If Kerry loses, will northern democrats be considered again?

[fujiyama]

I mean seriously if Kerry loses, will the party consider nominating a northern liberal again in the next two or three decades? I honestly don't see it as viable.

This is pretty frustrating.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. As a northeasterner, I am offended by this "We must run a southerner"...

crap!!!!!!!

What's so great about the south?????

:mad:

[fujiyama]

3. I agree...

That's why I'm asking the question. I would love to see a northener as a president -- especially a good 'ole "Massachussets Liberal" as the RW would love to froth about. In a way Kerry really is a test about whether a real liberal can get elected or not.

It just seems that with electoral demands, a media spouting RWing propaganda 24/7, it's really such a steep uphill battle and these stupid poll numbers are kinda depressing.

[R3dD0g]

6. The south sucks.

I know, I was born here, I've spent most of my rather experienced life (53 yrs) here and expect to die here.

We're a bunch of inbred morons who should never have been given the vote after the Civil War.

And no, I'm not being facetious or playing some Aprils Fool joke.

The South was reintegrated into the union much too fast and without enough punishment.

We're still too arrogant.

[realdeal22k]

29. The south sucks?

---We're a bunch of inbred morons who should never have been given the vote after the Civil War.---

Are you speaking for just yourself or the general populace of the southern states? Is this your plan to bring the southern voters on board with the Kerry team and other Democrats? Is insulting the entire south a plan to bring in more northern bigots or just to extract the bigots living in the South?

All these innuendo north/south frames confuse me.

[tedoll78]

35. Wow - I pretty much see things the same way.

I might not go as far as to declare that the vote should be withheld, but I do agree that my fellow Southerners largely vote like retards.

My neighbors vote Republican overwhelmingly. Over and over again. Election after election.
And yet our education ratings are consistently the lowest in the nation.
And yet our poverty rates are among the highest.
And the Bible Belt has the highest divorce rates.
And our healthcare system consistently lags.
And so on.

We vote Republican over and over again, only to see ourselves trailing in most quality of life statistics.. and then we wonder why. (I'm sure everyone here knows the definition of insanity.)

And when you look at the electoral college, the North has about the same number of electoral votes as the South does! Why don't we ever hear "Can the GOP win without a Northerner on the ticket?" And why don't we hear "Is Bush too conservative for the more intelligent northern voters?" We NEVER hear things like that; it's double-standard to the hilt.

I say screw the South. They/we complain about government taxing us too largely, so I propose that the next time we Democrats control things, we only send the South the amount of funding that it adds to the treasury. Let us see the yieldings of what we complain about! No more of this "stiff the Blue states on funding" crap! The one time in the past thirty-plus years that WE hold the White House, the South's quality of life improves nicely.. and yet my retard neighbors STILL don't get the message.

Sorry to be so harsh, but I do think that South-bashing is warranted. Just look at how we vote..

[realdeal22k]

30. What's so great about the south?????

What's so bad about the south compared to the north?

[charlie]

32. What's so great about the south?

That's a question you should answer, since it's conventional wisdom that a northerner on a national ticket is near akin to suicide, and courting a recalcitrant south is what's necessary for Democratic electoral success. And to head off parochial boosterism, outside of Asia, I've lived nowhere but the south -- I'm a southerner.

[mourningdove92]

2. We are not going to lose.

eom

[R3dD0g]

4. I think you're giving the 'party'

much more power than it actually has.

The 'party' didn't nominate Kerry, the primary voters did. The party didn't shorten the primary season for Kerry, they shortened the season long before any of the candidates announced in order to lessen the traditional intraparty bloodshed.

I get a kick out of hearing how the 'party' defeated Dean or the 'party' is keeping DK down. And of course the 'party' shoved Sharpton et. al. to the curb in order to support Kerry.

Nobody seems to remember that in December 2003 the 'smart talk' was trying to figure out why Kerry was such a loser and Dean was such a runaway winner - before the first vote was cast. They don't even consider the voters, they just think it's all predetermined by some 'party'.

Bullshit. The voters run the Democratic party, always have always will. It's messy, but that's democracy.

[fujiyama]

9. Dean and Kerry

were both near the bottom as the candidates I believed could defeat Bush. Not that I disliked them -- I just didn't have the same confidence in those two that I had with Edwards. The reason I liked Edwards wasn't necessarily because he was from the south -- it was because he had more of an ability to relate to regular people.

Kerry is a tough fighter (though it's beena rough couple weeks) and I expect him to start going after Bush harder soon. I'm not writing him off yet - way too early for that. We haven't even picked a VP for God's sake.

I just find it frustrating that the electoral college is biased against the democratic party. I know it's historical, not intentional, but it's still frustrating as hell. There is simply a larger number of states the GOP can count on as a lock.

[Pastiche423]

11. The primary voters did?

Then how do you explain the many, many primary voters that have yet to vote?

That's hogwash!

The party "leaders" anointed Kerry. They had to select a nom of the status quo variety. Any others that wanted real change had to be smeared and/or assassinated in the press.

Btw, I do remember that Kerry seemed to be dead in the water just prior to Iowa. I also remember the Osama ad, backroom deals and the media airing the scream 673 times.

The primary voters? BULLSHIT!

[R3dD0g]

13. Are you saying that the 'party' caused the media

to play the 'scream' a hundred million times?

I don't see how you can attribute the choices of the media to the Democratic party. We can't even get those bastards to tell the truth about our candidates, how do you think that we've gotten them to trash a single candidate that the 'party' didn't want?

I think you guys have really gone over the edge with your search for the reason for Dean's implosion.

I didn't get involved with the early primaries because my state still hasn't had our primary. But, the front loading of primaries began a long time ago, when states tried to wrest control away from Iowa & NH.

Each early state thought they could get a say in the selection and they all did the same thing and we wind up with the current logjam in early March. That wasn't a decision by the Dem party a dozen years ago in anticipation of Dean's run, that was states trying to increase their own influence.

It seems to me that the folks who are saying the Dem party sabotaged Dean are just not comfortable with democracy.

[Pastiche423]

17. "I didn't get involved with the early primaries..."

Then how do you know what happened?

If you think what happened in January is democracy, then you do not understand the definition of democracy.

IMHO, THE most important thing any of us can do, is to work for, support and donate to the Dems running for House and Senate seats. That is the only way we can work to get our country back.

I am a member of a website (which can not be identified here), as well as several groups that are doing just that.

Mr. Status Quo Kerry ain't gonna do it.

[R3dD0g]

18. a website (which can not be identified here),

What the hell does that mean?

Are you a member of some secret society that is only providing us DU members with a modicum of your wisdom?

How do I know what happened? I read everything I can get my hands on, this site included.

I agree with you about the Congressional races. If we had the Congress it wouldn't really matter who was in the WH. The Repukes stifled everything Clinton tried to do, by holding the Congress.

[Pastiche423]

20. No secret society at all

It is simply against DU rules to mention the website.

And if you read everything you could get your hands on, then you are in denial. Not to worry, though. It appears you have a lot of company.

[R3dD0g]

28. Against DU rules?

What rules are those?

Why would DU forbid the mentioning of a website.

Please email me at:

mailto://[e-mail]

[Gman]

5. Once again it will always `be whoever has the best organization

and is well funded. Best organization = people/feet on the ground. Not a cyber/internet organization on paper.

[jjmalonejr]

7. Dean was WAY better organized than Kerry.

He also had way more money.

More feet on the ground.

What happened was retail politics. As the voters in IA, NH, SC and so on got to know Kerry, they chose him and not Dean.

Pretty simple.

[David Dunham]

10. Kerry raised $50 million in first quarter, more than Dean got in total.

[mot78]

15. That's because we have one candidate to rally around

If we had one candidate all of last year, we'd probably only ave slightly less money than *.

[efhmc]

8. Since he will win, this is a (excuse my French) a STUPID supposition.

[Nazgul35]

12. I Kerry loses...it will not be because he's from the NE

It'll be becuase Kerry lost...

Though there will be plenty who will be looking for scapegoats to blame....

This election is Kerry's to lose....it won't be easy, but he has a good shot....

[mot78]

14. Who says the South hasn't risen again

If we don't nominate someone North of Mason-Dixon, the media tells us we've already lost. Well what about JFK? Wasn't he a Mass Liberal? What about FDR? Wasn't exactly a Southerner, unless you count his GA vacation residence.

(No offense to Southern DUers or anything...but I hate being told that a Northern Liberal can't win simply because he's a Yankee).

[R3dD0g]

16. Nixon set the stage that we're all playing on now.

He recognized the innate racism of the southern white male.

Before LBJ, the south was solid Democrat. When LBJ signed the EEOC laws, he told his aide 'there goes the south'. He knew our prejudice was inbred.

Nixon grabbed the south with his 'crime in the streets' campaign. Yankees believed he was talking about the Viet Nam war protests, us southerners knew he was talking about the blacks protesting for voting rights.

There is a characteristic in southern white men that requires an 'other' to master. The southern man must be above someone else. And since we're the bottom of the bottom, when the Dems aligned themselves with desegregation, we lost our bottom.

The Dems will not retake the southern white male in any of our lifetimes.

[DaveSZ]

19. I agree.

It was civil rights that lost the South for the Dems.

Clinton did quite well in the South, but he was from Arkansas.

The South as it stands is completely written off to *, except Florida.

[R3dD0g]

21. I don't think that the Dems should cater to the racism

that is innate to the southern white male.

Clinton, somehow, understood that racism and was able to bridge the gap between the whites & blacks. It was a remarkable thing to watch. But, he was unable to change the underlying innate racism.

He won a few southern white votes, enough to win the WH, but he didn't permanently change anything. No Dem will win the southern white male as long as we're alive.

We're just too racist and bred to believe that our problems are caused by the 'other'. The 'other' can be blacks or Muslims or Iraqis or just about anybody that a decent demagogue chooses to target.

[mot78]

22. Unfortunately you're right

And the Repubs had to use a non-Southern strategy for nearly 100 years. The only way the Democratic Party would ever retake the South is if we had an ideology realignment on the two parties, where Demorats become the Conservatives again, and the Repubs become the Liberals again (the two parties had reversed roles from the Civil War to the New Deal)

[R3dD0g]

25. The Civil Rights movement

was pushed by the Republicans.

My favorite Republican was/is Winthrop Rockefeller. He was governor of Arkansas back in the early 60's, after the Central High fiasco. I remember my boss telling me what an evil bastard he was. He said that if Win was elected we'd all be working for 'niggers'. Gawd, why did I stay here?

Back then, most Republicans were moderate and most Southern Democrats were reactionry racists.

You say that the shift occurred between the Civil War and the New Deal. I have to object. The shift ocurred when LBJ signed the EEOC laws in '64 or so.

[IronLionZion]

33. the world is becoming smaller

meaning that stuff is becoming less regional and more global. You can find southerners everywhere, and you can find all kinds of folks in the South now. The diversity will only increase with time so the Southern white male that you speak of is losing influence in the South. Ideas and whatnot are also moving around through education and the media.

There will always be bigots everywhere, but we can still make a difference.

[IronLionZion]

23. Is Bush Southern?

Some people say he's from New England and only pretends to be from Texas. Yes his daddy too.

[IronLionZion]

24. and why the hell is Jeb governor of Florida?

[R3dD0g]

27. Money ??? n/t

[R3dD0g]

26. Southern is a state of mind.

It really doesn't have much to do with place of birth or where you grew up.

It is really a class mindset. Every southerner knows from birth where in the class hierarchy he fits. There's no mobility between the classes. If you're born to white trash you're white trash, it doesn't matter whether you make a million, you're still white trash to the southern society.

Bush and his daddy really don't fit into southern society. They're Texans, we don't consider them southern. Texans are outcasts who pretend to southern racism, but have no real reason for it.

Daddy & him can eat all the pork rinds they want, but we'll always know that their racism is learned not inbred.

[IronLionZion]

31. that sounds like a horrible state of mind

racism and class hierarchy? :wtf: Is this America? what century is this?

[Lexingtonian]

34. LOL

A great description but sad, too....