Those are the lessons one learns from reading David Weigel pick apart Mickey Kaus and Clay Risen take on Steve Jarding and Mudcat Saunders at Hit and Run and The New Republic, respectively. They're interesting arguments against two ideas that seem to have become conventional wisdom inside the Beltway.

Weigel takes issue with Kaus' crowing over Rasmussen poll results that find a generic 2008 third-party Presidential candidate who "promised to build a barrier along the Mexican border and make enforcement of immigration law his top priority" actually beating a generic Republican and coming in a very close second to a generic Democrat. As he points out, voters had a chance to elect someone with this exact profile in 2000. "He was Pat Buchanan and he got less than half of one percent of the vote." Weigel's alternative explanation for the poll numbers seems right on the money to me.

There are two possibilities. 1) The idea of building a wall along the Mexican border is 60 times more popular than it was in 2000. 2) A significant chunk of the electorate is frustrated by illegal immigration and when an automated pollster calls them and asks them if they would like a border wall, they say yes. There's probably significant overlap between these people and people who, if an automated pollster asked if they would like free ice cream and a pony, would say "yes."

Meanwhile at The New Republic, Clay Risen reviews Jarding and Saunders' "Foxes in the Henhouse" and finds its conclusions somewhat lacking. While I have to admit that I haven't yet read the book in question, Jarding and Saunders are well known for their advice to Democrats that they must play up to the Southern "Bubba" culture that "stands for a blue-collar outlook that transcends gender, color, economic, and geographic bounds." Risen doesn't so much disagree with this advice as he warns not to make too much of it.

Of course, Saunders can always point to his success with [Virginia Governor Mark] Warner. Under Saunders's direction, Warner sponsored a NASCAR team, commissioned a country tune, and organized "Sportsmen for Warner." But it's hard to separate the success of his Bubba act from his natural ability to communicate with voters--Kerry, for example, also pulled out the hunting gear and NASCAR-track visits, but did significantly worse among rural voters. What's more, voters in the Warner race--and in Kaine's race four years later--seemed more interested in his fiscally conservative, back-to-basics agenda; the same can be said of recent Democratic wins in other Southern states, such as North Carolina and Tennessee. In every case, the winning strategy was not an appeal to rural voters, but a campaign that skirted cultural issues and hammered home middle-class-friendly, pro-growth policies.

Risen makes the case that not only was the Bubba strategy not the key to electoral success for Warner or Kaine, but that it could actually backfire.

...Saunders's strategy would leave Democrats even worse off than before: A populist message delivered through patronizing Southern stereotypes would turn off many otherwise moderate middle-class whites; anger the Democrats' black base; and probably be ignored by working-class whites--the very people it is supposed to attract.

The factor that cannot be ignored in either of these pieces is the strong sentiment among some that the answer to both parties' electoral woes lie with appeals to white America. Whether it's Republicans being urged to pursue anti-immigration reactionaries or Democrats being pushed to embrace "Bubba" culture, both strategies ignore minority communities and push a politics of social division rather than one of inclusion. My understanding of Jarding and Saunders' message is that Democrats should work to include rural white voters, but not at the expense of alienating everyone else in the process. However, that's a very fine line, especially in today's cultural environment.