HOW ANY DEMOCRAT WILL WIN THE WHITE HOUSE.
The early exit polls in FLORIDA were correct.
Had all the votes counted as intended Gore would be President.
We would be prosperous, people would be employed, the deficit would not exist,
the Rich would have gotten richer, the poor would not be as poor, we would not be at war,
soldiers would not be dying, Osama Bin Lauden would be dead, there would be no Dept. of Big Brother Security, there would be no Patriot Act and the World Trade Towers would still be standing.



Results of the 2000 vote (with Florida in the wrong color)

141 Votes compose the Hardcore South.
MO: 51-48 11 AR: 51-47 6 VA: 52-47 13 TN: 51-49 11 LA: 53-46 9 TX: 59-40 32
GA: 55-43 13 NC: 56-4314 AL, 57-43 9 KY, 57-43 Bush 8 MS, 57-43 7
SC: 57-43 Bush 8
Another 55 comprise the Hardcore Republican NRA – Pseudo-Christian States
OK, 60-38 8 IN: 57-4112 KS, 58-40 6 MT: 58-40 3 AK: 59-38 3 SD: 60-38 3
ND: 61-36 3 NE: 63-36 5 UT: 67-31 5 ID, 69-28 4 WY: 69-28 3
These 75 votes gave Bush the victory.
NV: 49-48 4 OH: 50-49 21
AZ, 51-48 8 CO: 51-47 8 WV: 52-48 5 = 46
FL: 51-49 Gore/N 25 NH 4 = 29

Gore would have carried Florida and New Hampshire without Nader in the race (or without the wholesale voter fraud in Florida) Gore could have carried Ohio and Nevada with a little more work. For a more detailed analysis see this at Reach Em High.
No Democratic candidate need forsake his liberal values to court the South.
By taking the states Gore won in 2000 and adding Ohio, Florida (read T Rex for excellent analysis)New Hampshire and possibly Nevada the White House will be Democratic in 2004

Cowboy Kahlil has a thoughful post on the state of the South and this is my response
The South needs another 25 years of evolution and education to reach a literacy and consciousness necessary to think outside the limited interests of the Christian Coalition and the NRA.

First I must list my SOUTHERN Roots.
Knoxville TN me 1946 Father 1918 Grand-father 1894
Cherokee Co GA. Great Grandfather 1869 Great Great Grandfather 1823
Bladen Co. Carolina 3 Greats Grandfather 1799 - 4 Greats Grand father 1773
Isle of Wight Virginia 5 Greats Grand father 1750 6 Greats Grandfather 1727
It is rumored that William Bozeman was an ancestor who was one of the most notorious slave traders of his time as a Dutch Sea Captain.
That’s 9 generations of Virginia, Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee in my blood
My great-great grandfather & his 6 brothers and 6 brothers-in-law all fought for Georgia in the War of Northern Aggression and survived through the Battle of Vicksburg. These were Georgia Southern Appalachian Mountain Men who quarried marble in the North Georgia Quarries and later came to Tennessee to quarry for the Washington Monument. No Bozeman from my branch of the family ever traveled north of the Mason-Dixon Line before my father. The Bozeman’s of my line have populated Meridian Mississippi where Jimmie Rogers, the father of country music, was son of Eliza Bozeman Cousin Col. John M. Bozeman was a famous wagon master and founded the Bozeman Trail that passed from Denver through Wyoming to Montana and the Northwest. We are Freemasons, Shriners, Southern Baptist, and Southerners born and bred.
My father was a Democrat elected County Judge of Knox County Tennessee for 25 years and East Tennessee is Republican 3 to 1. A Democrat has never held the 2nd Congressional District of Tennessee seat to my knowledge.

I grew up in the buckle on the Bible belt in a Southern Baptist Church surrounded by Republicans and exposed to their myopia in the political campaigns of my father. As a Senate Page at 14 I was made aware of differences in political thought early in life. I stood in front of a boarded up county high school when I was 20 handing out vote for my father cards only to be surrounded by 25 Republicans telling me my father was a Communist because he was for School Consolidation and "combining two systems (city and county schools) into one was the first rule of Communism". Now how can you possibly argue with ignorance like that?

Republican poverty stricken East Tennesseans have been led to vote against their own self interest all of their lives. They are proud of their ignorance (note the menu in the next Cracker Barrel you see). Rightwing pseudo-Christians have been moving to East Tennessee in droves for the past 30 years. They come to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg which are the most popular church group vacation destinations in the USA and they decide it is paradise on earth and they stay. Sevier Co. Tennessee is the fastest growing county in America and that growth is 100% Republican Archie Bunker's escaping from multi-cultural encroachment on their old northeastern and midwestern urban neighborhoods.

Like George Bush's IRAQ as a "magnet" or "flypaper" for terrorists, East Tennessee is a flypaper magnet for Rightwing Pseudo-christians. Forget about the South and any homilies you ever heard about Southern wisdom and common sense because none exists. It is like the young white male down at Midas Muffler with the pickup built around a boom box featuring the Stars and Bars and a gun rack. He makes $1,000 a month perhaps and believes he is in the top 5% of wage earners in America, and from whence he came in Cocke County, TN. he may well be. He believes when GWB gave out those big tax cuts to the rich he was a recipient. That kind of world view cannot be fought in a political campaign. His soul was sold to the Republican party by Pat Robertson and his heart by the NRA. These pseudo-christians are the 'kill a commie for Christ' variety who pray for the death of Supreme Court Justices because they upheld the separation of church and state. These pseudo-christians have nothing to do with the teachings of Christ and everything to do with the teachings of Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Southern Baptist Convention.

The South is lost at present to intelligent literate compassionate liberal Democrats. More prosperity and self interest will not sway these voters - forget about compassion or the greater good. Fear and greed drive these people and they interpret the Constitution and the Bible to serve their misguided ends. It does not matter to them that it is against their own interests and the best interests of the nation and the world. It might be better if it actually benefitted them in some way. Write off the south and the 26 Senate seats and gain the White House. Concentrate on Ohio and Florida and New Hampshire and firm up Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Lieberman and Bayh (from Indiana) are wrong as is the Democratic Leadership Conference. The day Al Gore can win the current State of Tennessee is the day he will not be worth supporting. Any strategy that caters to the wrongheaded mentality of the pseudo-christian NRA loving South will be counter productive to the well being of the country. We need no greater evidence of this than this current disaster of an administration and the current condition of the economy (recession), unemployment (growing), deficit (a record), military (stretched too thin and dying) and our security (underfunded and ineffective). All of that being said you will notice that I have no hatred for these people and I wish them peace and enlightenment. I believe they have been led astray by the Pat Robertsons, Jerry Falwells, and Jimmy Swaggerts and particularly the Southern Baptist Convention.