10.24.07

Southern Strategy vs. Western Strategy

Posted in Election 2008 at 7:40 pm by fleetadmiralj

I don’t see this getting argued much anymore on Daily Kos, unless I just miss it, but I wanted to go back over the arguments of whether the democrats should take on a so-called “southern strategy” or the so-called “western strategy.” Both have their plusses and their minuses.

For the sake of having comparable sample, I have 12 states in each group. The South consists of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Meanwhile, the West consists of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

First, let’s look at the Western Stratedy:

PROS:

The biggest pro here is that there are more immediate pick-up opportunities out west. Out of the 24 states being profiled, only 4 had margins in the 2004 Presidential race within 5 points, 3 of them in the west: New Mexico (1%), Nevada (3%), and Colorado (5%), with a forth, Arizona, with a 10% margin. This would give the Democrats 29 badly needed electoral votes, and 4 states where governors and senators could come from as well (We already have 3 senators from these states)

The west is also often more open to the Democrat’s social liberalism, and has been trending democratic in recent elections.

CONS:

After the initial four states, the road looks rough. After Arizona, the next western states on the list are Montana – where Bush won by 20% – and South Dakota – where he won by 21%. Meanwhile, even though each group has 12 states, the bottom 5, 6 of the bottom 7, and 8 of the bottom 10 states as far as margin of victory for Bush in 2004 are western states.

On top of this, western states just don’t have all that many electoral votes. The four western states that democrats can pretty easily target can only muster 29 electoral votes – only two more than Florida by itself can. Also, in total, the west loses to the south in electoral votes, 161 to 61.

Finally, the west may be hostile to the Democrat’s economic liberalism as the west tends to have a libertarian streak.

Now, onto the Souther Strategy:

PROS:

The pros here seem to be simple: more electoral votes, faster. Even though the South only has one state which was within 5% in 2004 – Florida – that one state has more electoral votes than the three Western state in the same category combined.

Also, while the West only has 29 electoral votes available in states that were within 10%, the south has 46 (with Virginia and Arkansas). Within 20%, the West can only manage 32 electoral votes while the South can give the democrats 118. In fact, all 161 electoral votes can be gained in southern states with margins while only 41 electoral votes can be picked up in the west in states with the same margins.

The south may also be open to democrat’s economic populism.

CONS:

The biggest con is that the democrats would have to set many of their social liberalist policies to the side to effectively campaign in the south. They may be able to survive while keeping abortion an important issue, but things like gay marriage would almost certainly have to be off the table.

Also, 20% in the West may be chipped away easier than 20% in the south just due to long-standing pre-conceived notions that people in the South have of the Democratic party.  This is just aggrivated by the fact that, while some seats were picked up in the South in 2006, the trend has been, overall, discouraging.

A Double Atrios Hit

Posted in General tagged , , , , , at 1:10 pm by fleetadmiralj

Eschaton is on my regular blog reading list, because Atrios is smart and writes a lot of good things.  However, he’s also one of the biggest “they don’t get it” violators in the liberal blogosphere as well, and we have a double take of that today.  First off, is this:

Chris Dodd has put out a simple position: he’ll do what’s in his power to stop any bill which gives telecom companies retroactive immunity for their Bush administration sanctioned law breaking. In contrast, Obama and Clinton have put out mush.

He then quotes from Greenwald (who is also feverishly battling for the “they don’t get it” championship award in the liberal blogosphere) about how “weak” Obama’s and Clinton’s statements are.  But let’s actually look at their statements.

Obama:

“Senator Obama has serious concerns about many provisions in this bill, especially the provision on giving retroactive immunity to the telephone companies. He is hopeful that this bill can be improved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But if the bill comes to the Senate floor in its current form, he would support a filibuster of it.”

Greenwald – and Atrios by extension – complain that Obama’s language of “the bill…in it’s current form” gives Obama and out to be able to vote for it if a comma gets deleted in paragraph 3 on page 38.  However, I don’t think Obama will be able to get out of that – not withstanding the heat he’ll take if he were to vote for the bill to begin with – because it’s clear from the statement that the “as is” part of the bill he objects to is the retroactive immunity.

Now, on to Clinton’s statement:

I am troubled by the concerns that have been raised by the recent legislation reported out of the Intelligence Committee. I haven’t seen it so I can’t express an opinion about it. But I don’t trust the Bush Administration with our civil rights and liberties. So I’m going to study it very hard. As matters stand now, I could not support it and I would support a filibuster absent additional information coming forward that would convince me differently.

Stepping aside the fact that Clinton said that she couldn’t really give an opinion about the bill, then gave an opinion about it anyway,  she’s pretty clear that she’d support a filibuster “absent additional information” that would convincer her otherwise (ie, the White House handing over info on the program).

I suppose a person could argue that she’s left herself an out to change her position after she’s read the bill and “studied it hard,” but one doesn’t take this step if you are unsure about filibustering, as it’s kind of a cat of the bag type thing.  If you say that you’re going to filibuster and then you don’t, it’s almost worse than saying you weren’t going to filibuster it in the first place.

Clinton would gain very little by saying she’s planning on supporting a filibuster unless she’s really planning on supporting it, and risks throwing away the inroads she’s made in the liberal blogosphere if she goes back on her stance.  I think she and her campaign people are smart enough to know this, and that’s why if she doesn’t filibuster, she’s going to have to have a pretty damn convincing reason why not.

Now, onto the second topic that I think atrios is making a fuss over nothing:

The Blue Dogs are, for the most part, the spoiled whiny children of the Democratic caucus, demanding that it’s perpetually ALL ABOUT THEM even as they cause nothing but grief and heartache for the Democratic family.

…

Still one Democrat dared suggest that some of these bad Democrats who are helping to further the death and destruction in Iraq should have primary challengers and they clutched their pearls and fainted dead away at the horror of it all.

He adds the note that many of the Blue Dogs aren’t paying dues to the DCCC in response to this (even though the Democrat who suggested the Blue Dogs get primary challengers isn’t in the DCCC.

While I don’t think it’s a good thing for the Blue Dogs to withhold funding from the DCCC, I’m not exactly sure why Atrios thinks it is shocking or even unreasonable that Blue Dogs might be upset that members of their own party think that they should be run out of office for not being liberal enough.

Reacting negatively to someone of your own party telling you that you should get a primary challenger now makes you a “baby”?  I’m sure his tone would change if I suggested that Democrats who support defunding the war should get primary challengers from more moderate anti-war democrats since, you know, defunding isn’t any more popular than the war is.

All 4 Democratic Senator Presidential Candidates Join together for FISA Filbuster

Posted in Congress, Election 2008 tagged , , , , at 8:55 am by fleetadmiralj

This is nothing less than huge, I think.  Of course, it was reported that Dodd would first put a hold on the FISA bill that grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies then, when Reid said he’d try to push it to the floor anyway, Dodd said he would filibuster it.

Pretty soon after that, Senator Biden said that he would join in.  Now, under pressure from their supporters, both Obama and Clinton have joined the democratic bandwagon.  Some may criticize them for being late to the party, but at least they came.

Reid is now facing off against all four of his presidential candidates.  That can’t be a comfortable position to be in, and may give other democrats in the Senate the guts to support a filibuster as well.