Was there a huge migration of Southern White Baptists to New York, California, Ohio?

Chris is a very smart guy but these folks need to get over the idea that a winning national coalition is something you tinker with in Frankenstein's lab.  You don't go around throwing groups by the wayside, saying "we'll just replace them with this group instead!"  You take whatever you can get in this business.

is there anything these people won't do or say? have they no shame? clinton wins convincingly: she's a hack, a monster, a divisive/polarizing personality. she loses, in states that, for the most part, will go mccain in nov. and..............she's a hack, a monster, a divisive/polarizing personality.

clinton runs a tough campaign; she's so ambitious she'll do anything to win. obama is a saint, he picks bugs off the road, moves them to the side so they don't get run over. the only reason he's running is because so many millions came to his house and begged him to.

unf*ing believable. she wins two big states, and a small one, out of 4, she should quit? huh? what "through the looking glass" logic drives these people?

"Clearly, this represents white prejudice against Obama because he is an African-American and not the racial solidarity that regularly wins him 90 percent of the African-American vote."

This I do not like....

One of the reasons is that Reagan Dems are still voting, and still on the brink of swinging not only the 2008 general election, but also the 2008 primary for the same stupid, racist reasons that they put Republicans in power back in the last quarter of the 20th century .

I'm a 50 yr old woman.  I've been a proudly liberal feminist all my life, and while I admire Hillary and Bill Clinton often found them too conservative for my politics. Perhaps because I knew they were not as liberal as the right made them out to be, I defended them extra hard in the 90's. After all, if they were too liberal for the 'mainstream', then what was I? I was happy and proud to see Hillary elected to the Senate, even though I do not always agree with her, most notably on her Iraq vote.  But during those years when she would be on TV explaining the issues I was very impressed with her ability to answer any question on the fly, and realized I had not known her at all for all of these years. When Obama came on the scene I was as moved by his convention speech as everyone else and hoped that some day he would be the electable liberal I had been waiting for. I was disappointed as a couple of years went by and he seemed like just another centrist, not even trying to get us out of Iraq or speaking out strongly against the constitutional abuses like Dodd did.

When Hillary announced her run for the presidency I cringed inside because I knew what the press coverage would be like, but waited to see the competition. I hoped in vain for Gore, was glad Kerry sat it out, glad Edwards and Dodd entered, and was very surprised when Obama entered the race so soon after his election to the Senate.  

Without Gore in the race I really had no preference until the debates started. Once again, Hillary impressed me the most with her intellect and command of every issue, but I was closer to Edwards on the issues and liberal firebrand style. I thought of Obama as having great potential, but clearly not ready for prime time, especially after he pledged to meet with all of those dictators in the first year in office.  I could see the Republican attack ads in my head, and discounted his candidacy.

Then came Iowa.  Until Clinton lost there, and the ensuing media and liberal blogosphere pile-on, I did not realize the depth of the misogyny in this society, especially among liberals, for god's sake! The liberal blogosphere seemed mostly united behind Obama, even though in my view he is no more liberal than Clinton. It still makes no sense to me, and I suppose it is based solely on his Iraq war stance. At any rate, bloggers and media were not content to fluff Obama, they also had to attack Clinton. I felt I had to defend her in all kinds of forums, and quickly became a partisan on her side. What put me over the edge was the Obama camp's successful effort to paint the Clintons as racists. If such a thing can happen to Bill and Hillary Clinton, it can happen to anyone.  I am quite sure they will never forgive Obama for that. I know I won't.

Now I see that as a woman past the age of 30 I am put aside as 'old', and possibly even a Reagan Democrat!! Not worthy of the attention or respect of a popular 'young' (only 4 yrs younger than I) god like Obama, and his hipper than hip followers. Imagine my surprise.

I am seriously rethinking my politics these days, and feel the Dem party is no place for me. I've never thought we really needed a third party, but I am leaning that way now. I'll vote for Obama if he is the nominee, but I'm sorry I have to do it with a heavy heart and not the excitement I would have felt if his supporters could have won without trashing women and the only Democratic political family in recent memory that has won the presidency, and took the heat for all liberals at great personal cost. They deserve some respect for that, not attacks from liberals.

First, I'm an Asian American, and is there some sort of confusion going on here? The post claimed that they wanted to build a new "multi-ethnic" Democratic coalitient, which includes, Latinos, African, and Asian Ameriacns as well as "progressive whites."

Well as far as I know, Clinton has crushed Obama with Latinos and Asian Americans, Obama has African Americans who almost blindly vote for him irrespecitve of what he says, and Obama has the far-left and he' essentially 'data-mined' the youth vote.

But Clinton has 2/3 major non-white ethnicities under her belt, and i should poitn out, that several RAND studies have stated that Latino Ameriacns are going to be 1/3 of the US population in the future, BUT Asian Ameriacns in a few decades will be close to 10 - 12% of the US population, which is what the African American population will be at in a few decades; and Asians have higher-per capita income then African Americans, do not underestimate their influence, which has been virtually invisible till now.

That being said, it is very disqueiting to see that Barack Obama cannot win convincingly in either the Asian or Latino American groups in most of these primaries. As far as I can tell, that could cost him California and the South-West.

And your not going to get those voters by ultra-left candidate.... Asian Americans don't support affirmative actions (especially in California) which screws them immensely, both Latino and Asian Americans are usually strong on small-buisness, and both groups would probably find it difficult to support an anti-buisness far-left candidate.

I don't think the solution is positiong even MORE leftist then we already are. Clinton (Bill) was a moderate democrat, he didn't go bat-butz liberatrian, but he wasn't some sort of central-organizer socialist either. He promoted both Latino and Asian-Americans in his administration and attempted to cater to some of their agendas.

This is where I see there being conflict... cause far-left "progressives" and African Americans, by-in-large would be diametrically opposed to the postions of Latino and Asian Americans. In some sense, what we're seeing is a conflict between the Old-Leftist Democratic party (African Americans and "progresives" (a la Teddy Kennedy demorat) and the newer democrats who are much more up-wardly mobile and centrist.

If the democrats can't hold the center, they won't win period. And I think that is why your seeing the schism currently (other then teh fact that alot of people just don't buy Obama's high-handed rhetoric).

A last note: I'm not sure what the "Creative class" means, but I'm a college graduate and soon-to-be graduate student... I studied Mathematics and Economics and am going to study Mathematics at the masters level. So i'm not an "idiot," yet I don't buy the non-sense kumbaya taht Obama spouts etiher. Yet according to some commentary, only morons and "uneducated" suppors Clinton.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but from what I've seen, "intelligent" people i.e. people who study enigneering, the sciences, economics, CS etc., tend to either be republcians or go right-of-center/moderate.

The people in university that I see that are "far-leftist progressives" are people who study "communications," "journalism," "art-history," "political science" etc. etc., essentially liberal arts, and subjects that are not very profound.

He concluded that "Reagan Democrats" no longer saw Democrats as champions of their middle-class aspirations, but instead saw them as working primarily for the benefit of others:

Doesn't that sound a great deal like the folks who say:  "mandates, we don't need no stinking mandates!"

Yep:

Creative class=Reagan Democrat

"At least half of the Democratic party and, I suspect, an equal proportion of the netroots will be looking for a new style or voice of reality-based commentary in the coming year. Many Democrats and blog readers now recognize that our high-profile "creative class" bloggers (who embraced the MSM and the Drudgery of right-wing journalism when it suited their preferred candidate) have gender, race, and class issues to work through. The blogosphere needs more and better voices once again."

During the first Progressive era, professional middle-class reformers often expressed the same kind of prejudicial regard for their own thought and their own kind as Bowers. It was a "creative class" of people who believed that they knew what was best for the lower classes and fancied itself the balance to the upper classes. In truth, their anti-democratic technocracy of, by, and for the "creative class" proved to be an integral lever in the entrenchment of corporate power and the continuing disenfranchisement of laborers and immigrants in a Republican-dominated government (well into the 1930s).

The same kind of self-regard afflicts our current "creative class" of progressive reformers. I marvel at the progressive netroots embrace of a politician who is clearly the consummate DLC candidate and to the right of their bete noir. Though most working class voters and 3 of the 4 traditional minorities (women, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans) reject their Chosen One, they soldier on: Obama's coalition sees the necessity of their plans--the "new politics"--while Clinton's coalition labors under the delusions of "old politics."

In fact, it all simply reflects the most basic political belief of the "creative class:" it is not that the wrong policies have been enacted, it is that the wrong people have been in control. Thus, their campaign strategy is to insist that there are no policy differences between Obama and Clinton (I disagree), and to propose that America's problems can be solved simply by putting the right man in office. A "new politics" of, by, and for the creative class (hence the preponderance of reforms for the middle-class in Obama's platform at the expense of working-class and poverty measures).

The actions by Goolsbee and Power in the past week further capture the relationship between this "creative class" and Obama. Their comments reflect, in their creative-classist minds, a need to tell the American people one simple thing (since they don't know what is best for them anyway) and an openness to share with their equals (consulates and professional journalists) the complexities of the facts on the ground.

The reason is called "affirmative action."

I do agree with this also.  I think Bowers is using 'Reagan Democrats' as shorthand for values voters, or the 'pro-life' religious right crowd that left the Dem party for that reason.  Or gave that as the excuse anyway.  I've always pretty much believed it was the racism that drew them - that belief was backed up with interviews with Lee Atwater about the 'southern strategy'.  Which was what made me laugh at Obama's praise of Reagan being able to build a coalition.