any Bible-Belt wingnut while simultaneously drinking a clutch of DLC pundits under the table.

But Moser isn't much better, implying that southerners have to be bribed into the Democratic column with economic goodies, rather than persuaded by force of argument. He also puts a little too much faith in demographic change and underestimates how vicious the freakazoid wingnuts are going to get as they see their power slipping away.

Here's the truth every Southern liberal knows, and the point that Schaller, Moser and every other hand-wringing Democratic pundit is missing: the politics that will win back the South is the same politics that will win and keep the East, North, West and Middle:

Democrats that stand tall on their hind legs and proud for real American values: the rule of law, equal opportunity, good jobs at good pay, public education, health and safety at home and at work, peace and prosperity.

It's the only thing that works. It's the only thing that ever has.

Cross-posted at Blue in the Bluegrass.

There's more: "Liberals in the South: Don't Write Us Off" >>

Rudy Vroom Vroom

Unabashed plagarism, shameless pandering, staggering disingenuous BS from a megalomaniac, or the the epitome of irony... You decide:

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — As pit crews made last-minute inspections to their cars Sunday at NASCAR's Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani stressed the need for America to break its dependence on foreign oil.

Giuliani likened the pursuit of energy independence and the development of alternative energy sources to the race to put a man on the moon several decades ago.

"Now it's a matter truly of national security," Giuliani said. "We have to pursue all of those alternatives that exist."

In the meantime, Giuliani said, the U.S. needs to focus on domestic sources of oil, as well as oil from friendly countries like Mexico and Canada. He said conservation also will have to play a role.

Clearly, Rudy is no Al Gore, who for years, has repeatedly "likened" the challenge of solving global warming, fostering energy alternatives, and reducing oil dependency to the incredible feat of putting "a man on the moon."

Unlike Al, however, the press will probably forgive Rudy for "corny invocations of America's can-do, put-a-man-on-the-moon spirit" and continue to hype Giuliani as America's mayor and hero of 9/11. Will the media notice that Rudy borrowed from Al Gore? Nah. When did the press treat Al fairly?

Also unlike Al Gore, Rudy chose a sports event to deliver his energy message where gas-guzzling racing cars speed along at 100+ MPH for hours. Essentially, Rudy communicated, "Listen up, NASCAR fans. We need to quit suckling off the Mideast oil teat for the sake of national security, innovate other fuel sources, and conserve. But what the hell. Start your engines after I take a few laps in the official pace car."

Meanwhile, Rudy has pocketed "more money from the energy industry — $477,208 through the first half of 2007 — than any other presidential candidate" and he remains partners with a DC energy industry lobbying firm that successfully thwarted a tax on oil company windfall profits. The relationship has translated into millions for Giuliani's growing fortune.

So what gives? [Keep reading...]

My local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wrote that Rudy's gone NASCAR, "hoping for a Southern hug":

...some folks in the land of y'all have cottoned to a GOP presidential candidate from the land of youse guys....

...For Giuliani, like an anthropologist currying favor in another culture, it's another day of mingling at a tribal ritual.

"No question about it," Barry Wynn, a South Carolina banker and chairman of Giuliani's campaign in that early-primary state. "There are a lot of NASCAR followers in South Carolina. Whether it translates into votes I'm not sure, but it certainly translates into some common interests."...

...Fundraising reports also show southern financial support for the New Yorker. Giuliani is the top GOP fundraiser in six of the 12 southern states, including the big two (Texas and Florida) as well as Alabama, Louisiana and both Carolinas.

And he has supporters among the NASCAR elite. Top drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears each have given him $2,300, the maximum allowed by law. Other donors include NASCAR Chairman Brian France and Rick Hendrick, head of Hendrick Motorsports, a top NASCAR team.

Some of Giuliani's fund-raising prowess in Dixie flows from his deep business ties in the region through his affiliation with the Houston-based Bracewell & Giuliani law firm. Pat Oxford, the firm's managing partner, is in charge of Giuliani's fundraising operation.

The firm's client list includes or has included several major utility companies in the South, including TXU, Florida Power and Light, the Southern Company and Duke Energy.

According to a recent Survey USA poll, Rudy outpaces Mitt Romney by six points and Fred Thompson by eight in South Carolina. He also leads "the GOP field in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida, and [runs] a close second to Thompson in Alabama." He trails Thompson in Georgia by 19 points but his favorability rating runs higher than Fred's.

When southern conservatives get wind of Rudy's pro-gay, pro-choice social positions, will they bolt? If Giuliani clinches the GOP nomination, I suspect a majority of southern rubes will line up for Rudy in the general election. A Democrat in the WH elicits more fear than a social liberal Republican, even if he's a flip-flopper with a pathological tendency to lie about exaggerate his credentials and tough guy record. Remember George W. Bush? Uh-huh. The Deep South's kinda quaint and prone to tribal overtures, something Rudy hopes to exploit.

There's more: "Rudy Vroom Vroom" >>