Political scientist Thomas Schaller article in Sunday’s Washington Post makes the case that “The Democrats Need a Non-Southern Strategy”. Schaller’s basic case takes off from the fact that the Democrats almost won the presidency in 2000 without carrying a single southern state. Building on this, he argues that their best bet for winning the presidency in 2004 and beyond is to abandon the south to the GOP and concentrate Democratic resources on holding the blue states (those Gore won in 2000) and picking up states in the southwest (Arizona, Nevada, Colorado) and lower midwest (Ohio, Missouri).

DR believes Schaller is broadly right about the need for a non-southern strategy. But he is wrong in three very important ways about how to formulate such a strategy.

(1) It is wrong to cede all of the south’s electoral votes to the GOP. A non-southern strategy should be a guide to where Democrats should concentrate resources, not a dogma. To assume, as Schaller does, that the Democrats cannot even win Florida, since Jeb Bush did so well in 2002, is to let your theory overrule reality. And the reality is that Florida has been trending Democratic in presidential politics since 1988, as demographic and economic change move south Florida’s fast-growing hi-tech and tourist areas into the Democratic column. The president’s brother won an easy re-election victory in 2002 not because these changes suddenly reversed themselves, but because it was a great year to be related to a wartime president, because McBride ran a terrible campaign (including failing to choose a lieutenant governor running mate from south Florida) and because in a state election Jeb Bush didn’t have to defend unpopular GOP national positions, like Social Security and Medicare privatization.

Depending on the candidate and the situation, there may be a few other states, like Louisiana and Arkansas, within reach for the Democrats. But even if Democratic victory does not seem probable in these other states, it doesn’t follow that Democrats should give up completely on these other states. Which brings up the second point.

(2) It is wrong to abandon the south completely, so that the GOP is free to concentrate all of its resources elsewhere. If the Democrats elect not to compete in the south so that Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana–not to mention Virginia and North Carolina–are effortless victories for the GOP, the Bush team will have maximum freedom to shift resources to battleground states in the southwest and midwest and help stop the very pickups Schaller thinks the Democrats need to make. Talk about unintended consequences.

(3) It is wrong to write off southern voters as culturally alien and treat them as unreachable. This is wrong because many southern voters are, in fact, reachable by Democrats and becoming more so over time. This is especially true in the emerging “ideopolis” areas of the south–Florida’s hi-tech and tourist areas, North Carolina’s research triangle, the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC, etc.–and Democrats need to cultivate these voters, not abandon them. Otherwise, Democrats will throw away the longer term opportunities created by demographic and economic change in the south.

It is also wrong because a party that views southern voters as culturally alien and does not compete for them will be poorly positioned to compete for culturally similar voters in non-southern states like Missouri, Ohio and West Virginia. And that, again, might spike the Democrats’ chances for making the very gains a non-southern strategy is supposed to produce.

The non-southern strategy: a good idea, but the devil’s in the details on this one.