Elizabeth Edwards says the Democratic Party has written off the South.
The wife of former North Carolina senator John Edwards said that Democrats have not paid attention to southern states in recent presidential elections, and it seems unlikely that either Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will spend much time in the region if they are the nominee.
"We didn't campaign with a single ad in North Carolina last time and we had a North Carolinian on the ballot," Edwards said Tuesday in Nashville Tennessee according to AP. "Why? Because they didn’t think a Democrat could win North Carolina."
Edwards said if her husband was the nominee, he could make a play for the five states with Democratic governors — Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
Comments
Re: Elizabeth's southern strategy
August 30, 2007 - 9:36am — ProctorOops--another faux pas. The Andrew Jackson presidential victories of course were in 1828 and 1832, the raging controversies surrounding the John Quincy Adams-Henry Clay-Andrew Jackson scramble for the presidency in 1824 notwithstanding. Then Van Buren's win as Jackson's former VP was of course in 1836, not 1840, which was the year of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." My apologies to all the political savants in Domeland. Then the next presidential campaign--1844--was the year of "Polk, Dallas and Texas!"
Re: Elizabeth's southern strategy
August 30, 2007 - 9:30am — ProctorBy way of clarification in my previous post, I should have said that in 1956, Tennessee went for President Eisenhower, running as a Republican for re-election, even though its own Sen. Estes Kefauver was the running mate of Adlai Stevenson on the Democratic ticket.
That 1956 Democratic convention by the way left a trail of mysteries which have confounded Southern Democrats ever since. The floor was thrown open for the vice presidential nomination process, and Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts made a strong run for the second place on the ticket, losing out in the late going to Kefauver, who in turn had received second-round support from another Democratic vice presidential contender, his fellow Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Sr.
So in 1992 and 1996 Albert Gore Jr. was able to do what neither Estes Kefaufer nor his own father Albert Gore Sr. had been able to do--help carry the state of Tennessee for the Democrats as a vice presidential standard-bearer, but no Tennessean has yet been able to duplicate Andrew Jackson's feat of winning the Volunteer State as a Democrat in a successful national campaign for the presidency.
Meanwhile, JFK later was to express the view that he may have been better off not having won the vice presidential nomination in 1956 than he if had been on a losing ticket four years prior to his own run for the White House in 1960. But history can never deal those cards to us because a Stevenson-Kennedy ticket in 1956 might have added a number of new states to the Democratic column although it would have been hard-pressed to overcome President Eisenhower's great popularity and support across the Nation.
So again, Elizabeth Edwards is right--the Democratic Party nationally has written off many individual Southern states as unwinnable without making a sufficient effort to re-connect the party's presidential campaigns with the voters as well as the local and state political leaders of those states. John Edwards needs at least two Southern states outside the Carolinas to give him a breakthrough in the primaries, and one of them ought to be Georgia or Florida.
Perhaps Mrs. Edwards can cajole or perhaps gently prod some Southern political reporters into considering the possibility that Southerners are just as interested in positive change in this country in 2008 as people from all other regions of the country.
Re: Elizabeth's southern strategy
August 30, 2007 - 9:06am — ProctorElizabeth Edwards is right to point out the neglect of the South by the Democratic Party in recent election cycles even when a Southerner has been on the ticket as the presidential or vice presidential nominee. Of course, it may take Thomas Jefferson running for a third term to get Virginia to go Democratic in a presidential campaign, but you have to start somewhere.
But the Democratic Party needs to face up to historic difficulties in the South revolving around a paradox of American politics: Southerners have been able to do well in national elections throughout the history of the Democratic Party, but they have had to overcome obstacles to success within their own region of the country.
Jimmy Carter's 1976 campaign, in which the Minnesotan Walter Mondale was his Democratic running mate, still provides an example to be emulated by Democratic presidential hopefuls from the South. But in at least two cases, it took two Southerners on the Democratic ticket to get one ofr them into the White House:
Andrew Jackson won his home state of Tennessee and the presidency in 1828 with South Carolina's John Calhoun as the vice presidential candidate. But by 1836 when Jackson ran for a second term, Calhoun had bolted from the administration, and therefore Old Hickory ran for re-election with the New Yorker Martin Van Buren as the vice presidential candidate. The Jackson-Van Buren ticket was successful in 1836, and Van Buren was able to win a single term in his own right in 1840, but by then, Jackson's home state of Tennessee had practically been permanently lost to the Democratic Party for "Soutern region candidates." In 1848, former Tennessee Gov. and North Carolina native James Knox Polk was not able to win either his native or adopted states of North Carolina or Tennessee as both went for Kentuckian Henry Clay, but Polk was able to make up the difference in the Northeast and Deep South and win the presidency along with his running mate, George Dallas of Pennsylvania, who joined the ticket after then-New York Gov. Silas Wright declined the offer of a vice presidential nomination.
In the 20th Century, the Volunteer State went for Eisenhower in 1956 with Tennessee Sen. Estes Kefauver in the No. 2 spot on the ticket, and it went for Texan George Bush over its own Al Gore in 2000.
But Bill Clinton and Al Gore together were able to put both Arkansas and Tennessee in the Democratic column in 1992 and 1996. Ironically, in North Carolina, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts was able to score some important wins in key North Carolina counties which had previously gone Republican, and Edwards being in the No. 2 spot may have made a significant contribution to those local breakthroughs, but the Kerry-Edwards campaign could not carry the entire state.
Therefore, with "The Governor's Wing" of the North Carolina Democratic Party--i.e., the factions of the party supporting whoever the Democratic nominee for governor happens to be--having gone its separate ways from the national campaign train since the 1980s, the Edwards campaign needs to follow Elizabeth Edwards' timely advice and make a strong regional push throughout the South while the region is still up for grabs in the Democratic nominating contest.
And the former North Carolina senator should make a strong pitch to other Southern Democrats in such states as Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Atkansas and Texas, and try to awaken the party from its current lethargy and lack of resolve in the South. The next two months should be very interesting in this regard.
Re: Elizabeth's southern strategy
August 30, 2007 - 7:01am — FFC1304Yes, again, it is so very highly curious how a so called red state can be SO twisted up by state level democrackkk 'leadership' which has bred SO much CORRUPTION in our once great state.
WHY would ANY of you vote for a democrat? Get away from those people.
Re: Elizabeth's southern strategy
August 29, 2007 - 6:02pm — ryanteaguebeckwith (author)Comment deleted for use of profanity.
The author is welcome to repost his thoughts, which were essentially wondering why North Carolina votes for Republicans for Senate and president, but has so many Democratic state officeholders.
— RTB