Letters to the Editor
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Another bad idea, Tom.
I can't believe that you are advocating for writing off another section of the voting population--first the south and now white male voters. Is this kind of extreme viewpoint that it takes to draw enough attention to get promoted at UMBC? It must be because it is certainly irresponsible politics when Democrats have to vote for every vote they can get.
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Most of us 'good, ol' white boys' are never going back to the Democrats for sound reasons such as smaller government, less taxation, individual rights, morality, and common sense.
And let me ask if you honestly have found any of those things with the Republican party? Smaller government, less taxation (we are paying a huge price for the Republicans skewed tax cuts), individual rights, morality, and common sense all have taken a severe beating under the current Republican ascendancy.
All the Republicans have really accomplished is stokong the toxic divisions crippling this country. If the certain segment of white males (because it is merely a certain segment) didn't buy into the Limbaugh/Hannity/Fox News racist, homophobic, anti-women, anti-intellectual brand of propoganda stoking their impotent egos maybe things in this country wouldn't be quite as poisonous.
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Sorry
Sorry Saintzak,
Neither party has much of anything they are advocating. But at least as so far, the Republicans want to cut taxes and leave the 2nd Amendment alone...oh yes, and leave Under God in the pledge and the Ten Commandments in the courthouse.
So...what are the Democrats offering now? Something else?
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I'm outraged
I'm a member of the GDMGAWGHE community (Giant Dwarf Miniature-Golf Aficionados With a Golf Handicap of Eight), and I'm outraged that the Democratic Party has written us off, seemingly oblivious to our needs and concerns, sure it can win an election without our votes.
Did I mention I'm outraged!? Well, I am! And I'm going to channel that outrage into constructive action, like posting silly letters on Salon.com. Yeah, that'll learn 'em!
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Biden is the southern candidate
Schaller knows Delaware from seeing it on a blip on the map, kinda on the upper left hand corner of the country (two thumb-widths from New York while may five thumb-widths from Georgia), and possibly from getting ripped off at the toll plaza on I-95.
But if you go in a few miles, down toward the shore, and hang out in the small towns, you will see the same people, culture and cuisine that you find in the Deep South. Delaware, as Biden stresses, was a slave state. It didn't vote to secede because to secede would have been suicidal (this is an example of when looking at a map is instructive).
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Well Then
Perhaps if all the white boys vote Republican, the Democrats will care what they think afterwards.
May even win the Republicans the Oval Office. Bet the Democrats would care what the white boys had to say then.
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oh, you are so oppressed!
Point is, the party claims to no longer need white male voters and it is wasting it's time trying. So white male voters are irrelevant. However, at least you can take heart that as a Democratic female, your voice will still be heard and your opinions count with the party.
No, the point is that the Democratic Party claims nothing of the kind! If anything, the Dems pander like crazy to get back white male voters of a certain socio-economic bracket that won't vote for a "girlie man" Democrat anyway. Which if you think means they are listening to the likes of me, you're wrong! Because they take me for granted, the way Repubs take Evangelicals for granted.
If anything they wring their wee hands and worry that the anti-war folks and the feminists and the socialized medicine and legalized marijuana advocates in their ranks will turn off the likes of you!
But why actually *read* the article when you can get your Oppressed Outrage on ...
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An excercise in frivolity
A bunch of people getting angry at an article written by some guy who doesn't represent anything but himself and responding with angry rants in a blog's comment section.
How constructive.
To clarify:
-Democrats are a corparatist party with little regard for your average American - just like the republicans.
-Robert Schaller is an author who gets paid to write articles and is unaffiliated with the Democratic party
-Salon is a blog whose editors frequently run material based on the number of comments they think it will generate
Let's all step back, take a breath, and acknowledge what a silly little excersise this has been.
To Salon - find some policy papers to publish. Articles like this are below your standard.
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White male voters
Democrats will continue to lose the majority of white, Southern and Border state, males with less than a college education (that's the real target group) until they have the brains and nerve to run on their only real issue: economic fairness. Republicans only represent rich people. Since 1980, white, male, working class, voters have been the most screwed group in America. Until they figure that out or somebody tells them, they will continue to vote their anger and vote for Republicans.
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More inaccuracy from Schaller
When, oh when, will Salon and other outlets start doing basic fact-checking before they publish Tom Schaller's "provocative" essays? This appears to be yet another screed on Schaller's pet topic: How the Southern United States needs to be drubbed out of the Democratic Party for good, in favor mostly of states in the western U.S.
The last two grafs of Schaller here give away the game: "Bubba" is alleged to be predominantly Southern. Yet what Schaller doesn't mention is what's available using a cursory Google search. This page:
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting/cps2004.html
illustrates an undeniable fact: There are nearly three times more African American voters in the Southern United States than in any other region in the country, and six times more than in the West. As the published author of a book about African-American state legislators, Schaller's omission of this information is particularly egregious.
What Schaller's unwittingly done is make a case exactly opposite of his intention, in proving the point that the Democratic Party will never, ever win another national election until it starts showing up in states south of the Mason Dixon. (In other published works, Schaller invariably tries to excise Florida from the South, which is laughable to anyone who's ever spent much time in the northern portion of the state - or anyone who spent time there during the 2000 elections, when Republicans prevailed through the same divide-and-conquer techniques that have proved so effective in other Southern states. Republicans win through simple tactics like lightning-rod social issue initiatives placed on the ballot in statewide election years; it would be a simple tactic for an organized Democratic Party to thwart such monkeyshines, if it could only summon the will.)
Schaller has no on-the-ground political experience, and it shows. Else he'd also be on top of another indisputable fact: winning the Presidency without any Southern states would require a win in MI, PA, NM, AZ, OH, WI and several other states which are certainly not a lock for the Democrats, as evidenced by their Republican governors and Republican-dominated legislatures. (Go to 270towin.com and see for yourself.) Democrats will almost certainly lose control of the Senate in 2008, thanks to the preponderance of Southern races that year and this same failure to craft a longterm strategy.
Maybe Schaller ought to get off his soapbox and spend some time on the ground actually trying to elect Democratic candidates. It would probably do a lot more good than the frequent publication of his woefully distorted essays ever will.