Affiliates
| Works by
Thomas
F. Schaller
(Writer) |
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Devolution And Black State Legislators: Challenges And Choices in the Twenty-First Century (2006) with Tyson King-Meadows
Examines whether black state legislators can produce qualitative gains in
the substantive representation of black interests. Once a battle cry by
southern conservatives, "new federalism" has shifted power from Washington
to the respective state governments and, ironically, has done so as black
state legislators grow in number. Tyson King-Meadows and Thomas F. Schaller
look at the debates surrounding black political incorporation, the tradeoffs
between substantive and descriptive representation, racial redistricting,
and the impact of black legislators on state budgetary politics. They
situate contemporary constraints on black state elites as the union of
macro- and micro-level forces, which allows for a reconsideration of how the
idiosyncrasies of political, economic, and geographic culture converge with
the internal dynamics of state legislative processes to produce particular
environments. Interviews with black legislators provide valuable insights
into how such idiosyncrasies may deprive institutional advancement—committee
assignments, chairmanships, and party leadership positions—of the influence
it once afforded.
Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can
Win Without the South
(2006)
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. Before dreaming of forty-nine-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.
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