Have the Republicans gone South of everything?

... Republicans have squeezed every last vote out of their mostly white, largely Southern, highly divisive, screw-the-coasts national strategy. First the South turned Republicans; now the Republicans have turned Southern. Their identity is becoming more and more bound to a philosophy and a region. Last week was the first sign that the electoral accountants are knocking on the door, asking to see the GOP's receipts.

So says Thomas Schaller in Do Democrats need the South? Salon 11/14/06. These last five years of Cheney-Bush-Republican misgovernment have impressed the point on me. I'm not just being rhetorical when I describe the Reps as "neosegregationist". The national party is now operating on the same wavelength as the Southern segregationists of the 1950s.

Sidney Blumenthal has made the same point:

After the mid-term elections, the GOP has become a regional party of the South. And, in the future, Republicans can only hold their base by asserting their conservatism, which alienates the rest of the country. More than ever, the Republicans are dependent upon white evangelical voters in the South and sparsely populated Rocky Mountain states. The Republican coalition, its much-touted "big tent," has nearly collapsed. (Quoted by Gene Lyons)

Also from Blumenthal:

Now, however, it is apparent that Rove's short-term ploys have undermined long-term Republican possibilities. His tactical successes have laid the groundwork for strategic failure. His polarizing and paranoid politics have been an intrinsic aspect of Bush's consistently radical presidency, which may be checked and balanced for the first time with the election of the 110th Congress. Rove's legacy may be to leave Republicans with a regional Southern party whose constrictive conservatism fosters a solid Democratic North.

I'm very much in favor of Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean's "50-state" strategy to seriously compete in every state. But I also think Thomas Schaller is right in at least the notion that the national Democratic Party shouldn't be always trimming its sails to try to appeal to conservative whites in the Deep South.

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