Book Review: Blue Dixie

http://us.macmillan.com/bluedixie

Major Points:
The South has traditionally been a Democratic area, but changes in the party have alienated Southerners
The South is not as conservative as many would think
Traditional Liberals in the South want to vote for the Democratic candidate but few candidates meet their needs
The Democratic Party needs to jettison the notions of being "Republican Lights"
Southern Neo-Liberals like Bill Clinton are actually not liberal enough for Southern tastes
Obama as a candidate (written before the election) is continuing this pattern

My Agreements
The South is not as conservative as many would think
The South has traditionally been a Democratic area, but changes in the party have alienated Southerners

My Disagreements:
Traditional Liberals in the South want to vote for the Democratic candidate but few candidates meet their needs...This I agree with on the National level, and somewhat on the state level

Thoughts:

There is very little in this book that I disagree with, and that is coming from someone who voted for George W. Bush and John McCain. In fact the fact that I voted for these candidates over "ideal" Democratic candidates proves Mr. Moser's point.  Barack Obama was and still is, at least to many Democrats, a dream candidate. 

Mr. Moser's point of Democrats needing to pay attention to Southern voters should be considered by any Democrat seeking election in the South.  A prime example, albeit what some would call anecdotal, of Mr. Moser's overarching purpose of the book would come in the form of resident of Greene County, Tennessee who was interviewed by a local paper.  This crux of the article was discussing the fact that many voters were turned off by Barack Obama's rhetoric during the 2008 Presidential campaign.  This gentleman who had run for representative of the 1st Tennessee Congressional District, stated that it was not the color of Obama's skin that bothered him, but the fact that he was not a traditional liberal.  In addition, it seemed seemed  to the interviewee that Obama simply ignored the South as a whole.  A closer examination of the electoral map from the 2008 election would confirm this assumption.  Obama won only North Carolina, Virginia, and (what many call the Southern most Northern state) Florida.

Finally I will say that even with the emergence and subsequent fall of the Tea Party, which I would contend to be made up of closet Democrats, the Democratic Party could stand to do well by paying attention to the South.  Many Tea Partiers have become disenfranchised with the Republican party, and are simply not heard in the Tea Party (due mostly to overwhelmingly loud spokespeople), so it would behoove Democrats to attempt cajoling them to the other side.  I again turn to the example from above to help prove this point. The gentleman had seriously contemplated voting for John McCain had he not put Sarah Palin on the ticket. Many Southerns have flocked to the Tea Party, but many more find them downright repulsive and loud.  Many people I have spoken with on the subject have stated that they have more in common with Democrats than the Tea Party. 

 As an aside, I have to admit that it got my liberal blood going and made me want see the Democratic party do well in the next elections...so long as they are traditional Southern Democrats and not New Liberal Yankees...yeah I said it