what states/demographics do you want to make inroads in?

[LeftWingPunk]

The demographic the Democratic Party IMO needs to make the most inroads in is the white male vote. Us democrats should feel lucky that blacks and woman have the right to vote. Without it, we would only win maybe once every 40 years. Even if we can't win the white male vote we should at least try to win the white vote as a whole. Females as a whole tend to vote democratic much more than men but the democrats even lost the white female vote in 2008. That is a shock when you consider that this election was the biggest democratic victory in 44 years.

As for the region of the country I think that the western states is the area where I like what the democrats are doing. I think it is possible in the near future that democrats should be able to win in every western state except for Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho (I don't count Alaska as a western state since they aren't in the contiguous states).

[bluestateguy]

1. Demographics are on our side

Obama took 43% of the white vote in 2008. If we could just inch that up to 45%, he would have a landslide in 2012.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Alaska DOES count, though,

and I would love to see more Democratic inroads here. We've suffered too long under our reactionary Republican overlords. There are some sensible R's here, but there are many more who are just whack jobs. I love Alaska's progressives. I just want way more of them.

[Chulanowa]

5. Every person I met in Alaska was very liberal

However, despite being very liberal, there's a huge feeling of "fuck it why bother?" and everyone seems to stay home when it comes time to vote.

Perhaps if Alaska did the Vote-by-Mail thing like Oregon, it would help (I dunno if they do that now; they didn't when I lived there). Maybe if Alaskans saw more benefit to being part of the 50 states, rather than being an asterisk...

[Blue_In_AK]

6. I agree 100 percent.

Most of the people I've known here since I moved here in 1975 have been liberal, too, or at least socially libertarian. I know there's this block of right-wing religious fundy nuts, but for some reason my path seldom crosses theirs.

The "fuck it why bother" was glaringly evident on Tuesday when only 18% of registered voters showed up for the Anchorage Municipal elections. That's just pathetic when these are the people who actually have the most influence on what goes on here in our town. Vote-by-Mail would be good and might encourage more people to get involved.

Another issue is that our elections here are almost ALWAYS questionable and you're never quite sure if your vote counted or not. I still don't believe that Lisa Murkowski honestly defeated Tony Knowles in 2004.

[Chulanowa]

8. Depends on how you define "defeated"

When corruption is endemic to the system, you get the phrase "she cheated him fair and square" - in that respect, Alaska looks an awful lot like Louisiana.

[Quantess]

3. Dems lost the white female vote in 2008?

That doesn't sound right. I'll check that out, and you should please post a link if you have one.

Edit to add a link. It shows that women favored obama, but it doesn't mention white women specifically. http://accurateshooter.wordpress.com/2008/11/05/analysis-of-election-results-women-and-young-voters-were-key/

[Juche]

4. I disagree 100% on the white vote issue

Here is why. The democrats actually do fairly decently with white people outside of the south. New England and northeast states are heavily white. So are states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Washington and Oregon. But these states generally turn blue or have democratic senators/representativs.

Outside the south the dems do fine. However in the south the GOP wins the white vote about 65-90% of the time. So you average out the votes of Mississippi or Alabama, where whites are 90% GOP and you average it out with places like New England where whites are 40% GOP, and you average out to a GOP advantage. The deep south is about 80-90% GOP with whites. The rest of the south (Texas, NC, VA, etc) is closer to 60-70%.

But the point is the GOP doesn't win 55-60% of all white voters all over the country. They win white voters by huge margins in the south and rural parts of the rest of the country, lose white votes in the northern midwest/west coast and new england, and you average it out to a slight advantage for the nation as a whole. There are states where the GOP won the white vote in 2008, broke even, and lost the white vote. The white vote was about 70% democratic in Vermont, 52% in California, and about 10% in Alabama.

The problem is if you try and gain support from southern whites and rural whites from the non-south (Indiana, Idaho, Wyoming, etc) you have to change the party to do it. There is a reason southern whites and whites from rural areas in non-southern areas embrace the GOP. Because they harbor a lot of racial resentment and superiority towards blacks and latinos, they endorse religious fundamentalism, they resent the concept of community and being their brothers keeper, they disdain gays and are pro-militarism. There is a reason these people vote GOP, because the GOP shares their disdain for the weak and different. In order to win them over, the democratic party has to share that same value, which isn't going to happen.

As far as white people in general (being a white male myself), whites are a huge part of the democratic movement. Whites make up big majorities in liberals and union workers. Liberals are people who support left wing social & economic policy. They tend to be better educated and more involved in politics. They make up 19% of the electorate, and are about 80% white. Examples are Rachael Maddow, Olbermann, Howard Dean, Kucinich, Thom Hartmann, Sanders, Jon Stewart, Anthony Weiner, Bill Maher, much of DU, etc.

So the white people who I actually want to vote for and be part of the democratic party (white liberals and white union members) are pretty much on board already. The white people who I do not want to be part of the democratic party I don't want because then you have to fundamentally change the dem party to win them. The democratic party used to hold supermajorities among whites in the south until they stood up for civil rights. Then all those whites became GOP. So if you throw blacks, gays and latinos under the bus you might win a few white southern and rural votes. But its not worth it.


What really needs to be done IMO is improve turnout among people who support liberal/progressive concepts and democratic politicians, but who do not vote.

Single women now make up nearly 25% of the electorate, and they go dem 2-1. I've heard some people call single women the dem equivalent of evangelicals. Evangelicals make up 25% of the electorate and go GOP 2-1. However single women don't vote as often as married women (who are more GOP). Latinos and blacks do not vote as often as whites. Millennials do not vote as often as Boomers.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2007/11/unmarried-women-are-democratic-partys-christian-evangelicals

So the problem is turnout. The majority of the country supports democratic and liberal policy. But voter turnout is skewed to benefit the GOP. The more demographics favor the GOP, the higher turnout goes.

Whites have higher turnout than blacks/latinos
Boomers, Xers have higher turnout than millennials
Married people have higher turnout than singles
Higher income people have higher turnout than lower income people


So if you address the issue of voter apathy, then you can gain several million dem votes w/o changing the identity of the party. I've even heard it be said that if people made a meaningful voter registration drive effort in Texas that Texas would go blue.

In fact if you address the discrepancy in income alone Carter would've won in 1980 and Gore in 2000.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2004/0104cervantes.html

[BeFree]

7. Yep

This:
"What really needs to be done IMO is improve turnout among people who support liberal/progressive concepts and democratic politicians, but who do not vote."

We simply must do that. I worked an office in the Obama campaign. I was a amazed at how many people came into the office stating they had never voted before, but they felt they had to vote FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.

That's when I knew, in October of 2008, that Obama would be the next president.

[scheming daemons]

9. I will just be satisfied with the GOP demographic (old white people) dying off

Their children and grandchildren are not nearly as racist and conservative as they are.


Once the 65+ year old white folks die off in 20 to 30 years, the demographics will be decidedly less conservative in this country.


These are the "Reaganites" who were in their 30s when he came to power.

[pinto]

10. Re: Female vote, 2008... 56 % for Obama, 43 % for McCain

An analysis of exit poll data conducted by the CAWP revealed the following:

Women's votes were a significant factor in Senator Barack Obama's victory, with a sizable gender gap evident in the election results....

Women strongly preferred Obama to Senator John McCain (56 percent for Obama, 43 percent for McCain), unlike men, who split their votes about evenly for the two presidential candidates (49 percent for Obama, 48 percent for McCain).

http://womensissues.about.com/od/womensissuesin2008race/a/WomenVote2008.htm