Do The Democrats Need The South?

Last night at the DailyKos meetup event here in New York one of the main guests was old frontpager Dr. Tom Schaller. The day before he went on The Colbert Report to talk about his new book, "Whistling Past Dixie." His main argument is that the Democratic Party can maintain control of Congress and win the White House without the South. Without having read the book, I do agree with that assertion. If you can win the West, Mountain West, and the Northeast with solid majorities then the next President will have a D next to their name.

However the problem with ignoring the South is that means the Democratic Party will never be a national cohesive unit. There are plenty of people who affiliate with the Dems down there and they need to be able to have a voice in their party. Howard Dean understands this and is part of the reasoning behind the 50-state strategy that he began implementing.

Anyways, Colbert teased him on his positions, getting Tom to say that if the South seceeded Al Gore would be President right now. Though technically he did win but thats for another post.
Schaller points out that Democrats need to focus on areas that are not the most conservative of the country. Tom did pretty well on the 'faux' conservative show, especially with Stephen being from South Carolina.