First let me take you back to my own discussions with Kilgore from February 2005 on the South, to demonstrate why I think Schaller and Kilgore really mostly agree -- since Schaller and I share the same basic view and I think Kilgore agrees with me for the most part too:

Kilgore does make some good points however in discussing the prospects for 2006:

The odds of making serious gains among Southern white moderates--and also of cutting modestly into the massive GOP margins among conservatives--are even better in non-presidential-year state races, like those coming up in 2006. . . .

I think this is pretty consistent with a Dean idea, and one I have talked about as being particularly important for the South - the decentralization of the Democratic Party. Sterling Newberry at BOP also wrote some very good stuff on the regionalization of Dem message -even where positions are the virtually the same. So this sounds good to me too.

Kilgore concludes:

Just goes to show: sometimes the regional stereotypes can be misleading. Given all the talk in national Dem circles about the need to appeal to NASCAR-obsessed, pickup-truck driving rural Bubbas, it would be especially rich to see two women take over state houses by winning suburban moderates.

This is perhaps the most intriguing part of Kilgore's post. And I certainly want to hear more of Kilgore's thoughts on how Dems appeal to that voter. That type of voter is the key to Dem fortunes in the South. And it seems to me that Kilgore is not describing a "values" voter.

A question for Ed, what does that type of voter think about the Kansas AG trying to violate the confidentiality of women's medical records? How does THAT issue play to the Southern female suburban moderate voter?

Ed's reply is a touchstone to me on why the 50 State Strategy can work in Dixie and why, as Chris suggests, we can all get along:

Armando seizes on my commentary about southern suburban moderates as a Dem target to suggest that maybe the belief that "values voters" are the key to the South is wrong.

Well, that depends on your definition of "values voters." If it means people who want to criminalize abortions, demonize gays and lesbians, or institutionalize evangelical Christianity, then no, suburban southerners don't generally fit that category, and I'd personally write them off as targets even if that were the case, on both practical and moral grounds.

My own (and generally, the DLC's) definition of "values voters" is quite different. They are people who: (a) don't must trust politicians, and want to know they care about something larger than themselves, their party, and the interest groups that support them; (b) don't much trust government, and instinctively gravitate towards candidates who seem to care about the role that civic and religious institutions can play in public life; © don't much trust elites, whom they suspect do not and cannot commit themselves to any particular set of moral absolutes; (d) don't much like the general direction of contemporary culture (even if they are attracted to it as consumers), and want to know public officials treat that concern with respect and a limited agenda to do something about it; (e) are exquisitely sensitive about respect for particular values like patriotism, parenting and work; and (f) have a communitarian bent when it comes to cultural issues, and dislike those who view them strictly through the prism of the irresistable march towards absolute and universal individual rights without regard to social implications.

By that definition, I think southern suburban moderates, and especially women in that demographic, are definitely "values voters." In answer to Armando's particular question about how suburban southerners would react to that wingnut in Kansas who wants to explore the sexual histories of women seeking abortions, I think the simple answer is that they would say: "Mind your own business, boy! Aren't there some criminals out there you ought to be chasing?"

This passage is critical to understanding why Kilgore, Schaller, Bowers and myself can all fit under the same tent very easily. Kilgore KNOWS we will not get "values" voters who have abortion and gay marriage as their big areas of concern. Obama and Wallis still do not understand this. The kind of moderate voter Kilgore describes as a values voter can be reached by Dems, flying under a devolved Southern Democrat brand, welcome as consistent withe the core values of the Democratic Party - a party dedicated to the Common Good for the Common Man -- yes, a populist Democratic Party.

Schaller would have no problem with, and I would strongly encourage, a devolved 50 State Strategy that embraces a Southern Democratic wing that targets those types of voters. So what are we arguing about? To be honest, Schaller's tone is what is at issue. He writes dismissively of the South. Let's be clear, Schaller is NOT wrong when he writes:

As to why Democrats in general struggle, and how the state and region became so Republican and conservative, there are five answers. First and -- sadly -- foremost, as it may have been in Tennessee, is race. Analyses of the National Election Study data from 2004 show that the attitudes of white Southerners on national defense and even abortion fail to explain their preference for Republican presidential candidates, but attitudes on race do. Anyone who needs proof of the power of racial polarization in the South need only look at the blackest state in the union. Mississippi is 38 percent black, yet has a Republican governor, two Republican senators, and delivered its electoral votes to George Bush without a fuss twice. Southern whites vote as a racial bloc for the GOP. Statistics seem to show that loyalty to the Republican Party is at its highest among voters in Wyoming, Idaho and Utah –- until you start crunching the numbers for white voters only, and realize just how solid and white the GOP's solid South is.

Second, the South is the most religious and evangelized region of the country, making it the most fertile ground for a socially conservative message. It is also (third reason) the nation's most rural region, which only reinforces its social conservatism.

Fourth, the gender gap in voting that prevails nationally is smallest in the South. Even the women in the South are Republican. In 2004, there were only five states in the entire country where there was either no gender gap or an inverse gap -- Bush doing worse among men than women -- and three of those states were in the South.

All of which brings us to the fifth and last reason: The South is the least unionized region. . . .

These my friends, are the facts. But we need not write off the region or criticize it for embracing Republicanism. What we need to do is find those moderate voters Kilgore identifies and allow a Southern Democratic message to emerge that can make the effective appeal. As long as we are not shooting in the wind trying to capture anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-science voters as Obama and Wallis would have us do, who could object? Certainly not Schaller and certainly not me.

Thus when Kilgore writes:

However you slice and dice it, these 2006 results just aren't consistent with Schaller's broader argument that Democrats should actively distance themselves from the region and its voters as a permanently lost cause, and make Dixie-phobia a talking point in appeals to other regions, especially the interior West, which he appears to consider the Promised Land.

I think he is mistaking Schaller's tone about the South for a political strategy proposal. What Schaller is saying is what we are all saying -- don't dig for fool's gold - the "values" voter and undermine the negative branding of the GOP as extreme. Let Southern Dems find their regional voice and target the moderate voters Ed has identified. Thus our views are, if not perfectly consistent, certainly they are at the least perfectly compatible.

The truth is it is the Obamas and Wallises who are striking the discordant note, criticizing Democrats in false ways and undermining the very strategy that can make gains in the South. I submit that neither Kilgore nor Schaller are the problem - it is the Obamas and Wallises that are the problem.