United Steelworkers/Flickr
Swimming upstream last year in Oklahoma.
This weekend in the New York Times, Karen L. Cox said what I suspect a lot of lefties in the South would like the rest of y'all to hear:
To my chagrin, liberals living outside the South deny our existence, lump us all together by using rhetoric about the Confederacy and heap pity on us with a little condescension thrown in for good measure. They also seem to be unaware of nuance.
The fact is, liberals everywhere live among people who don’t share their views. Are you listening Wisconsin, Arizona, Indiana and, yes, New York? Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond are long dead. Michele Bachmann, Scott Walker and other Tea Party darlings are alive and well, and they aren’t all whistling Dixie.
If the Democrats are going to be a true majority party, they will need to build a coalition in all 50 states. So rather than see the South as a lost cause (pun intended), the Democratic Party and liberals north and west of us should put a lid on their regional biases and encourage the change that is possible here.
I have seen the kind of reaction Cox is talking about from non-Southerners on this blog -- when North Carolina voters backed a ban on marriage equality, for example, or more recently when Oklahoma placed the 10 Commandments in carved, misspelled glory on the state capitol grounds. Lefties outside the South seem to think very little of suggesting the red states just get out. For kicks, I spent some time this weekend subtracting ballots for Barack Obama in the red states from the president's margin of victory in the national popular vote.
You could do this any number of ways, but if you take out just Alabama, Oklahoma, Arkansas, my own Mississippi and Georgia, the president loses the popular vote. Georgia alone added 1,761,761 votes for Obama. And yes, I realize those same states contributed enough red votes to keep the election close. But every blue ballot represents a natural ally for lefties outside the South, not votes to be thrown out.
What's more, progressives in conservative states are making a new and quite game go of it. On Friday, Rachel played tape of Georgia's state Senate majority leader holding a meeting about UN/Obama mind control. That tape exists because a group of Georgia progressives managed to video the proceedings and then alert the world. After embarrassing Georgia Republicans one too many times, the mind-control senate majority leader didn't run for his leadership position again, and Republicans replaced him with someone Democrats consider easier to deal with. Look for more of this tactic by Better Georgia. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
“We’re modernizing politics in Georgia. A lot of people who are in politics right now are using Old World political techniques,” [executive director Bryan] Long said. His group has placed an emphasis on recording Republican public officials as they speak their private minds.
The aggressive tactic may make many of you uncomfortable. Long said it is essential if voters are to realize that many Republican elected officials have “values that most Georgians don’t believe and don’t accept.”
And consider this: Better Georgia worked on their project with James Carter, the same Georgia Democrat who brought the world Mitt Romney's 47 percent remarks and a heap of documents about Bain Capitol. Carter's state didn't go the way he wanted, but the rest of you who vote blue could stand to consider how different this election would have been without him, and how different future elections might go if progressives get strong enough to flip states like Texas and Georgia, and what you might learn from them instead of scribbling them off your map.
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Yeah, I am one of those liberals existing in the Blue Dot of Bexar County, Texas. It is difficult trying to proceed as such in a State that hates everything I stand for and absolutely intends to marginalize me in the coming years. But we are moving forward and quietly pushing our agenda forward, i.e. Julian Castro WILL be the next Texas governor!
keep up the good work.
I am also living in Bexar county in San Antonio, I call on more liberals to move here and change the color from red to blue. I have no problem speaking my mind and since I've been out here (8 yrs) I've managed to get the majority of my friends off the "Fox News teat" and opened a lot of eyes to the truth. The world is changing and we're not going back!!!
Wow, that makes three of us! I'm also a Bexar County Democrat, hopeful for the future!
Kerry...I know you are in jest, because there are many, many of us that are poised to pounce! We did great work in the election and we are just getting started, my friend!
I've got a friend near you folks as well. I sent her a link to this post. :)
I'm a yellow dog Dem in Tarrant County, one of the reddest counties in the state. When I was growing up you couldn't swing a cat and hit a Republican in this part of Texas. I don't know what happened, but I sure miss those days, and hope to see them again. Can't wait to see Julian Castro in the Governor's Mansion after the 2014 race - Goodhair definitely needs to be ousted!
Presidential elections don't have to be this way.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps. There would no longer be a handful of 'battleground' states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just 'spectators' and ignored after the conventions.
When the bill is enacted by states with a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
The presidential election system that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founding Fathers but, instead, is the product of decades of evolutionary change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. Historically, virtually all of the major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in virtually every state surveyed in recent polls in recent closely divided Battleground states: CO – 68%, FL – 78%, IA 75%, MI – 73%, MO – 70%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM– 76%, NC – 74%, OH – 70%, PA – 78%, VA – 74%, and WI – 71%; in Small states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE – 75%, ID – 77%, ME – 77%, MT – 72%, NE 74%, NH – 69%, NV – 72%, NM – 76%, OK – 81%, RI – 74%, SD – 71%, UT – 70%, VT – 75%, WV – 81%, and WY – 69%; in Southern and Border states: AR – 80%, KY- 80%, MS – 77%, MO – 70%, NC – 74%, OK – 81%, SC – 71%, TN – 83%, VA – 74%, and WV – 81%; and in other states polled: AZ – 67%, CA – 70%, CT – 74%, MA – 73%, MN – 75%, NY – 79%, OR – 76%, and WA – 77%. Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers in 21 states. The bill has been enacted by 9 jurisdictions with 132 electoral votes - 49% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via NationalPopularVoteInc
I'm a dem in Tarrant county as well! I wrote a DailyKos diary last week that got a bunch of eyeballs, to my surprise: Stop & Think Before You Tell Texas to Leave.
What we need is SUPPORT. I am advocating for a "No Seat Unchallenged" drive for 2014. There's no reason we can't start challenging ensconced tea partiers and gerrymanderers. In my old town, we were stuck with an incredibly mediocre tea party dude and we *never* challenged him, despite that our town went blue for Obama.
Invaders from the South of us(illegals?),invaders from the north of us (snow birds) Invaders from the west(all roads lead to Atlanta). Invaders from the east(foreigners). Yet still we chant--American by birth,Southern by the grace of God!
I am a white Californian, over 60, who may move to the Dallas area to be near my daughter and other relatives. Look forward to helping bring sanity to Texas politics. PS--relatives not native Texans and there are many other blues in hiding,I think.
Goes both ways. Here in Los Angeles there are conservative areas, the South Bay comes to mind, with young and old conservatives. Henry Waxman only won by a few points over a Log Cabin Republican. As progressives, we should never pidgeonhole people or entire areas
Exception taken, the race was engineered, state wide over districts that on balance were shaped by a committee and not SACTO politicians, setting up battles for turf which had not been battles before.
Granted, there are many conservatives in urban LA, SD, SF and ex mayor Riordan (GOP) is now trying to influence changing pensions. His recent venture of buying a storied deli in the Palisades, went bust. Good judgement, good question?
The open primary also moved the ability of fringe elements to try and leverage these changes for 2012.
Bloomfield, the GOP voting businessman, who hails from the Santa Monica area, and changed his party affiliation to independent in order to guise himself as a south bay regular guy, is just another GOP shill, using his wealth to gain power while lying about his past. Todd Zink was another GOP guy, using his war record and Mom's teacher credentials to sway voters on ads, without party identification, the dems did that as well, so buyer beware.
The fact is, even with the conservatives added to Waxman's district, implying a squeaker when Bloomfield was beat, Log Cabins (West Hollywood) and all by a clear majority in a topsy turvy year, misses the point. Had Waxman won by another point, or two, it would have been called a landslide.
Well, I for one am a Californian who is damn glad of the new districts, since the result was the loss of four Republican congresscritters statewide, the biggest "flip" of the election, and most importantly the election of 2/3 Democratic majorities in both the State Senate and Assembly, allowing us two years to get our economic house in order (even if they just use the kind of moderate reforms Pete Wilson used in the early 90s, it will be good), without having to deal with Republican insanity.
I was also very happy to vote for "the Assembly's biggest partisan", Fran Pavley, who smacked Todd Zink by 5 points, to the State Senate.
Any chance that Darrell Issa's tenure will be over soon?
Robman: Bloomfield spent alot of money, and gave Waxman more than what he wanted as far as an opponent. I got craploads of Bloomfield fliers because I live on the border line I guess, and they were offensively vague. When you look at California, always remember Prop 8. We got beat bad on that, and we should learn from our mistakes.
LD
I live in La Habra Heights a very conservative city at the edge of the Orange curtain. At the local festival the voter registration table had only an elephant symbol. No donkey. So yeah folks there are conservative areas in blue California.
I live behind the Orange curtain. I think my house and one neighbor's house constitute the blue dot for many miles around here.
For gossake, Democrat running for congress in my district would've been a Republican where I grew up!
Yes, if you look at election maps and result numbers, many states and in fact the country are much more purple than you might think at first glance.
Much more purple, indeed. U. of Michigan Paul Dirac Collegiate Professor of Physics Mark Newman has done some fascinating analysis of this. His mapping of the latest election results is available here:
Maps of the 2012 US presidential election results
Starting with the MSM "standard" view of the map, coloring each state red or blue according to how the electoral votes were awarded, he first adjusts the view by "warping" the shape of the map better to reflect population densities - areas with larger population are expanded, as those with smaller populations (looking at you, Wyoming) are shrunk. The shape of the map is thus changed from it's familiar dimensions, but one gets a somewhat more realistic sense of the actual proportions of the national vote cast in different areas.
He then tries another approach - warping the dimensions of the map again, but this time proportional to the number of electoral votes per state (similar, but not identical results, these better taking into account the inherent electoral college bias in favor of "smaller" states).
After this, he takes a similar approach to a mapping of the votes at the county level. First a straightforward red-blue mapping of county data, which looks like a giant sea of "red". Then, scaling the size of the mapped areas to population density, his next mapping shows a more proportionate balance between the "red" and the "blue". He doesn't stop there, though. Rather than limiting the display to either "red", or "blue", he incorporates intermediate shades of "purple" to reflect the percentages of votes, on a county-by-county basis, received by each candidate. He then re-scales that mapping by population density, and notes:
The trouble with ignorance is that it picks up confidence as it goes along.
- Arnold H. Glasow
;-)
It's like Barney Frank told Rachel Maddow: if we had run the 2012 election with 2008 congressional districts, the Democrats would have taken control of the House. However, the fact Democrats all over failed to show up in November 2010 allowed the Republicans to create the Great Gerrymander that ended up with them holding the House despite losing the "popular vote" nationwide.
I live in a pretty red area of east Texas. I don't know what exactly happened, but something "broke loose" a couple of weeks before election. Where before I had to be very careful where I wore my Obama shirts or drove my stickered car, suddenly people were coming out loud and clear about their disdain for Romney and about their intentions to vote Dem/Obama. Even elderly gents you would never expect to see vote Democrat! It's wonderful!
There is a big movement with the Texas Dem Party to try to mobilize the Hispanic vote in Texas. This is the key, and we absolutely could turn not just purple, but flat out blue. What we need is to adopt Obama's ground game and blow it out here. yeehaw!
Reading this blog post made me whoop for joy. It exemplifies just the sort of political activism we're all capable of. The biggest mistake America can make is to rest on the laurels of the recent election and go back to Business As Usual. Stay awake and aware. Our future depends on it.
Awake, Aware, and Active!! (that last one is important, too)
Absolutely! Awake, Aware, and Active. . .Agreed ;-)
This is of course correct. While the right makes no secret of its disdain for blue states on either coast, the left has often done the same regarding the south and midwest.
And I've been as guilty as anyone.
I think that WE all are guilty to some extent. I have family in the bible belt and question them about their "politics" all of the time. Sometimes I get the right-wing talking points and other times I'm just flat-out baffled. Glad to know that there really are some progressives in the south that are working for change.
I don't see this as a regional conflict between north and south. It is really a conflict between urban and rural. Everywhere there is a major urban area, you will find a sea of blue. This urban vs. rural conflict exists even in the "blue" states. The further away you move from the urban area, the redder it gets. The only reason Illinois, California and New York are blue is because of the populations of the urban areas.
This is close to what I've long been arguing.
I live in Texas, a state the Democratic Party pretty much completely wrote off 20 or more years ago.
I firmly believe that Texas would be winnable for the Democrats if they put the kind of resources into contesting it that they do in states like Ohio or Florida. Demographics alone argue for this. Non-Hispanic whites no longer make up the majority of Texans. African-Americans, Latinos, and immigrants from all over the world collectively form the bulk of our population. Urban, educated white Texans (a fast-increasing sector of our population), especially younger white women, also lean toward the Democrats. The Religious Right has long been powerful in Texas, but its influence has been declining for some time. Houston has a lesbian mayor, and Dallas County has a lesbian sheriff.
Votes in Texas are not an inconsequential matter for the rest of the nation. Texas is the second-most populous state, and therefore has the second-largest Congressional delegation and more Electoral College votes than any other state except California. If the Democrats won Texas in addition to states they won this year, Democrats would have firm and perhaps unchallengeable control of both the Legislative and Executive federal branches, which, of course, would also result in freedom to choose any federal judges they wanted.
I agree, I think Texas could turn blue in 2014 if only we'd get some professionals down there to run the state party and put in the resources needed to get another 38 electoral votes...and Georgia and Louisiana are right there as well, and I think North Carolina has seen its last GOP win...
I beleive this also. I think Mr.bush realized it by his thoughts on immagration. I beleive that most americans are purple to blue.
Two or three more cycles, and Texas is a swing state. Running a ground game in such a large state will be a real challenge. The GOTV will be everything, people need to know that activism equals action.
If we're going to turn Texas back to blue, it's got to be from the inside-out. Without gaining more influence on the State level, we'll never get rid of the gerrymandering which is diluting our votes for US House.
Texas would already be a swing state if we could simply do more to GOTV. Republican numbers have been pretty much stagnant since 2004, averaging about 4.5 million votes per cycle. It's the Democrats who tend to be wishy washy about showing up at the polls (2.8 million in 2004, 3.5 million in 2008, 3.2 million in 2012). This is simply unacceptable in a state with close to 14 million eligible voters.
I know that everyone is excited about the Castro brothers' rising stars, but they cannot save us alone. We're going to need to do a better job of getting folks to the polls if we want to return the state to its blue roots.
Absolutely right--and Ann Richards was a Dem governor no so very long ago. Visit any middle-class, neighborhood grocery store in Dallas or Tarrant counties and the people look as racially and culturally mixed as California. However, defense contractors and churches have a lot of influence.
Yes, there are even white, middle-aged Democrats living in Louisiana! And young ones, and elderly ones! Not every white Southerner, by birth or transplant (me) is a Republican.
"If the Democrats are going to be a true majority party, they will need to build a coalition in all 50 states"
Sorry, sweetie, Governor Dean already did that. (and was thoroughly vilified for it!- how'd it work out for you, Mr. Prez?)
Actually, it was Gov Dean's 50 state strategy that gave Obama VA, IN and NC in 2008 and won VA in 2012 and made the race so close in VA. Also, if you look behind the polls, you would find that Obama would have done very well in the South if he weren't black.
He got re-elected
Governor Dean did that, and it was a huge success-- the result was that the Democratic Party won the presidency and won back control of both houses of Congress in 2008. When Dean is right, he's right-- and he's usually right.
Thanks Laura. This is the most thoughtful and original post on this and just about any other political blog since the election.
This is the time for Democrats to work to advance in the so called red states. It is not the time to deepen existing prejudices. We need a 50 state party, not a 19 state party.
And another reason for holding together--Republicans are suggesting they need to change (to pretend Democrats I say.) We need to keep clearly defining the differences and pointing to hypocracy.
Lefties outside the South seem to think very little of suggesting the red states just get out
Not quite...I am happy to suggest that the people in those states who feel that they can't live under the oppressive socialist regime of our current POTUS should feel free to relocate elsewhere.
But this ain't divorce, and you don't get jack. This land is our land.
So, what can we do to help our Blue-dot Dems.
I am a Texan living in Wisconsin. First, I'm immediately looked upon in amazement that I'm "liberal", as if I had 3 heads. Just remember that Texas has a longer past as a progressive state that it does as a tea party hangout. Texas elected the first African American woman to congress (Barbara Jordan). JFK's ideas wouldn't have gone anywhere without LBJ moving them through congress. But I digress. Don't write off the south. Fund the liberals running for office. Honor the positive traditions of the south and take the time to learn the players. It's as wrong to classify all southerners as far right crazies as it is to classify all northern liberals as older hippies. I can't point fingers at anyone...I stereotype with the best of them. But when talking to someone from the southern climes, don't make assumptions of their politics. Oh...and I"m a 55 year old white guy, to boot.
I often think northerners should read the real histories of the South as regards the votes for secession in 1860 (such as the opposition of Texas governor Sam Houston, etc.). Several of those states had to vote more than once (and do a lot of vote suppression) to get the desired result - Texas and Alabama come immediately to mind, along with Tennessee, and let's not forget that West Virginia was part of Virginia until 1863. Go Google "The Free Republic of Nickajack." There were 100,000 southerners who served in the Union Army. (My Pennsylvania-born great-great-grandfather was proud to be an officer in the 1st Alabama Cavalry, US Volunteers - in fact he left Sherman's staff to get the position). Remember that James Pettigrew made his famous utterance, "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum" following the vote to secede.
Georgia also; the popular vote went AGAINST secession, but the secession convention decided otherwise.
The secessionists were a bunch of ultra-super-rich planters who resented having to pay tariffs, and used their money and influence to sway the outcome. Sound familiar?
And to answer the question: Be encouraging. Money for progressive candidates and causes would be nice (in Georgia the Republicans are able to outspend us by a ridiculous margin...and a lot of that money comes from outside the state) but speaking up when someone trots out the tired old "what do you expect of those rednecks" stuff would be delightful. Point out that the personhood amendment in Mississippi went down in flames, and other liberal victories. Educate yourself about how regional prejudice plays into it and how it is mostly coded classism. The Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance project has some excellent material on this. http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-42-fall-2012/you-re-not-around-here
Just last week, James Earl Carter IV (Jimmy Carter's grandson) also obtained a 20-year-old audio recording of the notorious Lee Atwater explaining how coded racism would win Southern elections for Republicans. The Atwater approach was alive and well in 2012, even though Atwater is not.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/171304/modern-gop-thrives-lee-atwaters-strategy-coded-racism#
Young Mr. Carter has shown an incredible talent for removing the mask from Republicans. Let's hope we hear a lot more from him in the future.
Thank you BlueDots!! You have a considerably harder job to do than do those of us who live in primarily blue areas!!
Like Lynn, I ask: What can we do to help?
OK, at the risk of sounding "preachy," I'll give my theory of personal integrity, because I think it's relevant here. It's this: When you bring how you live into focus with how you think you should live (integrate the two), the energy-canceling effect of conflict goes away and you become surprisingly powerful as an individual. So for all of us who are trying to help the cause in a hundred unseen and uncelebrated ways, stop being afraid to speak your truth and lose the urge to snark from behind a rock. You'll be amazed at what happens.
Speaking up is good...it's incredibly disheartening to bust your ass fighting the latest Republican stupidity, and if you lose people shrug and say "what did you expect?" but if you win (we sometimes do) they don't even notice. Pay attention to what progressives in red states are doing. Support groups like Better Georgia (they are the ones who got the video of the "Obama mind control" seminar) and Planned Parenthood's regional political folks who are getting stuff done.
Have to agree wiht the article..I moved to AR 5 years ago..from CA..can anyone say culture shock. There are pockets though I don't believe dots here...the most progressive areas are in Little Rock, smaller towns..good luck!..The I have a few who will engage in discussion on my FB page, but most are not living here. The movement to change that must start now, however connecting and building will need outstide help and direction..especially where I live.
Yes! from Nebraska, we do exist!
God help you! Lol
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/state/NE#president
Are you that one itty bitty teeny tiny blue dot? Heh no no I'm teasing. I have family from all around Nebraska and Kansas so I thought I'd poke a little fun =P
Thank you, Laura, for this post.
I live in Georgia, and as you may recall, one of the compromises that some Congressional Dems were floating in response to the outcry about the public option proposal was to let states opt out. This idea seemed very popular in the blogs and comments sections.
Personally, I had never felt so insulted by my fellow progressives. Progressives living in red states contributed money, made phone calls, and worked hard (and voted) to get President Obama and Congressional Dems elected throughout the country. (Personally, I gave hundreds of dollars to Obama's campaigns and to Congressional candidates all over the country.)
Yet, many progressives living in blue states either naively denied that any red states would actually opt out (you now see those states refusing free ACA money for Medicaid and refusing to set up health care exchanges...against their interests) or didn't care (many responded to my complaints by saying that people living in red states deserve what they get).
Dems not only need a 50 state strategy for winning; they also need a 50 state strategy for governing. It does no good, in the long-run, to accept our time and money, but then throw us under the bus when it's convenient. (As you can see, that public option opt-out proposal was a huge sore spot for me. It really underscored what this New York Times piece is trying to say.)
Thanks, Laura. Living next to a turkey-wattle-red county in south-western Virginia, I get very tired of hearing that we don't count at all. We do; my own little town went for Obama, and, even though the county went -- heavily -- for Romney, the few thousand votes that the Dems here added to the Obama column probably helped to Keep Virginia Blue (that's what our biggest fundraiser was called).
I miss Howard Dean, who understood that.
First, let me offer an apology to All Blue Dot Dems. I have one of the many who has offered my sincere Goodbyes to the Red States. I am ashamed to say I never gave a thought to all those Blue Votes in Red States. You are the ones who carry the most burdens, and we need to acknowledge this. THANK YOU...We need you as never before. You are often the voice of reason, in a sea of Red and you are probably the future of the Democratic Process. Please keep up the magnificent work and be fruitful and multiply.
I'm so happy to read this. I moved South from Detroit over 25 years ago, and I have felt that my votes since then didn't count. It never stopped me from voting, but I never saw my state turn blue during the election results. Thankfully, the rest of the country pulled us through this year. I felt very alone driving past all the Romney signs. I think I may have seen a total of 6 Obama signs in the past 2 years. The first one I saw was in front of a house that was having a yard sale I went to. I wanted to hug the owners! I finally found some of my own kind!
I believe the key is to remain involved in our state politics and not only when there are national elections. We have to be organized and vocal when they try to limit voting rights, discourage voter registeration, and make democrats feel that our votes in Texas don't matter! President Clinton reminded us that Texas would be blue IF ever registered democrat actually voted! We need to figure out why some don't vote and educate them so that they will vote in future elections.
One need only look at how Texas became Republican to see how to change that.
I live in Alabama. I am a tiny blue dot in a sea of red. But I am not alone and, as time goes on, there are more of us. I hate being made to feel that my vote is unimportant, wiped out by my rightie neighbors. But I continue to 'show the flag' by sporting my Obama t-shirt, yard sign and bumper stickers. It is gratifying to me that people like me are finally being noticed. Don't write the South off, progressives. Even Southerners evolve over time. We may rise again-as Democrats once more! Onward!
I think this story may have missed the point of the quotes that were used. The quotes seem to be about people from outside of the areas, such as the South, just assuming that it will always be a Red State and therefore not really even trying to be competitive. For example, why campaign in Alabama, when it is always going to be a GOP stronghold.
The actual story, other than the quotes is more about regional jokes, as are the examples that were given. These are usually just jokes about an area based on stereo-types. Typically, the most likely person to tell these jokes is a person from the area. They are really two different things.
I agree here in Mississippi! My county (Adams) went for Obama. You can't just write off and entire state due to the majority. Without that minority (number, not race) count, you might not have won.
Great to hear that about Adams County. I hope my home county of Holmes did the same. I cannot understand with a minority population of over 30% how Democrats could not win every single election. The key is getting people registered and turning them out. If I were still living there, I'd help organize the effort. But since you still live there, you can help.
South Carolina, here. We're not as red as one would expect. Sure it was a decisive win for the Republicans, but not an insurmountable goal next time around if the Democratic Party in this state would just do SOMETHING to appeal to middle of the road voters. There are plenty of moderate republicans to be courted. Not to mention all the groups that that the President won with - Women, youth, Latinos... It may take some outside instruction from national groups to get the ball rolling.
Try living in Kansas, surrounded on all sides by ultra conservatives, and being a progressive or liberal. We even have a town named Liberal, how ironic is that? It is extremely frustrating and irritating to be completely overrun with right wing extremists and bible thumpers. Then there is the national disgrace of Westboro Baptist pitching their tent in Kansas. The electoral college is no help either, because it assures us that liberals are completely disenfranchised. Kansas marches unimpeded into the 18th century.