Is the South worth winning?

Mmmmmmmm I don't think that's a winning strategy.

Concede nothing. Go after every vote - even GW's.

Hey, not to, hmm. . . turn this into a Yankee-Redneck debate, but I'm from North Carolina, and I can tell you for sure that there are a fair number of Dean supporters "down there", even with the confederate flags (which, by the way, are becoming very much in bad taste and disliked, even by the traditionalists).

The south has a number of groups of people, including a large boom in the student population, that would be more than willing to vote for a democrat, if they'd ever come and talk to them. . . Dean supporters to whom I've talked (mostly because they happen to be my friends :-)) have said they're turned off by the lack of support and interest shown in us. The last candidate to set foot in North Carolina was, after all, Bush.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. . .

Yeah let's go with that grand strategy

Dean's point, if I can make for him, was we Democrats have to talk to everybody even those who we believe have no common ground with us.
Dean says these poor schlubs with the rebel flag are being conned and he's right about that. So you go to them and talk and maybe they come over to your side not, as the Rev. Al said with the Confederate Flag, but without it because they don't need it anymore. See?
It's still the middle class voter's that elect Presidents, but we need the soccer moms of yesteryear and the reformed johnny rebs of this year to fill out the rest of the electorate.

we got the most votes last time, we need the that and the most populous states this time.

Democrat Candidates
If they were really team oriented all of the would drop out now and support Dean. Dean should campaign in the South and let the voters there know that the Repubs are not healthy for them or anyone else that isn't part of his elite upper class crowd.

A comment from the Almanac of American Politics- 2002

quote

"Republicans have increasingly become identified with conservative and moralistic positions on social and cultural issues such as abortion and gun control. Republican fortunes have improved in the heartland of America---small towns and farms in the South. Although President Bush lost non Southern suburbs by 15% in 2000, he won Southern Suburbs by 20% giving him a two percent victory margin in the suburbs."

No one can win the presidency without taking at least one or two Southern States.

Howard Dean as translated by Bob Dylan 40 years ago:


A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
"You got more than the blacks, don't complain.
You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain.
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid,
And the marshals and cops get the same,
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool.
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks,
And the hoof beats pound in his brain.
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

Powerful words!