With thanks, once again, to TPMCafe readers for their useful comments and constructive criticisms, as promised yesterday in Part II of this mini-series on Democrats building a non-southern majority, I will tackle two more challenges to my argument in Whistling Past Dixie:

The “cultural South” is neither rigidly confined to, nor pervasive everywhere within the South. There are people with southern sensibilities outside the region, and growing pockets of progressivism inside the South.

Point conceded, happily. In fact, I talk quite a bit in the book about the present and ongoing assimilation of the South with non-southern attitudes, as well as the fact that there are many places outside the 11 former Confederate states—particularly but not exclusively in rural areas—that share what might be called a general “southern sensibility” on a range of political and cultural issues. As my colleague and fellow political scientist David Lublin and I wrote back in 2004, after Kerry had essentially wrapped up the nomination, the reason we thought Edwards was an ideal running mate for Kerry was not the fact that Edwards would help the ticket carry any southern states, but that Edwards’ rural-inspired, poverty-themed economic populism might help Kerry with just enough votes in key border states (e.g., West Virginia or Missouri) or swing states where that message might appeal to just enough voters to flip the state blue. But in the South, gains at the margins in the winner-take-all system produce little more than symbolic victories. And, indeed, that’s exactly what happened in the South: Kerry lost to Bush by wider margins than Gore did in every state but Edwards’ North Carolina, and there the increase was a mere fraction of a percent

Whether Edwards helped enough outside the South is an open question; of course, being on the bottom of the ticket means less than the top. But here’s one of seven tactical recommendations I make in the final chapter of the book that may surprise non-southern strategy skeptics: Run southerners for president and/or vice president. Why? Because, much like the old, pre-New Deal Democratic Party found pro-southern northerners to run for the White House, blue state-friendly southerners are the best way for Democrats to win now. The model here, yet again, is Clinton-Gore: Two southerners who won their majorities outside the South. (As I detailed in the original post in this series, Clinton’s margins in 1992 were 9.5 points better in the non-South than the South, making him the first northern southern Democratic president in American history.)

As for the other side of the coin—the emergence of progressive pockets in the South, and the general notion of a “new South”—there is clearly some truth to this assertion. But I would note that this growth is rather geographically limited, at least so far. Go check out the third chapter of Ruy Teixeira and John Judis’ compelling book, The Emerging Democratic Majority. In it, they map out what they call the nascent, “progressive-centrist ideopolises” which, they argue, hold the key to a future Democratic majority. Yet their subsection on the South is the shortest in the chapter—and half of that subsection is dedicated to the subtitle “the Republican South”! The fact is that, holding aside college towns like Austin and Athens, and other than the Tampa-Orlando corridor, Northern Virginia and North Carolina’s Research Triangle (including my beloved Chapel Hill, Ph.D. ’97, go Heels!), progressive-centrism is relatively confined within the South. And, as anyone who lives in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area knows, native North Carolinians have created their own acronym for the bedroom suburb of Cary that serves as home to so many of the high-tech, medical field and other professionals, many of them non-native southerners, who have gravitated there: Contamination Area, Relocated Yankees. As I write in my book, “R.C. Cola and Moonpies will make a comeback in the South before progressive centrism takes hold in the region.”

Where, then, are the major centers of progressive-centrist growth? Much of it is happening west of the Mississippi, in Seattle-Tacoma, Denver-Boulder, Sante Fe-Albuquerque, Phoenix-Tucson, San Francisco-San Jose, and so on. There is some exurban-suburban growth in the South, but the new Democratic majority will be found last, not first, in the country’s still most-rural region. What’s more, the massive growth of the Latino population (FL and TX aside) is happening outside the South, the vast majority of Native Americans reside outside the South, and the only southern state with a share of Asian-Americans above the national average of 4.2 percent is Virginia (barely, at 4.3 percent). The multi-cultural future Democratic majority is not to be found in the South, which also has the lowest union rates and the poorest support for third-party and independent candidates, as the terrible showings of Perot and Nader proved in 1992 and 2000.

The non-southern strategy may be applicable in our winner-take-all presidential election system, but what about downballot contest for Congress, governor and state legislature?

Actually, I dedicate much more space in the book to non-presidential races than the battle for the White House. I traveled to interview more than 100 politicians, pundits, pollsters, party operatives and other Democrats in five states within the pan-western polygon of Midwest and Interior West states I call the future “Democratic Diamond”: Ohio, Wisconsin, Montana, Colorado, and Arizona. Quickly, some facts about the downballot situation:

*State legislatures. For the first time in history, Republicans have reached parity in the southern state legislatures, controlling half of the seats overall, both chambers in five states, neither chamber in five states, and split control of TN. It may be relieving to note that Democrats still control half of the state legislatures, but considering that they owned quite near everything just 50 years ago, this is nothing to brag about. In 2004, Democrats swung to majority control, or tied, eight state legislative chambers. Seven of these were outside the South (exception: NC), including both chambers in MT and CO.

*Congress. Presently, the GOP controls a greater share of US House seats (63%) and US Senate seats (82%) in the 11 southeastern states than the Democrats do in the 12 northeastern states (62% and 66%, respectively). Yet it is commonplace in the national media to refer—and pejoratively, at that—to Democrats as a pack of “northeastern liberals” and one rarely hears the GOP referred to as a bunch of “southern conservatives,” even though the Republican Party is more dominant in, and dominated by, southern conservatism than Democrats are by northeastern liberalism. Oh, and if you subtract the four (five with a party-switch) House seats the GOP picked up thanks to the Texas re-redistricting, and the five new GOP southern senators gained because of the five vacancies created by Dems who retired in 2004, the Democrats won the congressional elections outside the South last cycle. Let me repeat that, especially since I’m having a hard time getting the national media to take note of this fact: In a presidential year in which they lost the White House, the Democrats gained net congressional seats in both chambers outside the South.

*Governors. Phil Bredesen and the Kaine/Warner duo provide some great success stories, but the GOP still holds 7 of 11 governors; in 1960, the GOP had none. And the main reason Kaine and Warner won is because Northern Virginia has de-southernized the state, not because of some “rural strategy” that is fine to claim public credit for, but is in fact a myth perpetuated by consultants like Steve Jarding and Mudcat Saunders to justify their consulting business and practices. If the “rural strategy” worked, and given that Warner ran on it more forcefully than Kaine, Kaine should have done worst than Warner and maybe even lost. He didn’t, and in fact won by a wider margin than Warner did. Why? For the answer, I again suggest reading the American Prospect piece I wrote about what’s happening in Northern Virginia.

Now, let’s turn to 2006 and look at where the Democrats are targeting. These are not my recommendations, but the targets cited by the party leaders charged with winning back majorities in Congress and among governors: Bill Richardson of the DGA, Chuck Schumer of the DSCC, and Rahm Emanuel of the DCCC:

*Richardson’s top pickup targets are NY, OH, MA and MD. I think we’ll win all four, and I think we’ll hold MI and WI, fall short in picking up FL, CA and NV, but gain CO and maybe AK. If we net the top four plus CO, we’ll have a Democratic majority for the first time in more than a decade, and all but four of our governors in that majority will be from the non-South. Look at the incredible changes in the Interior West: In January 2001, we had ZERO of these eight governors, but we already have four and Ritter, if he wins, will make it five of eight. (Again, NV’s Titus will probably come up short, but if she pulls it out it would be a flip of 6 of 8 seats in just six years.)

*Schumer’s top targets at the start of the cycle were MT, RI, OH, MO and, of course, PA. TN’s Ford and VA’s Webb have become increasingly competitive, and I’d love for my argument to take a hit by having either or both of them win. (If forced to predict, I’d say Webb’s chances are better, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who was willing to bet the farm of either of them.) So let’s give my critics the benefit of the doubt and assume that Schumer wins only three of his top five targets, and either Webb or Ford ekes out a win. With VT’s Sanders counted as a Dem, that would give us 49 seats—all but five of them outside the South. In other words, we’d control 56% of the non-southern seats, but just 23 percent of the 22 southern senators. And if we win four or five of those top targets and both Ford and Webb lose, these splits wider still further. A final point: This year the Democrats are defending 18 seats to the GOP’s 15, but in 2008 the Republicans must defend 21 to just 12 Democratic-held seats. And where are almost all the big Democratic pickup opportunities in ’08? Outside the South.

*As for House targets, the vast majority of them right now are Rust Belt, semi-moderate, old Rockefeller Republicans in seats contained within what I call the “4D Rectangle” formed by connecting Dover (NH), Dover (DE), Des Moines and Duluth. As I have written at Gadflyer.com, of the 59 congressional seats presently held by Republicans that either lean Democratic in their presidential voting or are only marginally Republican (3 points or less), 44 of them are in this rectangle. If Nancy Pelosi becomes the new Speaker on January 3, she will owe her majority to the final realignment of the Northeast-Midwest corridor, not because Heath Schuler pulled out a victory in western North Carolina. In fact, according to ratings by Chuck Todd, Stu Rothenberg, Charlie Cook and other professional prognosticators, there are only about 10 Democratic-held seats potentially in jeopardy this cycle…and guess where half of them are? In the South: Edwards, TX; Spratt, SC; Melancon, LA; and two in GA. Just like in 2004, the Dems may break even or even lose seats in the South, but compensate for those losses with gains outside the South.

Thanks for all those who have commented about the book and these posts, and I hope some of the readers will consider picking up a copy. (For those in the DC area, I will be giving a book talk at Politics & Prose at 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 14.) I'll come back to TPMCafe real soon to discuss politics. --TFS