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Read other letters about this article
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"a Democratic Party that constantly relies on candidates from the South to snatch one or two swing states from the Republicans doesn't look like something that could ever attain the status of a real majority party"
"People must be on something strong tonight. I think we can safely say the Dems are in no imminent danger of being overly reliant on the south for anything for at least the past 35 years. However what HAS changed since the south has gone solidly Republican, is that we ARE overly reliant on a handful increasingly slim Dem-leaning states such as Wisconisn, Minnosota, Oregon and Washington, New Hampshire, New Jersey, et al."
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Since you managed to read "a Democratic Party that constantly relies on candidates from the South to snatch one or two swing states from the Republicans" as "the Dems are over-reliant on the South", you're not in a good position to be making jokes about being on something strong.
A Democratic Party that was secure in all the states it slimly won in 2004 would still be a losing party. To control enough electoral votes to win the presidential election, the Democratic Party depends on winning in additional swing states - which since 1968 means the South, Southwest, and the Rust Belt. The northern part of the country between the Mississippi and the west coast is practically assumed to be uncontested. (Excepting the 1992 election, when Ross Perot threw Montana to Clinton.)
As Michael Lind is pointing out, the Democrats do relatively well in the states currently defined as "swing states" when they nominate people from the Southern culture, and relatively badly when they don't. A winning strategy for the Democrats means either nominating Southerners, or redefining which states it competes for.
Michael Lind is suggesting the first strategy. I'm saying the second one deserves some thought too.
