On January 5th the Senate will consider proposals to change the body’s rules to implement filibuster reform (See Ari Berman’s Alternet post on filibuster reform for a good update). Like many progressive Democrats, I say it’s long overdue and much-needed to restore majority rule, which is a central feature of functioning democracy. But there are three “what if” questions all Democrats should think about over the next 18 days:
1. What happens if we succeed, then in 2012, we lose both the presidency and our senate majority?
2. Would filibuster reform then mean we have greased the skids for Republicans to reverse everything we have achieved during the Obama Administration?
3. Might it be better to postpone filibuster reform until after we see what happens in the 2012 elections?
If I sound a little schitzy here, it comes from weighing the negative consequences of the filibuster since 2008 (and before) against the destruction the Republicans could launch if they dominate all three branches of government, with no filibuster threat. Yes, the threat of a filibuster has cost Dems dearly in terms of the public option and a host of other reforms we could have enacted. But if we keep it, and the Republicans take the white house and senate, we will likely be able to use the filibuster to prevent them from doing their worst. Also, with the GOP controlling the House, if we implement reform on Jan 5, it may not help Dems much, other than shaking loose some judicial nominations in the senate.
Yes, all of this is based on the worst case electoral scenario, but one that is not all that far-fetched, given the current economic reality. I don’t place much value on the “institutionalist” argument of some opponents of filibuster reform, which seems to me is pretty much based on maintaining a form of senate domination, authorized by finagling the rules, as opposed to being expressly granted by the Constitution. But I think we have to at least think through strategic and tactical considerations of the worst case scenario before piling on the filibuster reform bandwagon.
If Obama is reelected in 2012, on the other hand, the risk to Dems of implementing filibuster reform after that election goes down considerably, regardless of which party wins the senate. He can veto bills and make it stick, unless the Republicans have two-thirds of Senate votes for an override.
There are two strong arguments for implementing filibuster reform on January 5: 1. it may be our best shot at it, since some Republicans may support it as part of their bet on a rosier 2012 for their party, and 2. Obama has a good chance of winning in 2012, in which case filibuster reform on Jan 5 won’t hurt Dems.
After weighing all of these considerations, the wise course may be to go ahead and get it done. Filibuster reform is a good thing on principle. But the timing of it can be a little tricky, and a little more discussion about it can’t hurt.

Despite all of the heated debate in the media and among the politicians about the current tax cut debate, count me among those who are puzzled by the general docility of the public, which supports the tax cut deal in polls, if not all of its key provisions. I chalked it off to the old “Oh whatever, as long as I get mine” impulse. But American Prospect’s Paul Waldman offers a more thoughtful explanation for one part of it in his Tapped post, “The Oddly Unpopular Estate Tax“:

As Kevin Drum says, “Polls routinely show that a substantial majority of people favor higher income taxes on the rich. But polls also show that a substantial majority of people favor repeal or reduction of the estate tax.” At the time (this was back in 2000), I thought it might have to do with a misconception, namely that lots of people assumed that everyone who inherits anything has to pay the estate tax. So we did an experiment in a survey where we asked two versions of the question, one of which asked whether people thought the tax should be repealed, and the other of which explained that the tax was only paid by people who inherited a million dollars or more (or whatever the exemption was back then), then asked whether people thought it should be repealed.
The results didn’t show much of an impact of the information: While support was lower among the group that got the explanation, it was only lower by about 10 points. As I recall, it was something like 65 percent supporting repeal without the information about the exemption, and 55 percent supporting repeal with the information (the data are in here somewhere, if you care to track them down)…

According to an ABC News/Washington Post Poll conducted 12/9-12, 29 percent of respondents “support strongly” a policy of “Increasing the exemption on inheritance taxes so that only estates worth more than five million dollars are taxed,” with another 23 percent saying they “support somewhat” such a policy. And 16 percent were in the “oppose somewhat” category, with 25 percent in the “oppose strongly” group.
Waldman quotes Drum attributing the phenomenon to “…a very deep, very primitive protective instinct that most people sympathize with no matter how rich you are” — leaving money to your kids. Waldman also cites the unrealistic belief of most people that one day they might be rich along with the shrewd propaganda of Republicans, who branded the estate tax the ‘death tax.” He also notes that opinions about estate taxes tend to be most strongly held by the rich and most others don’t care enough about it to take action.
As far as progressive messaging goes, Waldman recommends, “Why shouldn’t Paris Hilton have to pay taxes, just like people who work for a living?” Not bad. It does crystalize the issue succinctly. Not everyone will buy the Hilton stereotype whole hog, since many would understand that not all heirs are that undeserving. But Waldman’s suggestion does get the conversation started. Building support for a progressive estate tax, however, will also require a sustained education campaign so people have more of a sense of the scope of the issue and what seems fair. It’s too late for 2010, but next time a little more public education about the issue might serve Dems well.

Those who would like to see a little more fighting spirit from Democratic leaders should find ample encouragement from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who has just made it quite clear that he’s not in a mood to take any unnecessary guff from Republicans.
Reid had raised the possibility of calling the Senate back for a short session after Christmas to deal with START and other unfinished business. Here’s Reid, via Talking Points Memo, responding to comments from Sen John Kyl (R-AZ), who accused Reid of “disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians.” and Jim DeMint (R-SC), who whined that it would be “sacrilegious” for the Senate to vote on the START treaty so close to Christmas:

As a Christian, no one has to remind me of the importance of Christmas for all of the Christian faith, for all their families, all across America,” he said. “I don’t need to hear the sanctimonious lectures of Sen. Kyl and [Sen. Jim] DeMint to remind me of what Christmas means.

Reid notes that their concerns about the timing are somewhat inconsistent, asking “Where were their concerns about Christmas [when they were posing] filibuster after filibuster of every piece of legislation during this entire Congress?”
Reid didn’t need any help to make his point. But if he did, quite a few readers had barbed zingers to add to the fray in the comments following the post, like this from ‘Spider Pig’:

So if the Senate can’t work before or after Christmas, can I call in lazy, too? And my wife, the Federal employee, what about her? Is it too holy for her to work next week, too? When’s the freaking cut-off for when it’s appropriate to work before or after Christmas? What about the 13 Jewish Senators currently serving? How about they hold court while everyone else goes home for Christmas? Oh, wait, they’re ALL Dems. PERFECT!

…And this from IndyLinda:

Yes, and it’s sacrilegious to expect anyone to work for several days before and after Christmas. Horrors! Just ask all the cops, teachers, firemen, nurses, doctors, and anyone else with a real job who isn’t guaranteed two weeks off at Christmas time…

…And this gem from mJJ:

While I would not has said it exactly that way, the gist of what you said is absolutely correct. I am LDS and I do not appreciate Kyl acting like Harry Reid knows nothing about Christian behavior. But alas, my party held up legislation so often during this last session of the Senate that it serves them right for their unpatriotic stalling. Last I heard, Democrats still have the majority in the Senate and that is why Reid has the right to schedule as he pleases. But Kyl’s whine is so disgusting. Thousands of people work even on Christmas. I am a retired RN and for years until I became a Nursing Supervisor, I often had to work during the Christmas holiday. Obviously Kyl, even after our party obstructed all they could, is now whining about working AFTER the Christmas holiday and before New Years. We will think twice before re-electing this dolt who cares less for common folks and the horrible Christmas they will have.

This is not just a feel-good lashing out against Republicans. It’s important, make that essential, not to let any form of disparagement of religious commitment of Dems pass unchallenged. If the situation was reversed the Republicans would be screaming for blood. Reid responded perfectly.

Political Animal Steve Benen has a worthy take-down of Roger Simon’s Politico screed, “Class warfare is not the ticket.” Benen’s post will resonate with those who have rolled their eyes at the much-parroted conservative meme that progressives actually hate the rich, not just the tax policies that reward them.
Benen’s post, well-titled “Roger Simon Gives a Straw Man Quite a Lashing,” targets Simon’s silly allegation that “Some Democrats hate the rich. Most Americans, on the other hand, would like to become the rich…. Congressional Democrats want us to hate the rich for being rich.” Benen adds:

Simon supports these observations by pointing to… nothing in particular. There are “many” congressional Democrats who consider the wealthy “swine,” but Simon doesn’t quote or mention any of them. “Some” Dems, we’re told, “hate the rich.” Which Democrats? Simon doesn’t say. I guess we’re just supposed to take his word for it.
I don’t. This kind of analysis is lazy and wrong, and Simon really ought to know better than to peddle such cliches.
There’s a meaningful debate underway over taxes, economic inequalities, and how best to generate growth, sparked in part by the disagreement over the tax policy agreement reached by the White House and congressional Republicans. I happen to think the deal, despite glaring and offensive flaws, is probably worth passing. But I also know better than to think those on the left who disagree with me are motivated by some anti-wealth spite. There’s a reasonable, persuasive progressive case against this deal; to chalk it up a Democratic desire to convince Americans to “hate the rich for being rich” is ridiculous.

Simon’s Dems-hate-the-rich cliche is a staple of Fox News, Limbaugh and other wingnut outlets and serves as a handy cheap shot, usually made by those who lack the chops to mount an articulate defense of unfair tax policies. In all my years of hanging out with Democrats, however, I’ve yet to hear even one Democratic official express a hatred for someone because they have dough, which is why Simon provides no examples, much less any opinion data. Sure there’s lots of anger about policies that promote gross income inequality, but I’ve never heard any Democrat, elected or otherwise, make it as personal as Simon suggests. It’s every bit as ridiculous as the NRA’s “Dems-want-to-take-away-our-guns” meme.
Simon’s post is undoubtedly a reflection of GOP nervousness about possible changes in the estate tax. Let them twitch and mutter, but the Senate vote on The Deal suggests conservatives don’t have much to worry about as far as ‘class warfare’ is concerned.

In his interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senator Dick Durbin came up with what could serve as an apt political catch-phrase for the holiday season: “…We’ve got to eat the spinach and keep moving on.” Durbin’s remark provides a timely reminder that (political) life sometimes presents unpalatable choices, but there comes a time when the choice must be made to avert even more unpleasant outcomes.
The Deal is expected to pass the Senate today. I hope the House will be able to compell the Republicans to accept at least some tax increases for the very wealthy, doubtful as it looks at present. We do have to ‘walk the walk’ as a Party that not only gives lip service to the principles of tax fairness and fiscal responsibility, but actually stands for them, if we are ever going to win the consistent support of the middle class.
Many progressives are ticked at the President for his leadership in creating this situation. I know he’s privy to all kinds of inside political and economic information I’ll never see. But I’ll never be sure he negotiated the best possible deal. The Republicans may hang tough in opposing even a modest tax hike for millionaires, but we sure as hell ought to at least try to make them accept one.
Still, it’s a high stakes gamble to leave it all up to the next congress, in which the Republican-controlled House could pass an even more reactionary tax bill, force the Senate to accept most of it, and then hold extension of unemployment benefits and other Democratic priorities hostage. I’ve yet to see a convincing argument that it couldn’t get worse if Dems stiff The Deal.
Obama may go down as “the spinach President.” He made enraged Republicans eat their spinach on health care reform, because something had to be done for the good of the country, as well as the uninsured, since health care was taking an unacceptably large bite out of GDP, in the range of 20 percent compared to 10 percent in other industrial nations, damaging our competitiveness. Now he’s coaxing angry progressives to eat their spinach, because he believes, wrongly or rightly, that this is the best tax deal available under present political circumstances.
if the current controversy means that President Obama could be a one-termer, it appears he is willing to make the sacrifice to do what he believes is right. The scariest statistic I’ve seen recently comes from Robert Creamer’s reminder in the post below that, “After all, no president has been reelected in the last century when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent.”
Thus a lot is riding on the prompt extension of unemployment benefits and increased economic stimulus, however adequate, is even more urgently needed to get the unemployment rate down as quickly as possible. Republicans know it and they will delay any cash infusion into the economy as much as they can if The Deal fails. Obama has busted historical precedent before. But it would be folly to expect re-election with the national unemployment rate north of 8 percent.
If the sharpest political strategists on the Hill determine that we can’t make the Republicans accept even a modest tax hike for the rich, by all means grumble, gripe and complain. But at that point, pass the spinach — and quickly.

The political predicament facing Dems as a result of the GOP-Obama tax cut deal provides yet another example of how the threat of a filibuster frustrates Democratic reforms and undermines democracy. The House passed a perfectly reasonable tax bill, the provisions of which are supported by a majority of Americans in opinion poll data. A majority of the Senate supports it, but the bill is dumped because it doesn’t have 60 votes needed to invoke cloture and avoid the threat of a filibuster.
The distinction between the threat of a filibuster and an actual filibuster is important,as Tim Fernholz of the American Prospect explains in his post, “Challenging the Filibuster Old Guard: A new group of Democratic senators is poised to challenge the filibuster in the next term.” Says Fernholz in this excerpt:

“By a vote of 53 to 36, the Senate defeated a proposal to extend tax cuts first on those earning up to $250,000 in income,” Capitol Hill’s Roll Call explained over the weekend. It was a typical Senate defeat, where a majority supported the losing measure and a minority achieved a filibustered veto.
It’s been well observed in Washington that it doesn’t cost much to filibuster: Senators don’t have to speak or stay on the floor of the Senate. They only need to say a few words to their leaders, and the whole institution grinds to a halt. The public, of course, doesn’t see that level of detail, which makes things difficult for those interested in reform — but that could change.

Fernholz reports that Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has accepted the challenge to provide the needed leadership for filibuster reform:

Merkley has floated a proposal to reform the filibuster by forcing senators to actually take to the floor to obstruct Senate debate and by limiting the number of times the maneuver can be used to stop a piece of legislation. He and several allies hope it will win the support of 51 senators when the new Congress comes into session in January, the easiest time to amend the Senate’s rules.

Such measure, if adopted, would drastically reduce the use of the filibuster, the threat of which is deployed more than twice a week on average, compared to about three times a year back in the 1960’s, according to Fernholz. He reports that Sen Dodd and other “institutionalists” oppose reform, basically because they feel it weakens Senate power relative to the House.
But Merkley responds,

This is not the framework in which anyone who cares about the function of the institution would feel like the institution is functioning well…If we turn the clock back 30 years … senators understood that for them, individually, to hold up the work of the Senate, it had to be an issue of profound importance to the nation. That understanding is gone.

On Jan 5th Sen Tom Udall will try to bring a filibuster reform measure to the senate floor, reports Fernholz. But it too can be filibustered, with two-thirds of ‘those present and voting’ needed to invoke cloture on a rule change. Despite the concerns of the “institutionalists,” Democrats should support it. It’s just unacceptable that nothing can pass without 60 senate votes, and this is one of the few measures that might be able to help.
Some Dems may argue that we could lose a lot of senate seats in ’12, since we have 21 senators (plus 2 pro-Dem Independents) up for re-election and the GOP has only 10. We could also lose the presidency, in which case the filibuster begins to look like a tool we can use to obstruct Republican legislation, including the gutting of health care reform. It’s a solid argument, as far as it goes.
The fact remains, however, that Democratic prospects for enacting significant reforms that reflect progressive values are slim, as long as the opposition can trot out the mere threat of a filibuster to obstruct any legislation they don’t like. Reforms supported by the Democratic Party are being held hostage by the threat of filibusters, and we need to put an end to it.
Yes, the GOP is enjoying the benefits of filibuster threats right now, because it serves their obstructionist agenda. But, looking forward, some of them have to be thinking “we could have a majority in both houses, plus the presidency after the ’12 election. Then the filibuster is our problem, so maybe changing the rules now is our best option for enacting our legislative agenda.” Some GOP votes in favor of Merkley’s proposal are not out of the question.
The old JFK adage (borrowed from a Chinese proverb) about every crisis presenting both dangers and opportunities applies nicely at this twilight political moment, when partisan power distribution is fairly equal, but in flux.
There are other possible routes to filibuster reform, including reducing the number needed to invoke cloture or even abolishing the filibuster altogether. But right now Merkley’s proposal is the one that seems to have the energy behind it. We may not get another chance for a long time.

Since the House ain’t having it, the deal is going to have to be renegotiated in part, unless of course, the my-way-or-the-highway caucus of the GOP prevails. In that event, the tax fight in the next congress will make the health care battle look like patty-cake.
For the sake of argument, let’s be optimistic. Let’s assume that there are some grown-ups hiding in the GOP shadows who get it that they won’t look like wimps if they compromise a little. Maybe Scott Brown or Richard Lugar or some other Republicans in the Senate are thinking “Hmmmm, maybe it’s time for a little adult supervision…Maybe voters are ready for different leadership from our side. Darth Boehner is already tripping. Mitch thinks he’s Patton. I could look pretty good as the lead dog voice-of-reason Republican for a bipartisan solution.”
I know it sounds crazy, because we haven’t seen any Republicans demonstrate a sincere bipartisan spirit for many, many months, if not years. There are no “red dogs” or anything resembling the “gypsy moths” of earlier decades. Plenty of Dems have no problem breaking party ranks, but it’s hard to name even one prominent Republican who has shown a willingness to do so on major votes.
Republican leaders are proud of the party discipline they have demonstrated in 2010. But they may be approaching the point where their strength is poised to become a weakness and look more like indefensible rigidity. All polls indicate a majority/plurality of voters oppose tax cuts for the rich. The GOP could reap most of the backlash if congress bogs down in another prolonged, acerbic conflict. Some Republicans have to be thinking that they could look a lot better by giving a little here and there to make the deal palatable to enough Democrats. A sure win-win outcome is a lot better than gambling on a we-win-they-lose scenario, especially when public opinion data favors the opposition.
If some Republicans rise to this challenge, it’s likely that enough Dems will be open to tweaking the numbers a little here and there. Just for openers, let’s suggest having the Bush cuts expire for those earning over $500K, and cranking up the estate tax rate to 40 percent, kicking in at $3 mill. (If no deal is negotiated before the new year, the estate tax rate is scheduled to increase to 55% for over $1mill, and the Republicans emphatically don’t want that. We do have that leverage.) The Republicans would undoubtedly respond with a counter-offer.
Whatever the magic figures may be, it’s time to stop playing chicken and start negotiating in good faith until we find the numbers that both houses of congress can live with.

We’re going to be arguing about this one for a while, and when we’re done the historians will be mulling it over in their books about the Obama presidency. My guess is that they are going to have tough time making it understandable to readers who wonder– “How in the hell did a liberal Democratic president with a healthy majority in both houses of congress, agree to a deal that extends Bush’s tax cuts for the rich?”
Some will shrug it off, “perhaps he wasn’t that liberal after all.” Others may liken him to General McClellan, Lincoln’s reluctant warrior-chief. The more meticulous historians will walk their readers through the tight timetable Obama was dealing with and the certain senate filibuster the House-passed tax bill the President preferred was facing, before finally settling on the least-bleak option he had.
Arguably, the President’s clock management and bully pulpit deployment should have been better. And jeez, couldn’t he at least have forced the GOP to eat a tax hike for millionaires at a time when corporate profits are shattering records? (Not that it would have reduced the budget deficit much). And as Paul Waldman notes in The American Prospect, the offer of a federal pay freeze now looks even more like a moral and strategic blunder.
What is undeniable, however, is that our politics are dysfunctional when a sharp Democratic president with healthy majorities in both houses can’t pass a moderately progressive tax bill. A lot of smart progressives are sharply critical of Obama’s leadership on the issue, including Paul Krugman, who sees the deal weakening the President’s re-election chances and Katrina vanden Heuval, who makes a persuasive case that it was more a problem of limited presidential will and vision than one of structural limitations.
I come down sympathetic to Obama, although I doubt that this was the very best deal he could get. Ezra Klein, on the other hand, makes a plausible argument that it certainly isn’t the worst case scenario. He didn’t, after all, accept permanent tax cuts for the rich. And as Jonathan Bernstein emphasizes in his New Republic post, “The Tax-Cut Deal Is Actually a Win for the Democrats,” Dems did deliver on tax cuts for the middle class.
None of this will matter much if the economy confounds the pundits and somehow comes roaring back before July or August, ’12, in which case Obama will begin to look like Clinton on steroids. Not bloody likely, but investment in manufacturing has been sluggish for a long time now, so a little hope is not out of the question.
Where we go from here is an all out effort to enact the remaining Democratic priorities, including DADT, the Dream Act and any other doable reforms we can cram into the agenda before Boehner takes over the House. With these reforms enacted and added to the Obama Administrations accomplishments thus far, along with some discernable economic gains, he’ll have a record to run on.

Many progressive Democrats are still grumbling about President Obama’s participation in the ‘Slurpee Summit’ with Republican leaders, some of whom have proclaimed the destruction of his presidency as the mother of all GOP priorities. These progressives feel he is being suckered again, not without reason, since there are zero indications that Republicans are negotiating in good faith or willing to give up anything at all to cut a deal.
I hope I’m not in denial here, but I have to believe Obama was not being suckered. He knows the Republicans aren’t interested in negotiating, but he feels he has to do bipartisan kabuki for one or more of three possible reasons: 1. polls strongly indicate the public wants Republicans and Democrats to work together, and even a gesture in that direction is better than no outreach; 2. The Slurpee Summit provided an opportunity to raise public awareness of the GOP’s obstructionism, thereby advancing support for holding the line on letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy; and 3. If he must cave, his bipartisan gesture makes it easier for him to cave a little, instead of total capitulation.
The alternative, almost too grim to contemplate but predicted by some observers, is that President Obama will capitulate on tax cuts for the rich because he feels it is his only chance to get other legislation passed in the lame duck session, after which his options diminish severely.
Wince-provoking as was Obama’s apology for not not adequately reaching out to Republicans during his first two years in office, it just may prove to have been a clever opening move. A little humility can become the image of a politician in trouble and enhance his cred as a leader who negotiates in good faith, especially when the other side tends to express disagreements in bilious diatribes. Obama’s proposed freeze on pay for federal workers, however, may look even worse if he caves on extending tax cuts for top earners.
Now the my-way-or-the-highway Republicans are threatening to obstruct all legislation, unless the Bush tax cuts are renewed for the rich. Public opinion data suggests they are on shaky ground. Undaunted, Speaker Pelosi is reportedly preparing a vote on keeping the tax cuts for those earning less than $250K only.
She is on more solid ground in terms of public opinion. There are surveys which indicate that most of the public believes top earners should pay more taxes, such as the Gallup/USA Today poll conducted 11/19-21, which found that respondents favored new limits for “how much of wealthy Americans’ income is eligible for the lower rates” over keeping the “tax cuts for all Americans regardless of income” by a margin of 44 percent to 40, with 13 percent favoring allowing the tax cuts to expire. So, 57 percent of those polled oppose keeping the Bush tax cuts at current levels for the wealthy.
The Republicans, however, are practicing impressive message discipline, always inserting “job-killer” before the term “tax hikes,” and jabbering about how the rich need the Bush tax cuts renewed because they are all hard-working small business folks who, shucks, just want to hire more workers with their hard-earned incomes. Dems can sweeten the expiration of upper income cuts in public perception with a significant tax incentive for small businesses to hire and retain workers.
As has been noted repeatedly since the midterms, polls indicate quite clearly that much of the public has limited faith in the GOP to do what is right for the country, even though midterm voters wanted to punish the majority party. Regarding bipartisanship, a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted just before the midterms found that 56 percent of respondents (66 percent of Democrats, 47 percent of Republicans, 52 percent Independents) agreed that it was more important for “politicians in congress to work with members of the other party and make consensus policy” than to “stick to their principles and hold to the issues they campaigned on.” (38 percent agreed, 29 Dems, 48 Republicans, 39 Independents)
It’s helpful to know that bipartisanship has substantial public support. But it would be good if some poll would shed a little more light on public perceptions about which party is making the most credible bipartisan effort. An August Ipsos/Public Affairs poll indicated that 28 percent of respondents blamed Democrats more for “the fighting between parties and branches of government,” while 36 percent blamed Republicans more. It would be even better to see what opinions about bipartisanship failure do to influence candidate choice. The responses to that one could be very helpful in formulating Dem strategy leading up to 2012.

If we’re going to be good sports like the President and admit Dems got ‘shellacked’ in the midterms, then it’s fair to say we got pulverized in the south. On that topic, Jonathan Martin is getting buzz with his Politico article “Democratic South Finally Falls.”
Martin’s title seems a little melodramatic, considering most of the south has been red territory for a few cycles. But Martin makes a persuasive case, mining a couple of angles:

After suffering a historic rout — in which nearly every white Deep South Democrat in the U.S. House was defeated and Republicans took over or gained seats in legislatures across the region — the party’s ranks in Dixie have thinned even further.
…this year’s elections, and the subsequent party switching, have made unambiguously clear is that the last ramparts have fallen and political realignment has finally taken hold in one of the South’s last citadels of Democratic strength: the statehouses.
…Democrats lost both chambers of the legislature this year in North Carolina and Alabama, meaning that they now control both houses of the capitol in just two Southern states, Arkansas and Mississippi, the latter of which could flip to the GOP in the next election…The losses and party switching, one former Southern Democratic governor noted, “leave us with little bench for upcoming and future elections.”

And according to the Associated Press,

In Alabama, four Democrats announced last week they were joining the GOP, giving Republicans a supermajority in the House that allows them to pass legislation without any support from the other party. The party switch of a Democratic lawmaker from New Orleans handed control of Louisiana’s House to Republicans for the first time since Reconstruction.
In Georgia, six rural Democratic state legislators — five from the House and one in the Senate — have switched allegiance to the GOP since Nov. 2…In Georgia, the GOP swept every statewide office this year and brought, in the words of state Rep. Alan Powell, “an effective end, at least for the foreseeable future, to the two-party system in state government.”

Martin says ten Democrats in southern state legislatures are switching party affiliation to the GOP, and yes, there will undoubtedly be more. But I’m not too worried about the “bench” factor. Most southern cities have Democratic mayors, and some of them are going to run impressive statewide campaigns in future cycles when the economy is not so sour. Grim as it seems now, we will see southern Democratic governors and U.S. Senators being sworn in down the road. As Martin acknowledges:

For all the bad tidings, there is one important development that could bode well for Democrats in some Southern states. While they may never get back the rural areas that once served as their bulwark, Southern Democrats are now competitive in some fast-growing suburbs in states that have a significant number of transplants. There was a reason why Obama won Virginia and North Carolina in 2008 — both are filled with newcomers who are open to supporting either party.
“The more metropolitan a state has become, the more resilience that gives Democrats,” said Ferrel Guillory, an expert on Southern politics at the University of North Carolina.
So even as Democrats lose long-held seats in places like rural eastern North Carolina, they can potentially make up the difference by capturing districts around Charlotte and the Research Triangle. “As those metro areas continue to grow, Democrats can find a new base of support,” Guillory said.

The main flaw in Martin’s article is that he doesn’t put the pro-Republican trend in the southeast in economic context. According to the most recent BLS data, two-thirds of southeastern states have higher unemployment rates than the national average (9.6 percent in October). The anger about the economy is at least as palpable and politically-consequential in the southeast as it is in the rust belt and elsewhere. If the economy rebounds during the next two years, the GOP will lose some of its edge in the south.
Large African American populations in southern states, particularly MS (37.1 percent), LA (31.5), GA (29.7), SC (28.3) and AL (26.2), will eventually serve as a solid base for Democratic candidates who only have to win the support of a third or so of white voters to get elected. NC (21.2 percent black pop.) and VA (19.5) have the additional demographic factor of rapid in-migration from residents of less conservative states.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Latino voters are still a small segment of southern voters, with the exception of Florida, where they were 14.5 percent of eligible voters in 2008, followed by VA, where Latinos comprised just 3.3 percent of eligible voters. While Florida’s Cuban-Americans have tended to vote Republican, they are today less than a third of FL Latinos. Meanwhile, Hispanics as a demographic group are growing rapidly in NC and GA.
Despite the daunting situation facing Democrats in the south in the wake of the midterms, there is cause for optimism about the future — particularly if Dems invest needed resources in party-building and leadership development in the region. If we are going to be a healthy political party with strong roots and a promising future, we have to work at being competitive everywhere.