The Southern Strategy Of The 21 Century

My Top 3

Nixon formulated it, Reagan mastered it, and Bush inherited it, but are changing in the beloved region. I’ve wrote about the upset victories in Miss. and La earlier this year. And the Democratic strategy of keying in on local conservative candidates to run on the core social conservative issues while offering the Democrat solution and agenda. Personally, I don’t know how much longer that strategy will work when Pelosi and Reid are truly showing the Democrat agenda. Nonetheless, there has been some success and the numbers are showing a shift in the national sentiment that can’t be ignored.

This Wall Street Journal article, The New Southern Strategy, by Greg Hitt offers great detail explaining the strategy and likely results if fortunes do not change.

A quick excerpt.

Spurred by the souring economy and a newfound willingness to embrace conservative candidates, the Democratic Party is running its most competitive campaign across the South in 40 years, fielding potential winners along a rib of states stretching from Louisiana to Virginia, the heart of the Old Confederacy. Sen. Barack Obama’s ability to excite African-American voters in certain Southern races could provide an additional boost, too.

The party’s rising prospects point toward a once unthinkable goal: a reversal of the “Great Reversal,” the switch in political loyalties in the 1960s that made the South a Republican stronghold for a generation. If the current picture holds, Democrats could use the Southern strength to help craft a workable Senate majority and expand their majority in the House of Representatives. At the very least, it widens the field of competitive seats, forcing Republicans to fight fires in once-reliably solid areas.