Urbanites are living in a liberal bubble. And what is written above totally echoes and articulates my gut feeling in a way I never could.

Liberals are also church goers too.

Instead of just twinning with congregations in Liberia, etc, liberal church congregations must also twin (and meet with) with rural congregations too, to break the rural/urban divide.

Secular urban activists must also literally "drive" (using gasoline) their efforts into the suburban and rural counties now.

Perhaps together we can make a more inclusive environment for a president that unites the US people.

We need to drop gun control - now!  There aren't any deputies on duty at night in my rural community.

Another huge issue in our area is racial preferences.  People hate them with passion.  Not racists, normal people.  Hell, I do, and I went to Berkeley.  Why should someone eles's kid get into college ahead of my kid when my kid worked harder?

This isn't a racist town.  We have a huge influx of Hispanics and its no big deal.  Everyone is dating everyone else.

But I hear huge support from everyone for no one starving, and everyone going to college.

I think that losing these two anchors, focusing on personal freedom including guns, choice, etc. Really plays well in the west and most of rural America.

I'm a huge fan of the endangered species act, but we need to make it a happy occasion for a landowner to find an endanged species.  We need to show (and mean it) to rural people how a clean environment is good for jobs.

We also need to fix the media lock by the Repubs.

Also, I think the regional thing has been a problem as well that the Radical Right has exploited effectively. Remember the "Vermont, Massachusettes, New York, Hollywood" Liberal stereotypes from the election? Dean was supposed to go back to Vermont, take his Hollywood friends with him, Kerry was a Massachusettes Liberal?

The regional stereotyping angers me to no end. I live on the I-75 corridor in Michigan, where from Saginaw, Flint, to Detroit we trend Democrat. The west and much (not all) of the north trend Republican. But Michigan is a "blue" state.

How ridiculous! The truth is, appealing to geography will just never work. We have to appeal using a better message.

I'll say it again, I want Liberal to be a positive word in every region of the U.S., and the only way we can do that is to spend some money on marketing. Refine the message, whip up the media and marketing outlets, get out on the streets, into the churches, into homes and businesses, and bring to light what the REAL Republican agenda is today, compared to our defense of Liberty, Freedom, and Justice.

I live in Pennsylbama.  Have the Dems move away from the fat cats and become the party of the working man again, move toward state-by-state or urban/rural positions on gun control, and Pennsylbama becomes a lot more blue.

And quit talking so ugly about rural/religious/Bush voters.  It's exactly what Rush Limbaugh et al pound into their heads every day.

"Of COURSE we believe in civil liberties for blacks. Of COURSE we believe in women's suffrage. Of COURSE we believe in Medicare. Of COURSE we believe in the Clean Air Act".

The list goes on and on. The gay rights issue is just the latest, and 20 years from now, once the issue has settled in our favor, they'll pretend - again - that they favored equal rights for gays all along.

The key to winning is to expose the GOP platform for all to see. Get out of their way - let them hang themselves.

Once Americans realize that the GOP zealots really DO want to outlaw abortion, really DO want to roll back the New Deal, then those rural voters, women voters - whoever - will see the GOP for what it is.

Jacksonville is sometimes referred to as "the capitol of South Georgia."

We are getting hurt in those places.  It's not about abortion, it's not about gays, it's about culture.  Lawton Chiles was pro-choice and liberal but they loved him because he was a true southerner.

Compare that to the gestures Edwards used.

I had a real culture shock when I moved up north at how rude people are up there.  They don't think they are being rude but, by our standards, they are.

We should consider, for example, moving affirmative action to a class-based program rather than race-based.  I don't think we should AT ALL change tack on gay marriage or abortion:  we are right, they are wrong, we just need to engage voters on this issue in a non-apologetic way.

I do think, however, that talking about religion and values is important -- not only electorally, but because it is the right thing to do.  Look -- a great deal of voters are religious and they have the incorrect assumption that a vote for the GOP is somehow more religious, which is just categorically false.

We have a message on that score -- a damn effective one -- and we need to articulate it better.

http://omor.com/SF/archives/2004/11/land_mass_for_b.html

No--the North voted for Kerry because it has larger cities
I'm sorry, but that's just wrong. If you look at the county-by county map of the electoral results (posted at many places, but  was looking at the one at www.electoral-vote.com) you will see that in the blue states, almost every major urban area is blue, with the sole exceptions, as far as I can tell, of Spokane and San Diego. Now look at the red states. Dallas-Ft.Worth, San Antonio, and Houston are all red. The only big blue towns in Texas are Austin and El Paso. There is not one blue county in Oklahoma. In Alabama, Mobile and Birmingham are both red.Tennessee is split, with Knoxville and Chattanooga red, and Memphis and Nashville blue. Tampa-St.Pete in Florida is Red, as is every other major town on the west coast, and so is Jacksonville. Orlando is split. Salt Lake City and Reno are both red. Anyway, I think you get my point. In the red states, especially in the South, the cities are less Democratic than they are in the blue states. Even the blue cities in the south, with notable exceptions like Miami, are less blue than they are in the North and West. This is really not just about the rural-urban divide. And I don't think it's really about gun control, either. Why would country people want to carry around concealed handguns or assault weapons? Shotguns and ordinary rifles have never, ever been on the table anyway. It may be that these people vote the way they do on gun control, but if sdo, that is a marketing issue and not a substantive issue. Anyway, I think you can see that there is a more substantive cultural divide between the red and blue states than what you are talking about.

Jacksonville GOTV

I'm sure there are similar stories elsewhere, for some reason I started digging here and found enough to keep digging. This isn't a story about fraud, its a story about missed opportunities.

Jacksonville, FL is predominantly Democratic by Party ID, but has voted for George Bush by wide margins in the last two elections, with Bushs' winning margins being +44,000 in 2000 and +61,000 in 2004.

I started looking at the precinct breakdowns for registered voters and results. In Jacksonville there are some obviously R precincts like the Mandarin Moose Lodge (Precinct 06K with 2,049 R's and 1,288 D's and 492 NA), there are some pretty mixed precincts like the Argyle/Westside Lions Club (10S with 719R - 830D - 216NA) or The Country School (11D 910R - 745D - 218NA) and there are some very Democratic precincts like First Timothy Baptist Church (07P 168 R - 2,961 D - 267NA).

First thing I noticed is that turnout seemed pretty low across the board in Duval. Not many precincts at or above 60% and quite a few below 45%. Sad to say most of the below 40's were in areas like First Timothy (07P). At First Timothy, 44.73% turned out and cast 1,309 votes for Kerry and 223 votes for Bush. Here's where the sad part comes in, Kerry at 1,309 means that nearly 1,700 LIKELY Kerry votes stayed home. Looking at 11D I see 59.4% turnout, resulting in a 921-217 Bush win. 10R turned out 50.14% resulting in a 642-260 Bush win.

Here are some examples of missed Dem opportunities:

                               Turnout%        Registered(R-D)    B/C    K/E    Missed

07P First Timothy Baptist          44.73        168 - 2,961   223     1,309    1,652

09H Grand Park Community             43.25        43 - 1,479    42    643      836

09J Ephesian Missionary Church         44.85        50 - 1,434    33    668      766

10A Charles Clarke Community       41.48        39 - 1,740    38    743      997

10G William Raines Senior High School    35.09        49 - 1,986    35    725    1,261

08D Ribault Senior High                38.63        35 - 1,147    37    444      703

I would wager a similar analysis in other metropolitan areas of the south would discover many missed Dem voters.

These people care about American, they've just been hoodwinked by a slick propaganda machine.  Nobody listens to you when you're yelling at them.

We must establish that the Democratic party is the party with true Christian principles ("Blessed are the peacemakers" sound familiar to anyone?).

If we don't respect them, if we don't like them, if we don't care about them, they will never listen to a word we say.

This seems to be the gist of what you're saying.    There are degrees, man, degrees.     We don't have to wave bibles.     We just have to cool it on the secular intellectual national candidates (probably leave out NE candidates for a few cycles), and the guns, and a few other things.....

But don't do mental gymnastics to avoid any commitment to a greater place for religion in Democratic politics or candidates.    

I also think the Penn. analogy is very light.  Dems have been carrying Philly forever but what is changing is that they're also able to carry more and more of the vote in some non-urban areas.  Philly's urban core is actually shrinking but the exurban counties (Bucks, etc) are growing and tend to be full of young professionals.  

I think this kind of thinking is actually dangerous.  The southern approach has been tried again and again and does not work for us any longer.  We can appeal to exurban and urban voters (and some rural voters) in Upper Midwest and Southwest.  And, aslo, remember white rural America is a dying demographic in our society.  This is not a group to tie our future to.

And I just cannot accept any of these types of reports until ALL the votes in Florida, Ohio, and even in New Hampshire have been counter.  I even smell a rat with the Pennsylvania results.

Over at dKos, there is a very interesting map up regarding the Blue/Red State demographics.  It clearly shows that the US is mostly blue/purple states.  Go here:

Daily Kos - Maps Part II, More Non-Mandate Data

(this is my first time posting here, I hope my link post is correct)

Iraq: expensive anarchy
Tax cuts: record debt requiring more revenue to pay the interest (to foriegn banks)
Tax "reform": increasing tax burden on the working class
Entitlements (Social Securtiy, et al): bankrupt
Environment: ravaged
Military influence: bogged down in Iraq
Diplomatic influence: marginalized

There will always be a block of voters in every state who will vote for republicans or democrats.  But if we are united as a party, and are firm in our believe that the bush agenda is weakening our country we can appeal to the moderates in every state.  To do that, we need candidates who can effectively present that message, and our alternative plans, and we need to counter rove's spin machine.

vote...fundys sooner or later love to bash

catholics (the so called pope is anti-christ

crowd and people raised on chick tracts).
Feel confident we can bring back moderate

evangelicals but it boils down to a values

package that resets the table on abortion,gays and guns. (God knows liberals need guns now)

need major push in rural areas and cable

actual commercials promoting our values

package.

We in the liberal oases believe the state will flip Blue in the next 10-15 years given the massive influx of people moving to work at Research Triangle and Asheville's ascendance.

First, I question that evangelicals are what brought the Dubya wagon home. If Americans attending religious services once a week or more constitute 14% of the electorate, even if every single one of them voted for Dubya they couldn't have done it for him. The influence of the fundies on the election is, I suspect, conservative media spin.

Second of all, the bigger picture often hides the literal truth. Kerry lost by less than 700 votes in my county, where Republicans outnumber Democrats 2 to 1. (And we are still trying to figure out whether we are one of the growing number of counties where all the early voting wasn't counted because they misunderstood the capacity of their new machines.) A county-by-county look will show the same scenario in many counties.

Third, Democrats took back the NC House. Did the fundies get confused and forget which lever they were supposed to pull after the top of the ticket?

Fourth -- and this is where I think Southern states really might deserve the ass-kicking we're getting -- the number of people who will remain quiet, go along with the fundies, out of either politeness or genuine fear or discomfort with comformity is HUGE. They may or may not have pulled the lever for Bush behind the curtain, but they weren't likely to argue about it publicly. We need to overcome our reticense and speak bluntly about the harm we see in supporting this President.

What complicates speaking out for many Southerners? Gingrich's word list is still in play here, and it's had almost two decades to infiltrate and take over the political dialogue. People find themselves unable to express their own political opinions, because the fundies and the Gingrich-ites have co-opted some of the words nearest and dearest to their own hearts. When they try to argue with political decisions that make them uncomfortable, they find themselves rebeling against words once used to define the ideals of their own cultures.

I suppose if ann frank had just reached out and tried to respect them and talk to them she would have changed things. NOT!!!

If we never win again so be it but we should never ever join them anywhere on anything that we disagree on. No more voting on the 85 million before we vote against it. He was a lousy candidate and that's why he lost. He was wishy washy just like they said. He tried to do it by talking softly when he shouold have been calling a lie a lie instead of 'well I didn't use that word....." He shoould have told the truth.

Asking someone to recycle is NOT a condescending, nor is it an assault on their 'values.'  Yet, what do we get when anybody has the audacity to increase the amount of recycling or request a park in a sub-division?

'Hell, I don't park my car on the lawn, what more ya'll want?'  'Go back North to your liberal parks, Yankee.'

So very defensive, so utterly devoid of common sense. And yes, we're talking about urban, suburban and exurban areas.  People ask me why I voted for Kerry and I say 'you know, I actually CARE about the environment.'  The response is: blank stare and just WAITING for me to denigrate Southern 'values.'

To me, this is perhaps the most indicative of the South's anti-North bias.  How one can find something 'UNCHRISTIAN' about recycling is beyond me...other than the fact that it is 'worldly' since other regions started it and the cities with the best recycling attitudes are always in the North.  

And kindly DON'T say 'well, it was the WAY you said it.'  No, I have been universally described as the 'nicest Yankee' most Southerners have met.

Moral of this story: don't ever run an environmentally-friendly, New England Catholic who is divorced in the South.  It WON'T EVER, EVER, EVER happen.  Southerners truly have a chip on their shoulder about liberal, condescending Yankees. The 'spite' vote probably cost Kerry at least 3%, throw in the gay bashing festival and you've got a Southern romp.

Edwards could've done OK, but let me tell you, Southerners can be nice - until you 'spite' them.  Then, it gets real ugly.  In fact, Southern Democrats are the greatest people on the face of this earth.  Too bad there's so few of them.