Great article link, and a few other thoughts

I really do intend to go back to being mostly non-political, but this article is wonderfully encouraging. I'm not entirely sure I buy it, but it does make a lot of sense.

And while we're on the subject, I do have a few other thoughts to share. For starters, I read just now that Bush's percentage declined among rural voters this year, from 60% to 56%. That's a great sign - and it's also a sign of something I've believed for quite a while. It really is about time Democrats start at least trying to pick up more rural votes. True enough, nothing is going to make us competitive in places like Kansas or Wyoming immediately (or even anytime soon), but now that we do have a solid base of support on the coasts and around the Great Lakes, it's about time we start laying the groundwork for taking the fight to their base.

One reason why those states are so solidly Republican is that the Dems haven't made any efforts at all to attract voters there in decades. It's about time that changed, since laissez-faire Republican policies are ultimately just as bad for farmers and ranchers as they are for factory workers in the Midwest or white-collar workers on the coasts. Yes, rural voters are more socially conservative, but appeals to homophobia and antifeminism only work among most voters when everything else is going well. All is not well in a lot of the countryside, and if we start speaking to their concerns, I believe a lot of voters will respond. Even if we can start hitting the low 40s consistently in the Corn Belt and the Rockies, it'll open up a lot more of the map to the Dems.

There is, however, one region I do think we should give up on for now: the South outside of Florida (and possibly even including Florida, to tell you the truth). Sure, the Old Confederacy is changing just like the rest of America, and those states will be competitive for us again eventually. But for now, the cold hard truth is that an awfully high percentage of voters down there really like George Bush's meanspirited wingnuttery. In fact, they're the ones who put guys like him in charge of the Republican Party in the first place. I say let's leave the mouth-breathers in charge there and concentrate on winning elections in greener pastures. Sooner or later the right-wing dominance in the South is bound to collapse under its own weight, and in the meantime it'll scare voters elsewhere away from the GOP.

On to '06, already!