If that is the case, then my guess is that the priorities of the suburban service-sector party of the left will not include anti-sprawl ordinances and tariffs limiting manufactured imports.  An educated guess, but a guess.

Are you unaware that suburbs sprawl out in rings and that the inner tiers are none too keen on paying for sewer lines and highways sprawling to exurbia?

Surbanites are cubicle dwellers and it has begun to dawn on many that those imported manufactured imports are increasingly also imported internet connected services performed by foreign cubicle dwellers.   The US should have at least one party looking out for what is going to happen to those suburban office towers and suburban mortgages as IT, accounting, human resources, call centers, payment processing and virtually anything that a suburban worker can do moves offshore. 

Too bad, it's likely to be Pat Buchanan type right-winger who figures this out first!

Perhaps I am misreading him, but the suggestion is that the Republicans have gotten the jump on the Dems in the new economy by emphasizing private sector creativity, entrepreneurship, and in trying to harness market forces for public ends.

But when I look at how the GOP has won since 1994, dynamism isn't exactly the first word that comes to mind. Rather, I see the GOP wins in 2002 and 2004 as coming from getting every last of the unreconstructed to the polls, and creating just enough post-9/11 fear and uncertainty to squeak by to victory. Of course the read that the GOP really has nothing to sell but bigotry and fear is probably a little too complacent, but I think it's closer to what happened than Lind's version (again, I may be misreading him).

I also want to say that I've probably read more of Lind's writing than most of the other folks here, and while I often disagree with his conclusions, I am unfailingly smarter and wiser for having read him.

Could you define what you mean by suburban? And service worker too for that matter. Pretty broad terms.

Are these suburbanite service workers like the liberal educated high-tech people living around universities and wealth generating innovation hubs such as the silicon valley area, Seattle, etc?

Are they the working poor in downscale burbs strategically placed between other wealth centers?

Gated communities?

Are they immigrant? Educated? Uneducated? Religious? Secular? Liberal? Conservative? What? 

I mean there are all kinds of burbs, just as there are all kinds of city neighborhoods. Generalizing them says nothing.

Also, it's important to look at why there may be more people in the suburbs. For example, as technology allows more telecommuting, and should efficient rail transit increase, then the nature of burbs might change dramatically.Meaning don’t make assumptions about future politics just because people spread out a bit.

Right now we happen to have a pretty stark cultural divide between urban and rural, mainly because of opportunity in urban areas leading to higher education, more cultural exposure, more secular beliefs, etc, compared with the decline of manufacturing and agriculture in rural areas, leading to less education, more homogeneity, more religion and fundamentalism etc.

But that in itself doesn't tell us that much about future burbs.

emphasizing private sector creativity, entrepreneurship, and in trying to harness market forces for public ends.

Wow. If that's what he was saying, I need to borrow your X-Ray glasses, and mind probe, because i totally missed it.

I got the impression he's got an axe to grind about cities and blue hubs; and that he's predicting the future will hold a larger suburban population (definition unknown) which he's conflating with conservatism, probably because the most obvious rural/suburban areas, those most clearly removed from blue hubs, are of course the reddest.

I tend to see it the opposite way. more people are passing through the blue hubs for their education and careers, picking up blue cultural exposure along the way, and even if they move for economic reasons to areas of lower population density and lower cost, most will remain more blue than they would have been otherwise. So I actually predict a "blueing" of the burbs, not a reddening of the ex-urbs.

I will grant him that political preference for zoning laws may change, but I hardly see these ex-urbs suddenly swinging Rt. And looking at the entire circuit from suburban>urban>exurban I see a bluer end person than started.

Once again, your argument is without basis in fact.

According to the 2000 Census there are only about 59 million Americans in rural America, while 192 million Americans live in densely-populated cities, 120 million of which live in areas with more than a million citizens.  Replacing the focus of our policy on rural areas instead of urban areas, at a time when our biggest obstacle with the urban vote is getting the vote out would be downright idiotic. 

There are far more effective and less betraying acts the party to could do to improve it's statewide and national prospects, namely making the ballot box more accessible through:

-A nationwide ban on felony disenfranchisment laws

-Mandatory same-day voter registration

-One national and verifiable voting mechanism with universal ballot counting standards and voter verification

-Non-partisan election boards to administer elections, tabulate ballots and handle redistricting

-Moving election day to Saturday 

-A constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote

And if you really want to see a left-leaning White House for the rest of your life time: 

-A repeal of the Electoral College

I realize the final two are long-term projects, but the first five can be accomplished through simple legislation, and the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act is a great opportunity for us to champion the causes.

We don't need to abandon our base of support, and at the same time we shouldn't be afraid to step into counties where NASCAR is popular.  Most of those married white rural farming Earnhardt fans have the same patriotic skeptism of corporate influence in government and corporate America in general as the black inner-city single working mothers.  But you know that.  Just as there were members of the New Deal coalition that would have liked it better if certain constiuency groups weren't part of the Democratic Party, you have a problem with the influence some groups have on the Democratic Party.

Just admit it Michael: you don't want no big city mayor or black, female and/or working-poor voters telling your privileged white Senatorial/gubernatorial candidate what he has to do to earn their vote or questioning what corporation fills their campaign warchest.

If that is the case, then my guess is that the priorities of the suburban service-sector party of the left will not include anti-sprawl ordinances and tariffs limiting manufactured imports.  An educated guess, but a guess.

The far-exurb model as it currently exists is not going to survive $5/gallon gasoline - the economics just aren't there.  Either modifications will be made, making US population centers look more like European cities (or US cities in the late 1800s), or the US economy will totally collapse.  But there is no way the cornfield-4-bedroom-plus-large-SUV situation can continue much longer.  The signs of strain are evident now at $2.50/gal.

sPh 

I agree that 2004 was not significanlty different from the 2000 election. Bush barely won in 2004 primarily because he had the power of incumbancy.

He was also about 18 months into a questionable war, and used his status as War President in addition to simple incumbancy. This attracted groups such as the so-called "Security Moms."

There is now a growing anti-war sentiment (which, as Kos pointed out, is not an anti war movement) and the next Republican will not have the power of the incumbancy. The deficit financing of the federal government is supporting a very mild economic recovery which is not accompanied with much improvement in employment. This is moving slowly towards a mild negative for the Republicans.

The Republicans still have a nationally organized party that is awash in money and which is in a position to take advantage of a number of political structural tricks, such as gerrymandered Congressional districts. It is supported by the right-wing echo chamber in the so-called news media. Stack this on the high energy social Republicans who have taken over the Republican party in a number of states (Texas is a prime example) and the Republicans have some real political advantages. This is combined with a centrally coordinated voter suppression program that has paid high dividends for them in marginal campaigns.

Against this is the still very disorganized group of Democrats whose Washington leaders have not yet realized that they are members of the minority party and who woud rather fight each other than fight the Republicans. As a party they are poorly funded, very poorly coordianted, have no significant out-reach programs to the very minorities who provide the margin by which many Democrats win elections, and have no real way to get their messages out other than to hope the flaccid mainsteam media will pick them up in the few spare seconds that are not given over to the more powerfully presented and supported conservative messages. But the Democrats still live in hope because their values and beliefs are those shared by more Americans. Seven straight lost Congressional elections seem to have not yet sunk in to the Democratic leaders.

The party structural characteristics provide significant advantages to the Republicans, but there is no apparent movement of the American public towards the Republican Party.

Better candidates will not appear until the Democrats become a competitive political party.

What do you mean that the greatest challenge is globalization not preindustrial Islam?

"192 million Americans live in densely-populated cities"

Ummm...

When you start defining your terms to meet your ideological goals, you stop being of much use in strategizing.

"In broad historical terms, 2004 was very similar to 2000.  And if you drill down into 1996, it was pretty similar to that one too.  What we've seen is a continuing intensification of a pattern that I think you see as far back as 1988."

There is a good deal of wisdom in this.

1988 is the most distant general election that really bears a distinct resemblance to our current electoral map.

But more broadly, I'd argue we're still living in the post-'68 era, with the '88 election as a consolidation of the GOP post-'68 majority.

Instead of juvenile posts and "2" ratings, how about you spend your energy contesting my numbers, which are found using these two links: University of Montana Rural Institute and U.S. Department of State

Or even better, a few minutes on the dreaded Census site produced the Census Table

It appears Petey, it is you who would like to fabricate terms to meet your ideological goals.

And as for strategizing, I've seen the type of strategy you advocate both through your posts and abuse of the rating system.  Frankly, your advice isn't worth the toilet paper I wipe my butt with and the Democratic Party can't kick to the curb people with your "insight" soon enough. 

You know, when I told my uncle I was getting into politics, he warned me that even when I'm right about something terribly easy for all parties to understand, verify and support, I would still find myself in heated battle.  When I asked why, he simply shrugged and said, "The weatherman and Democratic political operatives are the only people on this planet who can be completely wrong and still keep their jobs."

"how about you spend your energy contesting my numbers, which are found using these two links: University of Montana Rural Institute and U.S. Department of State"

The terms you have decided to use define a loose cluster of 2,500 people as "urban".

Given those terms, 79% of the population is "urban"

Given those terms, all of suburbia is "urban".

Given those terms, many exurban areas are "urban".

That is a very different use of the term "urban" than everyone else is using in political chat.

Defining your terms differently than everyone else is not particularly helpful.  When it appears that you are defining your terms differently to help your ideological case, people begin to question your intellectual honesty.

"And as for strategizing, I've seen the type of strategy you advocate both through your posts and abuse of the rating system."

You are one to talk about ratings, DWCG.

As of the moment, you've rated 50 posts here at TPMCafe.  30 of those have been posts of mine.  Needless to say, none of my posts have merited a positive rating from you.

To repeat, of your 50 total ratings, 30 are ratings of my posts.

I'm flattered at the attention, but maybe you ought to get a plant instead...