Ordinary gods-fearing midwestern folk ought not to hate us.

[BurtWorm]

But apparently they do. So fuck 'em.

[catbert836]

1. We could still have the eastern Midwest

like Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. That's where most of the people are anyway.

[amandabeech]

8. I doubt that most Midwesterners consisder Kentucky

to be the Midwest, even though it did not secede from the Union. In fact, southern Ohio is very much like neighboring Kentucky.

We have Illinois solid, and Michigan is also unlikely to go pubbie very often. Minnesota also showed its true self this year.

Wisconsin, Ohio and Missouri are doable, especially Wisconsin. We should continue to work there.

IMHO, Indiana is absolutely hopeless, and always has been.

[fujiyama]

9. I'm starting to think

Missouri is going away from us too. The only reason Carnahan's widow won in '00 was because of symathy. She lost two years later to some hack, whose name I don't remember.

West Virginia is gone...I'll make a bet with anyone that in '06 after Byrd retires they'll elect a republican. Louisiana elected their first republican senator EVER. I don't know how Lincoln got elected in Arkansas. She was a rare case though.

[JI7]

2. why do they hate us ?

[BurtWorm]

3. They hate us for our freedom.

;)

[amazona]

10. burtworm is correct

It is not just a matter of they smugly think they are saved and we are damned.

They hate us for our freedom -- the freedom to choose the partner we like, the kind of sex we like, etc. while they are too afraid of what the neighbors will say to live their one and only lives.

Their hate comes from envy, not class envy, but sex envy. They are bitter and frustrated and afraid and have to sneak in the night into dirty adult book stores for an anonymous grab at what they want...so of course they hate those who don't have to sneak around.

[ydya]

4. They dont hate us. they honestly believe that we are poor misled

souls. Not that it makes them any less guilty. The arrogant condescending bastards. These are the same lemmings who participated in burning people at the stake cos the church said so. Remember, in terms of evolutionary history, it was not too long ago that people were CONVINCED the earth was (a) the center of the universe and (b) flat as a pancake. Anyone who said otherwise was killed as a heretic. The church has been proven wrong again and again over time. But the Kool-Aid is a strong one. People who do not have a very high degree of functional intelligence, sense of self-worth or personal security need the moral superiority conferred by their "faith and confidence" to go thru life.
I'm not saying religion is a bad thing. Organized religion, however, is the single greatest genocidal force in history. History tells us so.
So anyways, copping out on the "well, i did so because the church said so" excuse doesnt fly with me. No one condoned Nazi guards who said they were just following orders. Why should the fundamentalist lemmings be any different?

[Cocoa]

5. can we get them to stop hating us?

not by us changing, but by changing them, reducing their hate?

Take Tom Delay, for example. I think most people that like him will always like him, because they're as bad as he is.

But don't you think there are a fraction of Delay supporters that are good, and can be somehow gotten to be disillusioned by his corruption?

[BlueInRed]

11. they don't hate you, but

a lot of people in these forums call independents and red state people "stupid", "idiots", "bible-thumpers", "bigots" etc, etc, etc. just because they have basic disagreements about priorities. Calling people names and implying they are stupid for disagreeing creates backlash, resentment and a desire to ignore whatever common sense argument you are making. No one is going to listen when the person talking implies they so much smarter that the listener.

It would help if some would stop judging entire states by a segment of evangelicals that live there. There is a clear-cut subgroup that is winnable and it doesn't require changing the entire Democratic platform or advocating discrimination. It requires only that you change the attitude toward them, listen to their concerns with respect and remind them of more important common ground. Yeah, you won't convince the evangelicals, but they are only PART of the base in these red states.

I live in a red state and though I vote Democratic, I know good people who don't. The overarching theme of why thy don't is that Democrats look down on their belief system. The have tons of individual reasons, but it always comes down to the assumption that the Democratic party doesn't respect their lifestyle. Clinton never looked down on them and he was able to persuade them to vote for their own financial interest above value issues.

I firmly believe that if ANY of the moderate Democratic candidates who hailed from a rural area had been at the top of the ticket, we would have won enough votes to overcome even DRE voting theft. Graham, Clark, Edwards and Dean all knew how to deal with rural people. Even Larry Sabato, the political guru in Virginia, said that the Democrats would have won places like Arkansas, Ohio, Missouria and West Virginia if they had just picked a candidate who was down to earth and a tiny bit more moderate. Those qualities matter in the red states and could have reached non-evangelicals who also voted for Bush. Bush has bent over backward to present himself as the antidote to "urban elites" and this is a highly calculated to reach rural voters.

[YNGW]

6. You know, the only thing I'm seeing here is......

..... we're right and they're wrong from both sides. Both sides believe they're the good and the others are the evil. The reason behind it from both sides is that the other is blinded by their own political ideology and religion. And the solution from both sides is that we're going to stand firm and those other people need to change to suit us.

Saying "fuck 'em" isn't going to help. They can do the same thing.

[RafterMan]

7. Entrenchment would be a reasonable strategy

if we held more ground than they do. We don't. It isn't.

So you're dead on. If both sides say "fuck 'em", we keep losing.