Democrats - A Need for Southern Class & Sass?

Community activist Benjamin Ross writes in Dissent "Democrats and Middle America: What's the Real Problem?" where he does a good analysis of Thomas Frank's arguments in "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and other suggestions for creating electoral success for Democrats and other progressives such as "national security" and ... These are the portions that I thought merited attention ...

Frank stands with the pragmatists. He thinks wages matter; he rejects the elite that promises salvation. His politics is about results, in economics and in culture alike. The return on a retirement fund matters more than the faith of its sponsor. Voters who seek cultural traditionalism have his respect; it is politicians who promise it and do not deliver whom he despises. ...

In reality, the New Deal Democratic Party was a hybrid. It bore the fruits of a European-style class party, but its branches were grafted onto the trunk of a nineteenth-century American party organized around sectional and ethnic allegiances. Together with union members and distressed farmers, it covered a spectrum that included southern whites, from tenant farmers to plantation owners, and Irish Catholic businessmen alongside their working-class coreligionists. ...

Democrats must take up the challenge posed by Thomas Frank and reclaim the populist heritage of the New Deal in a new environment. To do this requires a willingness to attack economic unfairness, for which the plutocratic Bush administration has created all too many targets. It also demands a greater sensitivity to the cultural preferences of Middle America, both in style—it is no accident that for forty years every Democratic president has had a southern accent—and in substance on issues such as gun control. This is, as Frank asserts, the way to rebuild a liberal majority—and more than that, it is the democratic way.

I'd add that by acting strong you'll pick up some "national security" votes. With Democrats at times being non-confrontational that gives the ReThuglicans some ease in painting us as weak. Feingold and Murtha help us avoid or shed that label yet much of the party hasn't bought that approach. Getting your Scots up when appropriate is a good start.

I'll also add that common sense often can be reconciled with intellectual elitism. Kerry could not easily provide a reasonable explanation to what certainly was logical and correct as could Clinton. Edwards had the touch. Feingold might as would Warner perhaps. Gore might now be able to convey his message more clearly as well. Those four are my 2008 candidates at the present time. Dean is tolerable in his leadership position yet some of the other leaders are hardly where I'd like them to be. Most are adequate yet at times they hardly provide a consistent and common sense message that will resonate with middle America.

I think we, meaning Progressives and not always Democrats, can be smart and strong and fair and caring and ... The Right has held the argument so long in part because they've taken control of their message plus the GOP has learned modern politics better than have we. Of course the dumbing down of the electorate hardly helps our cause yet I might be getting a touch elitist. Peace ... or War!