Southern Dems v. Northern Dems

[politicasista]

Why the disconnect? :shrug:

Note to the moderators and everyone, this isn't an attack thread, but there were some interesting observations.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2613806#2614746

[TayTay]

1. There are long non-fiction books worth of difference

It goes back into history and into the different value systems that started each region. (New England work ethic vs. the Southern plantation system that started the region. Long, long story.)

Both sides support and believe in things that are distortions of each other. Southerners have culture, an incredible history of writing, art and music that have informed national culture and even world culture. (It's hard to conceive of modern music without the Southern influence.)

Kevin Phillips new book, American Theocracy, posits that the North may have won the Civil War, but they have lost the culture war ever since and it is now New England that is in national decline in terms of exporting ideas. Hmmmmm.

What things do you believe about 'the North' that I might object to. I have heard it said that New Englanders or Northerners are arrogant, reserved, snobby and rude. Is that a common view?

[politicasista]

2. In the local newspaper, someone mentioned in an LTTE about...

People down here hoping Hillary runs and using the word "eltists" when saying that now Democrats realize that red states matter in a presidential race. It was very short (and snarky in a way). Some other stereotypes I hear is that Northerners/NE are loud and arrogant.

I was thinking about the thread that described one of the Gore daughters' book (Karenna I think) about some "arrogant Senator running." I don't know if she was talking about Kerry, but some attitudes are that liberals can't relate to poor people. There have been some threads about nominating a populist cause if they can speak/relate to the poor with a folksy, southern accent, they will win the presidency. (I know that's probably a myth).

The whole issue here is that people will bash northern democrats for being "uppity liberals" or "elitist" and think that a southern candidate is the way to go, not understanding that it doesn't matter if the candidate is from the South, Northeast, Midwest, or Far West, they will be smeared in the same light as Gore and Kerry were.

And I like Kerry, Gore, and Clark, just really pathetic sometimes that people bash them to promote one over the other.

[ginnyinWI]

4. do you think Edwards helped the ticket, being from the south?

Do things like this really matter anymore?

Here in the Midwest the "common wisdom" is that we are more polite than Easterners, and more hard-working than Southerners. I wonder what other areas think of us!

[JI7]

7. i also think it's more rural v big city than a north/south thing

there are some very blue areas in red states such as New Orleans. New Orleans which votes a higher percent Dem than many of the very blue states.

and of course some very red areas in Dem states.

even in the midwest you will get people in smaller towns viewing those in larger areas such as Chicago differently even though they are in the same state.

[Island Blue]

3. Southerns are walking contradictions

We really, really don't like to be told what to do (especially by Northerners), but we're also world class followers. It's a strange phenomenon.

I think a lot of white Southerners still have a chip on their shoulder not only from losing the Civil War, but also from the Reconstruction period that happened afterward. Reconstruction devastated the South economically. As a result, dire poverty was prevalent up until the end of WWII. After a while, defeat gets genetically encoded in your DNA. Luckily, defeat and poverty seem to be two driving forces in the creation of art, literature, music (and preachers).

When I was growing up, people from up north were known as "Yankees" or "Damn Yankees" for no particular reason. It was never exactly articulated why I wasn't supposed to like folks from up north, but there were rumors of rudeness and something about the afore mentioned, "They can't come down here and tell us what to do." Some things have changed since then, other things haven't.

I went to college with half of New Jersey, so luckily I lost my Northern prejudices long ago. Education helps. As far as New Englanders and Northerners being "arrogant, reserved and snobby" - that describes my father's side of the family to a tee and that's the TRUE Southern side of my family. My mother's people originally came in through New England and they are (for the most part) sweetness and light. Go figure.

On edit: Most Southerns that I know, think of anyone who is not from the South as being Northern. There is very little breaking down into regions beyond North/South.

[wisteria]

5. OMG, I agree with you entirely.

I have lived in Wilmington, NC and Spartanburg, SC and I thought I was alone in my opinion on the South. And to add to this, my very best friend since we were fourteen was born and raised in Gatlinburg, NC until she was thirteen. We laugh, but she still swears the South actually won the Civil War and they were right and the North was wrong.

[Island Blue]

6. Mad dad still refuses to call it the "Civil War"

He calls it the War Between the States. Of course I also grew up hearing it referred to as The War of Northern Aggression. Obsess much? No, not us!

[wisteria]

9. "The War of Northern Aggression", yep, that is how I have heard it

refereed to. I had forgotten that term.

[sandnsea]

8. Ya' know, I don't even mind that

I was called a yankee when I lived in the south, well okaaay, that was different. But whatever.

What gets me is that when a northerner points out that we're not welcome, like I did in that thread, we get our heads bit off too. It seems to me there's two choices if we want to win the south. Run more conservative candidates, which sends the left off to the Greens. Or get southern Dems to change the way THEY run for office. If southern Dems continuously label the national party as gun grabbers, for instance, there's no way a national candidate can win in the south unless they're from the south because southerners won't trust any of them librul gun grabbers from the north. There's a whole host of issues that are like that and it seems to me it all centers around the basic idea that southerners don't like and don't trust government. So how are national Democrats, who believe in government, supposed to win in the south until local politicians start telling them government can be their friend. And if people from other places can't tell them that, then why do southerners keep getting mad at out-of-staters for not coming down there.

[Island Blue]

10. Your last question is a good one.

I don't know the answer. Like I said before, southerners are walking contradictions.

Maybe one thing non-native candidates could do more of would be to concentrate on making appearances in larger urban areas, perhaps close to universities, where folks tend to be more liberal and living with people who have come from many different places is common place. My true education about the larger world began in that hot bed of liberalism Columbia, SC. (I'm only partly joking there.)

I actually think Kerry did a much better job of making appearances in the south than he's given credit for. I know he (and Edwards) had a huge rally in Raleigh just after the convention (I think it was). He also made appearances in Texas, New Orleans and Virgina just to name a few that I know about. I think it was another one of those things that the media chose to ignore so they could perpetuate yet another myth.

The problem of course is which comes first, the candidate or the win? If a candidate knows he can't win in a particular state (southern or not) why would he/she spend a great deal of time there? On the other hand, can he/she win if they don't use some of their valuable and limited time campaigning in that state? This is not an exclusively southern problem. My guess is not many Democratic presidential candidates spend a lot of time in Utah or Kansas either.

One thing I don't think I mentioned in my earlier post is the role of religion in southern society. It has a huge influence and I think it helps to foster that sense of distrust of the government. That's a difficult nut to crack. Since I only go to church when someone I know gets married, I'm afraid I don't have much insight there.

[sandnsea]

11. Locals need to pave the way

Regions within states are different. If you go from the border to the central Oregon Coast, you switch back and forth between liberal and conservative towns; and you also switch from towns that vote for local Dems but never vote for a Dem President to towns that vote straight Dem or Rep. And that's just in a few hundred miles. So it isn't just a southern problem. Here, just like in other states I imagine, we have the problem of rural areas not getting enough attention from the state party. In that other thread about the new Oregon blog WagonTongues, it says specifically it will be about ALL of Oregon, not just Portland. The state leadership needs to do a better job connecting with our rural people too. So I don't think it would do any particular good for candidates to go only to liberal city centers. Kerry went into the heart of "enemy territory" here when he went to Medford, that's what I think all the candidates should be doing right now. We should have Democrats all over the south, all the time. But then it goes back to whether the local Dems are afraid the national Dems will hurt their elections, which takes us right back to what are the basic values of our party going to be. I think we can present traditional Dem values in a way that more people will accept, but it's going to take local politicians that are trusted to get that ball rolling.

[rox63]

12. My ex-husband is a Southerner

even though he has spent a great deal of time up north. He was raised by Southern parents, so his family of origin was steeped in the culture and attitudes from the South.

He also used to refer to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression". Even though he was not the least bit racist, he hung a Confederate flag on his bedroom wall, at least until I moved in. When I explained to him why I found it an offensive symbol, he had a hard time understanding and accepting my attitude. He simply saw t he flag as a symbol of his Southern heritage.

We talked quite a bit about the differences between Northerners and Southerners. He said that Southerners are a lot more outwardly open and friendly, more likely to say hello to you walking down the street, more likely to invite you into their homes for a cold drink on a hot day. He said he had a lot of friends during the years he lived down south, but that most of them were acquaintances rather than close friendships. Also, people tend to be more outwardly religious down south. Churches are part of the glue that holds Southern culture together.

He said that yes, Northerners are more reserved, less likely to say hello to you without already being acquainted, and thus seen as rude by southern standards. He said he had fewer friends up north, but more deep, lasting friendships. Once people let you in, they are more likely to invite you back and keep you in their lives. People seem to take themselves and others a lot more seriously up here, and thus they look like snobbish sticks-in-the-mud, who don't know how to have fun. I think it's more a case that we define fun a bit differently, and tend to take our fun very seriously too. (See 'Red Sox fans') Up north, religion is considered to be part of a person's inner life, and is not spoken of nearly as much as down south.

He also attributed many of these cultural differences to the difference in climate between the North and South. When it's warm most of the year, people aren't bundled up against the cold, and they're more likely to stop and say hi and chat. Up north, where it's cold for half the year (or more in some places), you only invite someone into your home if you don't mind them staying a while and making themselves comfortable. The people you allow into your lives usually people you'd feel comfortable depending on for help in an emergency. Even our sports are a serious matter, because there are fewer chances to enjoy being outdoors. So we suck the marrow out of every opportunity to revel in our short summers.

Does any of this sound accurate to folks here? It's just a bit of what I recall from discussing the subject over several years. It was all over 10 years ago, but the ideas seem pretty much timeless.

[TayTay]

13. You know, I think Sen. Kerry's recent speech was very Northern

Very, very, very Massachusetts. Look at this part:

This hall and this Commonwealth have always been at the forefront of seeking out and living out the truth in the conduct of public life. Here Massachusetts defined human rights by adopting our own Bill of Rights; here we took a stand against slavery, for women’s suffrage and civil rights for all Americans. The bedrock of America’s greatest advances—the foundation of what we know today are defining values—was formed not by cheering on things as they were, but by taking them on and demanding change.

And here and now we must insist again that fidelity, honor, and love of country demand untrammeled debate and open dissent. At no time is that truer than in the midst of a war rooted in deceit and justified by continuing deception. For what is at stake here is nothing less than life itself. As the statesman Edmund Burke once said: “A conscientious man should be cautious how he dealt in blood.”

Gawd, that sounds so familiar. It is that stand on sheer principle that is just so, so, home. There is a corollary. This is staking out very high moral territory. The local wags will be waiting to see if the attempt fails, as most claims laid out on high moral territory involves later dialing back. The distance between the two is what makes it interesting to observe. We expect a John Kerry to be good. (ahm, well, if you must know, I'm not going to admit to this cuz it's over-the-top and I'm no dewey-eyed purist, I am a hard-nosed realist, and I'm not falling for that, and oh my Gawd, that touched me to my soul, but I'm not going to admit it because then I would lose my veneer of protective cynicism but he sounded like I think we should always sound because we are 'the cradle of liberty' and he can't possibly pull this off and btw, he should have sounded like that before. Was it good for you too? Oh Lord that was good. Don't let them know, it'll go to their head.)

Clear? Is this how it is in other parts of the country? You expect your pols to be nearly, flawlessly perfect, except of course that no one can be perfect cuz it's not human, and maybe you shouldn't make the attempt, except that they come from, ahem, Massachusetts and are supposed to be good and noble and speak well and carry that tradition of speaking truth to power except when it can't be done, when, of course, they should do it anyway. (Ah, sigh? Ah, insane anyone?) And, btw, it is a good thing to be arrested for protesting the lack of support for the starving people of Darfur. (2 out of 5 Dems arrested at the Sudanese Embassy were from Mass. That is no accident. We expect stuff like that. Except that it might be doomed. But do it anyway, cuz we stand for something. Een if we lose. Cue the sad Irish fiddles, please.)

That's part of my tradition and why I have a hard time explaining myself in the group from time to time. I think I have a schizophrenic approach to this region of the country. We are great and noble and protectors of the public liberty. We are unable to fulfill that goal and are full of beans. We should try. We shall fail. Maybe we can fail nobly and call it a day. Oh, and you must never, ever, ever give up. It's a tradition. Giving up means win. As they suck, you musn't let them get away with it. (My head hurts.)

New England: The land of hotheads and interferers is not far off the mark. (But we are doing it for your own good you know. It's not our fault if you people continue to fall short of the high ideals and goals that this country was founded on. Oh, yes, I'll take that earmark money for this pet project here, cuz we need it. Now, what was I saying about high and noble ideals. Sigh.)

Hey, at least we try. (Now do you know why it's so hard to explain those who inspire, impress and infuriate us?)

[Island Blue]

14. I'd say your ex-husband pretty much nailed it Rox.

Your explanation was actually much better than mine. :)

Of course as in any region, we don't all share the same values and ideas about life. I do hope that people in other (more traditionally liberal) areas of the country realize just how difficult it is for some of us to have to swim up stream - every day. Being different than the vast majority of the people around you can be a challenge.