I was at this panel at Kosvegas. It was brutal. There’s nothing uglier to me than progressives who can’t get along, and it’s totally true, people were shouting and I worried for a moment there would be blows.

There are two issues that trouble me. The first is that I agree with Mudcat’s assertion that it’s ethically and morally incorrect to just pack up and ditch progressives and liberals in the South. I have many liberal Southern friends, and I can’t want for them to be condemned for life in some kind of modern Gilead. I really respected Dean for pointing out that poor black lesbians like me have more in common with NASCAR dads than they do with elites like Bush. But it’s hard work to make that argument stick, and I not familiar enough with Southern culture and regional politics to say how it should be done.

The second issue is one of resources. Plain and simple, the Democrats have less with which they must do more. The fact that the Republicans basically control most of the media means the Democrats are not just fighting right wing campaigns, but also an +8 year history of pro-Republican propaganda in the form of “news” permeating all aspects of our media. I hear it’s even worse in the South, in the sense that the Republican party hardly has to spend any of that slush money to get local papers to support Bush and his policies. So the idea of that the Democrats are just wasting their money on ads in the South resonates with me.  Read more