Important race

I think that races and candidates like this are tremendously important, because if you look at the South, the numbers are really ugly for us.  I'm not telling anyone here anything they don't know, but:

In the 13 Southern states (basically going east of OK and TX, and south of KY and VA), the breakdown in United States Senators is 21-5 Republican.  That includes the somewhat unexpected victory of Jim Webb last year, and Bill Nelson getting lucky enough to run against Cruella da Harris and not anyone much stronger.  Mary Landrieu, as has been discusssed at length here, is far of assured re-election.  Thank God for Arkansas.  Having such weakness here leaves us almsot no margin of error in other places if we want to hold and build on our Senate majority.  The sad thing is many/most (with important exceptions) of those 21 Republican seats are largely uncontested.

Here's some even uglier numbers, from the 2004 election:

  -Mississippi  14%
  -Alabama  19%
  -South Carolina  22%
  -Georgia  23%
  -Louisiana  24%
  -Tennessee  34%

  Those are the percentages of the white vote won by Senator Kerry.  Except at a very local level (and occasionally a Governor), the Democratic "brand name" among white southerners has been wholly rejected.  This, at a time that black southerners continue to support Democrats at levels as high or higher than blacks in other parts of the country.

  To me, it seems like Ron Sparks has the type of populist message that:  1) will continue to win the support of black voters, 2)  can attract white voters, and 3) fits completely consistently with the national party.  Improving our "brand name" in the region is going to be long and hard (I've largely given up on that happening at a national level here in Indiana!!) -- but it begins by running and supporting good candidates, even if they have a very difficult challenge ahead of them.

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by: IndianaProgressive @ Wed Mar 28, 2007 at 14:14:20 PM UTC

I wanted to find the 2000 numbers

because I think in the South, Kerry was not actually a fair test of Brand Democrat.  I think the America At War thing played really heavily in the South, and there was a very strong "don't vote against the commander in chief" effect that isn't completely linked to brand Democrat and brand Republican.  Anyway, I was curious to see if the 2000 numbers were as different as I thought they'd be.

I used the CNN election results 2000 page and associated exit polls, but this is all I could get.  [percent of white vote won by Gore]

Mississippi
Alabama - 34%
South Carolina
Georgia - 35%
Louisiana
Tennessee

I got no results for four states, which bugs me.  Where did you go for your 2004 exit polls?

I generally agree with your post, and was just interested in if and how thoroughly Brand Democrat has been rejected.  I think there's still significant opportunity there, but it would require an economic populism, delivered by a regionally appealing figure, that would probably scare the pants off of the support base that Schumer has been cultivating.  The East Coast Establishment would bail if we actually ran a candidate who was populist enough to win Southern whites.  Which is an interesting spin on Schaller's thesis.  It's not that we can't win the South, it's that we can't win the South on economics without losing our own financial base in the process.

That applies more to the presidential level.  I wonder how many populist Democrats Schumer's network would allow him to put in Congress.  Schumer paid for anti-CEO Webb.  Schumer also paid for pro-CEO Harold Ford. (And Bill Nelson, Mark Pryor, John Breaux, etc.)  I wonder how many Webb's Schumer could run before getting static from his own patrons and funders.  Webb and even Webb+Brown+Sparks ain't quite a pattern, but if there was the chance of an anti-CEO caucus developing in the Senate I think Schumer would get called on it pretty hard.

[disclaimer: I don't think Schumer is God.  I'm using him as a conceptual stand-in for the group of people that mediate between big East Coast money, and the Democratic Party operators.]

28, gay guy, Democrat, CA-08

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by: texas dem @ Wed Mar 28, 2007 at 20:02:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Very good points

I got my numbers from 2004 CNN exit polls.  You can still find them online (don't have the link handy right now)

I think you raise a really good point that would the people funding the party run away screaming if we made the argument that would win over the white south.  But we don't need to win over a majority, or anything close.  With the black vote being 25%+ in so many Southern states, we should be making these races closer.  And with the changing demographics and the GOP going around the bend on immigration, hopefully we can start making your state of Texas closer again, too!

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by: IndianaProgressive @ Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 17:41:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Holy Cow! Phenomenal ads!

I opine on my blog:

Given that I have never seen a campaign commercial for Agriculture Commissioner before, I must say they were phenomenal - especially when Sparks notes in the first ad that he "wrote the nation's first anti-terrorist plan to protect our food supply." If he did that as Agriculture Commissioner, imagine what he could do as Senator! The second ad deftly connects the agricultural sector with energy independence and how it can benefit Alabama's farmers. I must say, I'm getting pretty enthused about a possible Sparks bid. (And I think the commercials were effective in Alabama, too - Sparks went from a 51% election victory in 2002 to a 59% re-election victory in 2006.)

59% Sparks got in 2006.  In 2002, a terrific year for Republicans electorally, Sessions only got 59% against seemingly token opposition.  Getting enthused!

Check out the Guru's blog at http://www.senateguru.com

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by: senate2008guru @ Wed Mar 28, 2007 at 16:32:47 PM UTC