Southern Strategy for the Democrats

The South Carolina primary has already given rise to lots of pundit speculation about Southern strategy for the Democrats.

The basic situation is this. The Democratic Presidential candidate is not going to win the electoral votes of many Southern states. In fact, the polls are indicating that only Florida and Arkansas, or possibly Tennessee, even look competitive - Florida being easily the largest electoral prize of the three.

So the Democrats will have to concentrate their national campaign in the summer and fall outside the South. On the other hand, the party can't totally ignore the South because there are Congressional seats, Senate seats and governors' chairs to be concerned about.

The fact that the South leans heavily Republican right now in Presidential elections does not mean the South is uniform politically. There are Democratic areas and Republican areas. Their are big urban centers and more rural areas. In Florida, there are many Northern transplants. African-American voters tend to support Democrats heavily but there are variations. In Mississippi, statewide candidates like Senator Trent Lott or Governor Haley Barbour that pander to racist groups get only 10% or less of the black vote, while a conservative Republican like the other Senator, Thad Chochran, polled well over 30% among blacks in his last election .

And having campaigned for two Democratic Presidential candidates in Mississippi, I have some appreciation for the fact that campaigning for a, uh, lost cause (ouch!) has some value.

A couple of good recent articles on the topic, both from the American Prospect, are The South isn't all Bob Jones University, and Democrats can make inroads there by Kevin Phillips and Perhaps. But Democrats on the hunt for votes should look to Ohio by Cliff Schecter and Ruy Teixeira. The Phillips article is particularly interesting since 30 years ago he was considered a prophet of Nixon's "Southern Strategy."