Story wonders about Dems in the South

A new story in Salon wonders why the national Democratic Party is fooling with the South. Writer Tom Schaller notes:

For the first time in 50 years, the party that controls both chambers of Congress is a minority party in the South. And in the last four presidential elections, the Democratic candidate has either garnered 270 electoral votes, the minimum needed to win, or has come within one state of doing so before a single Southern vote was tallied. Outside the old Confederacy, the nation is turning blue, and that portends a new map for a future Democratic majority.

While Schaller's observations are interesting, it would be foolish for any party to write off the South. If Democrats had, for example, paid any real attention to the South other than surface posturing, they might have won Tennessee and the presidency in 2000. And because Republicans have been focusing on the South, they've been able to build broad national coalitions that include Southerners.

One of the many outcomes of the recent election is that people are frustrated by a seeming one-party rule. Similarly, leaving out one whole region by any national party would make political debate less robust. And that's what people want -- and deserve.