GOP’s White Southern Men Problem: Why They Can’t Hold Democrats Down Any Longer

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http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/gops-white-southern-men-problem-why-they-cant-hold-democrats-down-any-longer

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And the Democrats have been bemoaning their Lost Cause ever since. For decades it was an article of faith that the only way for the Democrats to achieve a real majority againwould be to recapture that Southern white vote. They agreed that they had to only nominate sons of the South who could speak the lingo. And they had to ensure that they never again spoke ill of guns, only spoke ill of gays and always praised God as if every day was an evangelical revival meeting. This was best articulated by a strategist by the name of Mudcat Saunders who spelled it out as clearly as anyone’s ever done it:

SouthNow: What’s the prescription for Democrats?

Mudcat: There’s only one prescription and that’s tolerance. I’m a white, southern male who hunts. I’m a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which has two black members, by the way. I don’t know how many northern Democrats who have tolerance for my kind.

SouthNow: What’s your strategy for Southern progress?

Mudcat: We need to quit all this tap dancin’ around the truth….We need to stop tap dancin’ around the issues of guns, gays and God….We’ve lost the white male. We need to get ‘em back. We need to get through the cultural wall. It’s a wall of straw. Inside every rural Republican is a Democrat trying to get out.

Saunders, who has worked on the campaigns of Mark Warner, John Edwards, and Bob Graham, thinks that if Democrats ease up on the culture stuff they can win in the South: “We’ve got an affection for big guns and fast cars. It’s a macho thing. I’ve not seen any attempt by the Democrats to get into that culture.”

He was wrong about that. They tried, oh how they tried. It just didn’t work. And why was that? Well, the Democrats have a constituency that these rural, white Southern males aren’t too fond of. Several as a matter of fact.