...and a great post it is. Berlin mentioned Bowers' post below, and Digby follows up by pointing out, among other things, the lyrics to the new Merle Haggard/Gretchen Wilson song, which pretty much sums up the southern cultural identity in just a few words.
The only thing I can add to this topic is this: this is precisely why the "50-state strategy" is so important. John Kerry's been labeled. Hilary Clinton's been labeled. Howard Dean's been labeled. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, as far people have actually heard of them anyway, have been labeled. Hell, even Al Gore has been labeled. If progressives want southerners (and people from the rest of the country as well) to realize that their core "common man" values are actually better served by Democrats than Republicans, then it's going to take recruitment and money. While I'm not 100% pleased with Howard Dean's DNC work and public relations efforts to date, at least he gets it. His "we need to reach the people with confederate flag stickers on their trucks" idea, while worded relatively poorly and predictably slaughtered by the p.c. police, was still more or less dead on. Democrats will not connect with any kind of inherent racism or anything negative like that (they'd better not, anyway), but their policies better serve the country (which includes the South), and it's going to take a set of new mouthpieces to actually relate that idea to the public.
I'm going to stop myself there because I realize that the South is never going to totally trend back to Democrats, and honestly I don't want it to. The South has enough power as is, and there's a lot of area to the north and west where Democrats will have to focus as well. But only a 50-state strategy, where local Democrats who talk and act and worship like the locals can emerge and start snagging seats here and there, will work long-term for this party. Of course, that would mean new pockets of power within the Democratic Party, and I don't exactly see the current power brokers allowing that to happen.
UPDATE - 3:17pm: I see that Atrios and Christy have chimed in as well. From Christy:The Democratic party used to stand for the little guy. The Common Man. The underdog that could make good if he were only given a chance. The widow who got squeezed out of her husband’s pension. You know the list.
And they still do — but the problem is that no one, not even me and I’m a big ole Democratic supporter, NO ONE see the Democratic Party as actually STANDING right now. It’s more of a barely raising your hand in class, and hoping just maybe the teacher won’t notice you until she’s already called on someone else, but you can at least get credit for the hand raising part there.
But for the hills and hollers crowd — and really all of the South and the parts of the country where we like our leaders to have some freaking balls — that’s not nearly enough.
Which is why the Feingold censure movement caught fire in the blogosphere. Which is why people still adore Paul Wellstone. Which is why there are old people all over the state of West Virginia who have a picture of John F. Kennedy right up there on the wall next to their picture of Jesus.
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