Why Democrats must not abandon the old stronghold

[Judi Lynn]

Why Democrats must not abandon the old stronghold

The party needs to reach out to poor southern voters - black and white

Gary Younge
Monday December 29, 2003
The Guardian

In his hypocrisy, the late senator Strom Thurmond was a typical old-school southern gentleman. In public, he espoused the separation of the races. Standing as a segregationist for the presidency in 1948, he insisted: "On the question of social intermingling of the races, our people draw the line." In private, he practised the sexual intermingling of the races. "His people" did indeed draw a line. But it was neither straight nor true. Thurmond slept with his family's black maid. Earlier this month Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a 78-year-old black woman from Los Angeles, came forward to say that she was Thurmond's daughter.

"It makes perfect sense," said Edmund Ball, author of Slaves in the Family. "The typical case is that the son of a master's family tested out his sexuality on a vulnerable young woman in the master's house. That is exactly what Strom did." But if there was method in the madness of his personal life, there was no less logic in the contradictions of his political career.

Thurmond started as a Democrat, left in an attempt to use race as a wedge to open up the two-party system, and when he failed joined the Republicans, in whose arms he died in June. As Thurmond went, so went the South. Once the stronghold of the Democrats, the states of the former Confederacy are now the Republicans' most reliable base. When Thurmond first stood for office in 1928, three-quarters of the states won by the Democratic presidential contender were in the South. When he retired in January, the Republicans had won every southern state (with the arguable exception of Florida).

This dramatic realignment has been reshaping the US political landscape for the past 40 years. Next year's presidential election could well complete the process. The Democratic party is now thinking what would once have been unthinkable. Regardless of who is the candidate, they plan to give up altogether on seriously contesting the South.
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1113558,00.html

[lcordero]

1. I wonder if any of his buddies ever asked him if she was good

[mopinko]

2. says who?

is there any truth to this? does anyone here agree that the dems are withdrawing from the south?? i know dean intends to reach out to bubba, whether the entire democratic party calls him a racist or not.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Bump

:bounce: