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Written shortly before the 2006 Congressional election, the author's strategy for the Democrats is even more relevant to the 2008 presidential election.

From the publisher, Simon and Schuster:

Two generations ago Kevin Phillips challenged Republicans to envision a southern-based national majority. In Whistling Past Dixie, Tom Schaller issues an equally transformative challenge to Democrats: Build a winning coalition outside the South.

The South is no longer the "swing" region in American politics -- it has swung to the Republicans. Most of the South is beyond the Democrats' reach, and what remains is moving steadily into the Republican column. The twin effects of race and religion produce a socially conservative, electorally hostile environment for most Democratic candidates. What's wrong with Kansas is even more wrong in the South, where cultural issues matter most to voters.


Yet far too many politicians and pundits still subscribe to the idea that Democrats must recapture the South. This southern nostalgia goes beyond sentimentality: It is a dangerously self-destructive form of political myopia which, uncorrected, will only relegate the Democrats to minority-party status for a generation. The notion that Democrats should pin their hopes for revival on the tail of a southern donkey is no less absurd than witnessing the children's variant of the party game, for both involve desperate attempts to hit elusive targets while wandering around blindfolded.

Meanwhile, political attitudes and demographic changes in other parts of the country are more favorable to Democratic messages and messengers. The Midwest and Southwest are the nation's most competitive regions. There are opportunities to expand Democratic margins in the Mountain red states while consolidating control over the reliably blue northeastern and Pacific coast states. Beforedreaming of fortynine-state presidential landslides like those of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, the Democrats ought to first figure out how to win twenty-nine states. And that means capturing Arizona -- or even Alaska -- before targeting Alabama.


Republicans cannot win without the South, Schaller argues, but they also can't win with the South alone. Much as Democrats were confined to the South for decades prior to the New Deal, the Democrats should South but little else. After winning and governing successfully elsewhere, Democrats can then present their record of achievement to the South -- the nation's most conservative region, but one that is steadily assimilating with the politics of the rest of America and, therefore, will become more competitive in the future.


But for now, Democrats must put strategy ahead of sentimentality. To form a new and enduring majority coalition, they must whistle past their electoral graveyard. They must whistle past Dixie.

From Publishers Weekly:

Instead of "futile pandering to the nation's most conservative voters," in the South, Democrats should build a non-Southern majority to regain dominance, argues Schaller, a University of Maryland political scientist, in this focused, tactical account. The Republicans' Southern monopoly may have helped them achieve national majorities in the past, but it has never constituted a majority alone, Schaller explains. There are greener pastures for Democrats at all levels of elected government: the Midwest, Southwest and Mountain West. Schaller's demographic numbers buttress a solid argument....The basic truth of the author's fight-fire-with-fire strategy is undeniable: a much-needed shot of realpolitik in the arm of the modern Democratic Party, whose greatest weakness lies not in the lack of good ideas but in compromising them.

Review from Booklist:

In this highly accessible book, political science professor Schaller points to political history and research on changing demographics to illustrate why the South is now openly hostile to Democrats, who tend to lack the proper "cultural credentials" to appeal to most southerners. The South is the most militaristic, least unionized area of the U.S., and voters are far more likely to weigh social and cultural concerns than economic ones when voting. Rather than trying to recapture the past when the Democrats could reliably count on the South for votes, the party needs to devise a strategy that concentrates on opportunities elsewhere, advises Schaller.

Noting that the Republicans dominated politics in the decades between the Civil War and the New Deal without the support of the South, Schaller outlines strategies for how the Democrats can now capitalize on opportunities to expand in other areas even as the high population of blacks in the South will continue to provide the party with a toehold there. An absorbing look at politics and demographics.

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