As for dissembling about intending to be ironic and lamenting that I somehow attacked you personally, good one! But non-sequiturs about feeble minds do not irony make. More importantly, I don’t know you to attack you personally, I just know the disjointed argument you set forth and the tone you did it in. Neither serves your cause very well.

But thanks for playing.

I am pleased that you choose to attack me personally. That generally means I am ahead on points. Keep it up, because while you are kvetching, I’m working. Got some more southern democrats to get elected in 08 – I’m a big Edwards fan. Got a party meeting next week to start 08 planning.Part of that 50 state thing.

I also don’t do pissing contests.

The last word is yours.

Sara 69 — thank you so much for coming by. Your observations you’d posted at Next Hurrah were exactly the kind of thing that needs wider distribution for us to understand the challenge we face. I also wonder whether Carville’s negativity has any relationship to his Southern roots.

ccobb – I believe I did indicate above that I hadn’t read Schaller’s work. If you have, great for you.

I already live and breathe the 50-State Strategy. When I say “concede no seat”, I mean we actively build a Democratic organization in every district, develop and recruit a progressive candidate by way of those organizations. Sara at Next Hurrah shared information indicating how very fundamental and rudimentary the work is in districts in the South; we start where we are, even if it’s to unlock the cabinet containing the charter for the local party.

But we cannot build a local brand in any district if we do not provide funding. We cannot establish identity within the local population if we do not have a 7/24 presence. We cannot attract and train activist volunteers if there is no presence, nor will potential candidates seek help and training to emerge. For this reason I believe there is a pointed limit to what you refer to as triage.

There are two other strategic reasons why we cannot withhold funding to Southern Dem development.

1) Brand Dem cannot and should not be a regional brand. Ever. It is a national brand built on a fundamental set of ethics and values that every American can share.

2) Spending money in districts that are not seen as competitive or viable has a direct impact on the opposition, hence Liddy Dole’s plea for help to pay down NRSC debt. Even in a state like MI, which folks outside this state perceive as blue, we must force the opposition to spend money in non-competitive races. MI has been sliding red (perhaps in part because of large number of Southern transplants) for some time; we forced the opposition to bring in outside money that they didn’t spend on other races, like George Allen’s.

This same strategy should apply EVERYWHERE inside the U.S.; it has had a profound impact on red and leaning red districts, has rejuvenated a dying party in areas that have been blue. It can do the same in the South.

We’re in violent agreement on most of these issues. But the point of the book is pretty straightforward. In the near term, more resources go to where we can win first, best and biggest. Less resources go where we can’t. That is the South.

My family lives there; I have a vested interest in their well-being, which is not being served by the GOP. But Schaller’s key idea is that by shifting the regional focus, we quit trying to squeeze the liberal camel through the eye of the social conservative needle. Doing so only distorts progressive values until they are almost unrecognizable.

Schaller’s other key finding is the elephant in the room — despite enormous progress, white Southerners voting patterns can still be tracked mostly by their attitudes toward race. That is not something we can get rid of by 2008 or 2010 or 2012. And from a position of powerlessness, we can’t tackle it at all.

So we win without the South for however many cycles we have to until we can move the needle on the more intractable problems we face there. Any clear-eyed analysis indicates that Dems best chances are to win that way, whether we make it a strategy or not. But not recognizing that Schaller’s approach is a key part to a winning strategy would mean we continue to focus too heavily on the least likely areas and and not enough on the most likely.

That’s a pretty strawman!

50 state strategy means we’re building the party in all 50 states. Write-off means we’re not. We can do one or the other, but not both. That’s a phenomemon that happens all the time. I can be wet or dry, but not both at the same time. In the light, or in the dark. Inside or outside. See? Basic reality. Can life be more complex? Certainly, and generally so. Just not always so.

Since one general area of agreement is to wisely marshal finite campaign resources – I would venture to say even you and I agree on the principle – just what is your issue? You’re jumping around so much I need a scorecard.

Feeble brain, and all that.

Ah the strawman strawman.

Where to begin? First of all, the most clever and coherent thing you’ve got going here is your call sign and you didn’t even create that yourself. And having read through your so-called arguments, you might want to try out something more to your mark like, say, Jethro or Billy Bob.

Because the fact is you have no argument except for the patchwork you’ve created from better thinkers than you’re proving to be. Every word you struggle to type just proves you haven’t read the book and are arguing from the very strawman position you seem to project onto others. But you obviously know nothing about the book and the real argument in it. Nice work if you can get it. What are you, Republican?

And “feeble brain” huh? Wow. That’s so clever. Just impressive. I can only imagine how the gears must clang and grind away in your enraged little head until you come up with something that cutting, that pithy.

But there’s this thing on the Internets called snark. Yeah, s-n-a-r-k. Like shark with an n if you can’t figure out how to pronounce it. From my reading of what you write, it’ll probably take you a few years to get adequate at it, but you might want to look it up. It only requires writing skills and a bit of cleverness… oh wait. Sorry. Forget I brought it up.

Best of luck in all you attempt to argue on these Internets. Keep it up. You’re bound to win on some day.

ccobb – I believe I did indicate above that I hadn’t read Schaller’s work. If you have, great for you.

I already live and breathe the 50-State Strategy. When I say “concede no seat”, I mean we actively build a Democratic organization in every district, develop and recruit a progressive candidate by way of those organizations. Sara at Next Hurrah shared information indicating how very fundamental and rudimentary the work is in districts in the South; we start where we are, even if it’s to unlock the cabinet containing the charter for the local party.

But we cannot build a local brand in any district if we do not provide funding. We cannot establish identity within the local population if we do not have a 7/24 presence. We cannot attract and train activist volunteers if there is no presence, nor will potential candidates seek help and training to emerge. For this reason I believe there is a pointed limit to what you refer to as triage.

There are two other strategic reasons why we cannot withhold funding to Southern Dem development.

1) Brand Dem cannot and should not be a regional brand. Ever. It is a national brand built on a fundamental set of ethics and values that every American can share.

2) Spending money in districts that are not seen as competitive or viable has a direct impact on the opposition, hence Liddy Dole’s plea for help to pay down NRSC debt. Even in a state like MI, which folks outside this state perceive as blue, we must force the opposition to spend money in non-competitive races. MI has been sliding red (perhaps in part because of large number of Southern transplants) for some time; we forced the opposition to bring in outside money that they didn’t spend on other races, like George Allen’s.

This same strategy should apply EVERYWHERE inside the U.S.; it has had a profound impact on red and leaning red districts, has rejuvenated a dying party in areas that have been blue. It can do the same in the South.

50 state strategy means we’re building the party in all 50 states. Write-off means we’re not. We can do one or the other, but not both. That’s a phenomemon that happens all the time. I can be wet or dry, but not both at the same time. In the light, or in the dark. Inside or outside. See? Basic reality. Can life be more complex? Certainly, and generally so. Just not always so.

Since one general area of agreement is to wisely marshal finite campaign resources – I would venture to say even you and I agree on the principle – just what is your issue? You’re jumping around so much I need a scorecard.

Feeble brain, and all that.

And I intend to be exactingly insulting back.

Had I not incorporated “Having said all of that, should Dems be smart with campaign dollars and time spent? Well, duhhhh. If there is $1 million on the table, and it could swing 10 Dem seats outside of the South, or 1 Southern seat, that’s not a hard choice.” into my comment, your response would be appropriate.

Cherrypicking portions and interpreting them out of context is how we got into Iraq.

Au contraire. This attitude of you are with us or against us is how we got into Iraq, as in your notion that we either believe in the 50 state strategy or we don’t. Magical Thinking and ridiculous stuff and you should be embarrassed that it’s all you’ve got to defend your position. I am for you.

As for cherry picking your comment, there were no cherries to pick. It was all nonsense. I just picked the least nonsensical bit of it.

Finally, to be insulting you have to try a lot harder and have better stuff than this. Otherwise the only thing you insult is the intelligence of those you’re trying to convince.

We can’t expect the South to change all that much until the structural matters are dealt with. The reason so many parts of the Democratic Party went essentially into Bankruptcy in the south has to do with Race.

Democrats can and do and will continue to elect African Americans in the South, because for the Majority-Minority districts, once they elect members and send them to DC, they have the advantage of the now near 40 member strong Black Caucus, and collatoral support from the Progressive Caucus. They derive their strength from membership in the national party, and associations with new chairs such as Conyers and Rangle. This is authentic African American leadership and true Seniority, and in contrast to the old days of the all white segregationist Democratic Party, those so represented are better off. Way better off.

But we need to comprehend that this has been accomplished by maintaining a form of Segregation — the rural people, the working class whites, to some extent the skilled and semi professionals have not had to mix it up in the political arena with African American leadership and politicians, many of whom are very influential in the National Party. Why not? Because the Majority Minority districts are “packed” leaving the rest to the Republican Right. In otherwords, Race has still not really been addressed.

Some may remember back in 2004 in the South Carolina Primary, Howard Dean got shot up big time for making the observation that the guy who drives around in his pick-up with a gun rack in the back window, with a confederate battle flag sticker on his bumper, needs to understand that he needs affordable health care for his kids just as much as the African American voters need it for their kids. What Wisdom. Dean got it. Dean actually talked about race and how structural racism can kill kids. And look at the reaction he got…..

The Elite of the South have always feared the possibility that Working Class whites and African Americans might get to talking and find they have a common cause. The classic book on this was written way back in the 1930’s, Cash’s “The Mind of the South” a classic that figured it out when the Civil Rights movement was still a very distant dream. That is why the south is so underunionized, it is why Social Security was so discriminatory up into the 1960’s and LBJ’s time. And it was why, post Voting Rights in 1965 the elites preferred to move to the party of Lincoln and bankrupt the state democratic parties in the south, rather than to nurture them and bring in the African American leadership and voters, and yes indeed that might mean the State Chair of the Party might sometimes be black.

If the Racial backbone of this structural problem is not squarely faced, talked about in adult terms — and by people who have read this part of American Political History — we will never get over it. Now I like what I see of what Dean is doing, and I trust the instinct he showed when he commented on pick up trucks. But we have to make certain that the conversation about this clearly comprehends the core of the problem is about Race.

diogenesdiogenes @
63

4. Either you believe in the 50 state strategy, or you don’t.

5. Either you believe were all Americans, or that some deserve less.

Excuse me but I just have to say that is lazy lazy thinking. I would say Magical Thinking, but we’re using that for BushCo. and I don’t want to be any more insulting than I am already going to be.

I believe in the 50 state strategy. But I don’t think you win them all at once. So you have to triage — what gives us the best shot first, then cascade down the list from there.

This stuff is Strategic Planning 101. At the moment, the South is somewhere near the bottom of regions that we can win national elections in. So we put in the effort for local and regional elections, build up the grassroots, etc. All small dollar stuff.

The big dollars we use where we can win national elections first. We strengthen our hand and our brand, and chip away at the South from that stronger position, not from the weaker one we’ve had for far too long.

And I intend to be exactingly insulting back.

Had I not incorporated “Having said all of that, should Dems be smart with campaign dollars and time spent? Well, duhhhh. If there is $1 million on the table, and it could swing 10 Dem seats outside of the South, or 1 Southern seat, that’s not a hard choice.” into my comment, your response would be appropriate.

Cherrypicking portions and interpreting them out of context is how we got into Iraq.

diogenes — I got your back. Keep on keeping on. Concede not one seat anywhere.

(And that includes the provinces of Canada, too. Go Liberals!! 10-Province Strategy Begins!!)

Apprech, Rayne!

We had this brou-ha-ha over at Digby

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com…..1740921157

and if you read the comment section, you can understand why I brought a case of the ass to this thread.