Reply #28: A New Englander has little chance in the critical South [View All]

[Clark4VotingRights]

GENE LYONS: "I think that in practical terms Clark puts several Southern states back in play. Right now, Bush would be very hard-put to win any of the states that Gore won in the last election. So if you can take away from Bush, or at least strongly compete in Arkansas, West Virginia, Kentucky, possibly Georgia, Florida, with all of its military people, you all of a sudden take from Bush this air of invincibility and fundamentally change the electoral map. When you look at it like that you have to ask, how in the world is Bush going to win this election? Where are his electoral votes going to come from?

BUZZFLASH: There's this perception among progressives and Democrats that because the Bush administration is so right wing, and effectively all three branches of government are in the control of the Republican Party, that we're underdogs. But people forget that Gore won the election by a half-million votes...As you've pointed out, if the Democratic candidate wins every state that Gore won, all the Democrats have to do is just pick off one more, whether it's Arkansas or West Virginia, and the Democrats take the White House.

GENE LYONS: Well, I've been reminding people of that all along. But I also think Clark does more than that. My subjective view was that culturally there was no way that Dean, for example, could win in the South -- he would be a complete non-starter. Dean has a terrific line about this. He says he'd tell the pickup driving set (a group that would include me, for what it's worth) that they've been voting Republican for 30 years, and ask them "What have you got to show for it?" Great line, but would they ever hear it at all coming from a Vermont Yankee? I've got my doubts. And that would allow the Republicans to spend a lot more money in places like Missouri and Pennsylvania and Michigan that are states that are very competitive. And it would make it extremely difficult for Dean to win in that he'd have to run the table in all the other states and pick up one more state somewhere.
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I think Clark would bring back a lot of military people. I think there's great disquiet among people of the old-fashioned style of patriotism right now, and it's looking for a place to go. And I think there's a very good chance it would go to Clark. I think that he would have a strong chance to unite that which has been divided."

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/10/int03221.html

The beauty of Clark's Southern strategy.