Just one year ago--hell, even a few months ago--the unanimous view among the Democrats' strategic sages was that the only drama in the South this fall would be whether the region's few remaining statewide Democratic office-holders could hold on to their jobs. Could Senator Bill Nelson hold off Katherine Harris, America's tackiest theocrat, in Florida? Could Gov. Phil Bredesen show his conservative cojones by cutting enough folks off state health care to hold on in ultra-red Tennessee?

After the 2004 wipeout of five Democratic Senate seats in the South, many national Democrats were pleased to think that their long-running debate--can we win in the Dixie, and should we even try?--had been settled. Settled in the negative, that is. Thomas Schaller's recent book, Whistling Past Dixie, brought together years' worth of poll-tested memoranda in calling for the Democratic Party to kiss off the nation's largest region. It was just a more polite version of one of the most popular post-election blogs from the bitterness of late 2004: "Fuck the South."

Tonight, the South--aka "Jesusland"--has a message for those national Democratic wizards: No, fuck you. If the Senate lands in Democratic hands, it'll be thanks to Claire McCaskill's triumph in Missouri and Jim Webb's stunning win in Virginia over the man who was once conservative Republicans' great hope for the White House in 2008. It will not be thanks to the candidate who ran the sort of Southern campaign the sages called "perfect"--Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee, who went far beyond triangulation and out-Republicaned his opponent with hard lines on gay marriage, immigration, national defense, guns, and an array of Bible quotes that could whip John Ashcroft in a holiness contest any day.

McCaskill, a hard-nosed former prosecutor, and Webb, a tough-as-beef-jerky former Republican cabinet officer, are nobody's idea of wild-eyed liberals. But they both ran campaigns that stubbornly bucked conventional wisdom for Southern Democrats running statewide in the last two decades. Running against hardcore Christian conservative incumbents, neither of them triangulated. They were unwaveringly pro-choice; they called for sharp changes in Iraq policy; McCaskill opposed anti-gay marriage hoo-ha; and they ran as old-fashioned, blue-collar, labor-embracing economic populists. As what used to be called Democrats, that is.

"It's back to the traditional Democratic Party, which was founded on the health of the working person," Webb told me earlier this fall. In her victory speech this morning, McCaskill highlighted the same theme: "Once again," she said, "the Democratic Party has claimed Harry Truman's Senate seat for the working people of Missouri."

For the working people. It's a sequence of words Democrats have continued to mouth, but it's been a long time since anybody living in anything smaller than a McMansion had much call to believe it.

Truly championing the working class--and winning these folks' votes --means plunging in among them. That is what national Democrats are afraid to do. It's what John Kerry had in mind early in 2004, when he sniffed about how "everybody always makes the mistake of looking South" for Democratic votes. Despite forty years of steady economic growth in the region, the South still has more poor, struggling and badly educated Americans--black and white--than anywhere else in the country.

Those were the people who won Missouri and Virginia for the Democrats this year. Not because they finally woke up and realized where their true economic interests lay. McCaskill and Webb won because they took their campaigns directly into the Republicans' working-class strongholds. In the Bible Belt Ozarks of Southern Missouri, McCaskill campaigned hard, emphasizing her blue-collar message without running away from her pro-stem cell, pro-choice, anti-war message. It paid off in the biggest Republican county in the state, Greene, where early polls showed Republican Jim Talent winning a mere 53 percent of the vote--a huge change from recent elections.

Webb stumped hard in Southwest Virginia, conservative hill country that has provided Republicans with their statewide margins in Virginia for three decades now. He did not thicken his accent to charm the folks down there; he did not excise the Marx and Engels references from his high-falutin speeches when he campaigned in the deepest, most conservative hollows. Like McCaskill, he spoke to folks in the same tone, with the same messages, that he used in liberal urban strongholds. It won't be so easy for Dixiephobic Democrats to make a "forget the South" argument now. As a recent Pew study found, the South's famously militaristic folks have turned against the Iraq war just as fiercely as the rest of the country. In Virginia, folks were not distracted by an anti-gay marriage amendment. In Missouri, folks were not distracted by this year's hot initiative issue, a stem-cell amendment. For years, they've been voting for Republicans with whom they disagreed on a host of issues; this time, they voted for Democrats with social and foreign-policy views that were often downright liberal.

The war mattered, but the working-class message made the difference for both McCaskill and Webb. It wasn't just their policy positions, which mimicked those of national Democrats in most ways. It was the way they showed up -- over and over again -- in places where Democrats (according to the sages) are supposed to avoid. On Election Day, McCaskill veered from her planned schedule and made the long trip downstate to shake hands at a polling place in Greene County. Like Webb, she looked rural and Christian Right folks in the eye, asked for their votes, and told them where she stood without trimming the edges off her progressive views. And like Webb, she got more votes from those folks than any chart, graph, poll or wishful thought could have conjured up.

No message from this triumphal mid-term election should ring more loudly than this. The South cannot be written off by the Democratic Party. More precisely, Southerners cannot be written off by the Democratic Party. The key to winning the votes of rural and working-class people in Dixie is the same as everywhere else in America. Nobody said it better than that great old Southern liberal activist, Strange Fruit author Lillian Smith. "A vote," she wrote in Killers of the Dream, "...is a small thing to give a man who has made you feel revered for the first time in your life."

Comments (21)

1. Webb's a liberal?!?!?

   Posted by Mask at 11/08/2006 @ 07:28am

2. "Webb's a liberal?!?!?"

   Posted by MASK 11/08/2006 @ 07:28am

   "McCaskill, a hard-nosed former prosecutor, and Webb, a tough-as-beef-jerky former Republican cabinet officer, are nobody's idea of wild-eyed liberals."

   Posted by drhammer at 11/08/2006 @ 08:58am

3. Posted by DRHAMMER 11/08/2006 @ 08:58am

   And read the rest, Doc....

   "Like Webb, she looked rural and Christian Right folks in the eye, asked for their votes, and told them where she stood without trimming the edges off her progressive views."

   "Like Webb"...and "progressive views"?

   How does Mr Moser relate how Webb is "nobody's idea of wild-eyed liberal"...and then go onto claim that he unabashedly didn't "trim the edges off his progressive views"?!?!?!

   So...is Webb a liberal or not?!??

   Posted by Mask at 11/08/2006 @ 09:31am

4. "Like Webb, she looked rural and Christian Right folks in the eye, asked for their votes, and told them where she stood without trimming the edges off her progressive views."

   Oh, ye of obscured visage.

   I read that statement, and the implication is that neither Webb nor McCaskill will trim the edges off those views thay hold that may be progressive.

   You read that statement, and the implication seems to be that neither Webb nor McCaskill will trim the edges off their views, all of which are progressive.

   Unless Mr. Moser chooses to enlighten us as to his intent, we are left to our own devices. But the bigger question is, what purpose is served by painting either with one brush or the other, other than to reinforce the Maskian template that you work so assiduously to jam all these issues into?

   Posted by drhammer at 11/08/2006 @ 12:18pm

5. Mizz Van den Huevel,

   Where in tarnation are my 62 Republican Senators and 262 members of the House of Representatives?!! This is an outrage! Damn Democrats are going to destroy our nation with gay rights, coddling terrorists, turning the nation toward socialism, affirmative action, illegal immigration and all the rest of it. America, Wake UP! Leftwinger Nancy Pelosi will turn our nation toward communism!!

   Posted by POSEIDON at 11/08/2006 @ 4:29pm

6. And of course the previously aforemention post was something out of the playbook of the flying rightwing monkey society of Ann the bimbosoid Coulter, Michelle "me luv you long time" Malkin, Billo der spiegel O'Reilly, Sean the fascist O'Hannity, and the clowned King of rightwing stupidity Mr. Oxycontin himself, the big fat idiot Slush Slimebaugh!

   Although a registered Republican voter, my hearty thanks to everyone who assisted in any way, shape, form, or fashion the incredible victory of the opposition party yesterday. As the final returns came in (Jim Webb will prevail in VA and George Maccaca Allen will fall, rest assured) it partially restored some of my faith in American society because the people finally voted for an end to the Bush Admin. and rightwing Republican lunacy that was crammed down the throats of the entire country for six years.

   Having said all that, the Democrats have to produce concrete results to vindicate the verdict and opportunity that the American people put forward yesterday. Nancy Pelosi, forget that grab bag of goodies that you promised the people for Halloween has passed and trick or treat time is over. Item one on the agenda for the majority Democrats and the minority Republicans still standing is the ending of the failed, destructive, and costly Iraq War. If Democrats don't end this war on Bush's watch, they will suffer the same fate in November 2008 that Republicans suffered in November 2006. Democrats will be booted from power if the Iraq war does not end................

   Posted by POSEIDON at 11/08/2006 @ 4:46pm

7. "Jesusland." How charming (and tolerant) of you.

   You're right that people are sick of the Democrats' elitism, but otherwise your intriguing thesis is contrary to the facts. First of all, as the tally now stands, even with an opponent bent on losing, Webb is ahead by a stunning--get this--0.31%.

   Webb didn't carry any rural counties and in most didn't crack 40%. Most importantly, if you factor out the inside-the-beltway vote (7 to 3 Webb), Webb is trounced. To observe that Webb can relate to people better than Kerry can is to belabor the self-evident. But that has nothing to do with why he might win. His margin (many times over) came from the same rich white liberals who voted for Kerry.

   Posted by zjr78xva at 11/08/2006 @ 9:33pm

8. Jim Webb has all the charisma of a wet mop and he still won. And now that he has the seat he's exactly the type of hard-working Senator who will win again... and again. And as he does his work the way it should be done, because he believes in it, he'll gradually win over those rural areas and push that margin from 40 to 50+ percent. That's how it all starts. He ran a great campaign in a state that is obviously undergoing some serious changes.

   As for George Allen, he's an arrogant loud-mouthed idiot who got exactly what he deserved. Anyone who can stare into a camera and repeat some half-forgotten racial slur without expecting repercussions is de-racinated from reality. Spin indeed.

   Posted by ncimon at 11/08/2006 @ 10:17pm

9. So...is Webb a liberal or not?!??

   More importantly, does he have type A, type B or type O blood and what is the highest place he has rated in a spelling bee?

   Posted by canaar at 11/09/2006 @ 12:42am

10. I think that this is a highly insightful article. Should be a must reading for many. I have lived in the south and I found the people very open minded. Now that I am away from it, I have often felt a sense of dispair about how poor and middle class southerners seem to act totally against their own interest in the name of some silly irrelevant issue or the other. Now my faith in the south, in fact in the whole nation is back. As Paul Newman's character said "what we have had here, is a failure to communicate" :)

    Posted by paulv at 11/09/2006 @ 02:16am

11. Moser misrepesents what's going on here. It's not a liberal/progressive takeover of the entire south -- a more realistic term to describe this manifestation of a workable southern strategy might be "encroachment and containment." We can delineate ever smaller borders of a "solid Republican South" by beginning north and working southward (today Virginia and Missouri, tomorrow North Carolina and Tennessee), but only by continuing to put up socially moderate candidates like McCaskill, Webb, Schuler, etc. Eventually, "that old-timey conservatism" might be contained to just the deep south (excepting Florida), Texas, Oklahoma, and Utah, but it's pretty hard to imagine a purple or blue South Carolina or Mississippi in our lifetimes.

    Posted by Angus P at 11/09/2006 @ 08:01am

12. Can someone explain to me how religious people justify supporting republican economic policies? How do you reconcile the opposition to welfare and big social programs with christian faith when the number one message in all greater (and minor, too, I suppose)religions is real compassion by sharing the wealth? I don't have anything against these religions per se, in fact many of their core values sound wonderful. Of course, I'm just a silly scandinavian so maybe I'm missing something. Here on the contrary we don't attend church much nor do we talk about religion (faith is so personal and silent I have no clue as to how many believers there are) yet a clear majority favor big taxes for general well being.

    Posted by jennip at 11/09/2006 @ 09:29am

13. Posted by MASK 11/08/2006 @ 09:31am

    I believe the comparison was he was no "wild-eyed liberal" but instead espoused an ideal closer to the roots of liberalism which is in the the liberty of individuals and the interests of the common man. Try the "liberalism" Wikipedia entry! Informative stuff overall...

    Posted by leftofcenter at 11/09/2006 @ 11:18am

14. Posted by JENNIP 11/09/2006 @ 09:29am

    I suppose the Neocons hope the poor will die and then God will tend to them directly! Cut out the middleman and such...

    Posted by leftofcenter at 11/09/2006 @ 11:19am

15. Bob, love this post! I was the editor on a book called FOXES IN THE HENHOUSE and the authors worked on Webb's campaign. You should check it out.

    Posted by uvallbr at 11/09/2006 @ 11:19am

16. Posted by ZJR78XVA 11/08/2006 @ 9:33pm

    Wow! That means the majority of people in VA are rich-white liberals? New state slogan - "Virginia, its for Liberals!"

    Posted by leftofcenter at 11/09/2006 @ 11:21am

17. Leftofcenter: Nice one. This christian anti-welfare stance seems so at odds to me I'll be willing to believe your theory if I don't hear any other responses! Has anyone heard a religious republican defend their position? What do they say?

    Posted by jennip at 11/09/2006 @ 11:38am

18. JENNIP Can someone explain to me how religious people justify supporting republican economic policies? How do you reconcile the opposition to welfare and big social programs with christian faith when the number one message in all greater (and minor, too, I suppose)religions is real compassion by sharing the wealth?

    I'm not religious, but my guess is that it has to do with government compulsion. In the same way faith is not spread at the point of a sword, something is more virtuous if it comes from within, rather than imposed from outside.

    Posted by Snarfangel at 11/09/2006 @ 12:38pm

19. If you take most people and ask them about individual liberal goals, most people are for them. Everybody should have health insurance, everybody should be able to live on a 40 hour a week job, everybody should be able to afford a decent education, etc. Democrats need to hammer on this and be proud of being behind these values. (They also need to pass one-issue bills to force the Republicans in the house and Senate to take a stand, and force Bush to eat them or veto them.)

    What I find fascinating is that recent Republicans have been recycling Democratic ideas from the 1960s with full vigor and no shame; (remember Bobby Kennedy's idea of using welfare money to train people for jobs? Rep. governor Engler recycled it in the 1990s)the problem with Republicans is they're 30 years behind. The problem is with unbridled conservatism is that, it they had their way, we'd still be in caves and wouldn't have learned how to use fire, yet.

    Posted by brantl at 11/09/2006 @ 3:02pm

20. As an aside: In his victory speech Webb made it clear that he'd been mis-represented by the media. His issues extend beyond national security which originally drew him to the Republicans and eventually pushed him away. He's concerned with social and economic justice and he feels at home in the Democratic party voicing those concerns.

    Here's a question for the forum: With the West and the Northeast rapidly shedding Republicans, how can the party hope to remain in the mainstream? I think they've made a huge tactical error in having placed all their marbles on what may be a limited constituency. How long can that succeed, especially if working class Southerners figure out that their interests are not served in the least by the sort of partisanship they've put up with?

    Posted by ncimon at 11/09/2006 @ 5:10pm

21. I have one issue with the article, in that I don't think Harold Ford lost because he "out-Republicaned" the Republican or failed to run enough as a Democrat. He lost because a large number--a very large number--of people in Tennessee will NEVER vote for an African American candidate. Ford was fine candidate, and (sadly) if a white candidate had run as a Democrat in Tennessee, running a similar campaign or a campaign more like those of Webb and McCaskill, he (she) would have won in a landslide.

    Posted by jims0121 at 11/10/2006 @ 11:25am