Dixiecrats for Obama

Former Senators Sam Nunn and David Boren, two leading members of what I guess will be the penultimate generation (counting Sens. Pryor, Lincoln, and Landrieux as the last of their specieis) of white southern moderate Democratic legislators announced their support of Barack Obama today. The Obama campaign is playing this as a national security thing, with everything in the press release being security-related. That's probably for the best -- Nunn and Boren are both Very Serious People who actually deserve to be taken pretty seriously -- whereas on domestic issues Boren was horrible and I don't really know anything about Nunn.

UPDATE: Okay, not "Dixiecrats" like Strom Thurmond 1948 segregationists. That's not what I meant, and it's unfair. But we need a word that's more specific than "southern Democrats" that distinguishes old-school white moderate Democrats from either southern black Democrats or politicians like Tim Kaine and Mark Warner who have a more "post-Southern" vibe.

Comments

The anticipated Clinton response?

"Screw 'em."

Posted by natthedem | April 18, 2008 12:38 PM

Calling them Dixiecrats is a slur - the term is meant to apply to Southern Democrats who prefer segregation to the national Democratic party (see 1948 Truman vs Thurmond, and then the next 20 years or so).

Plus Boren is from Oklahoma, not normally regarded as a pure Southern state (it is a hybrid of south, midwest and west).

Posted by hopeless pedant | April 18, 2008 12:42 PM

Nunn did good work with Sen. Lugar on securing loose nuclear material and Obama has been doing follow on work with Lugar so that is probably a big factor in the endorsement. Look for Lugar to have a big role in the Obama administration either as a goto worker in the Senate or as somebody in the cabinet. Google Nunn-Lugar and Obama-Lugar.

Posted by joejoejoe | April 18, 2008 12:43 PM

Former Senators Sam Nunn and David Boren, two leading members of what I guess will be the penultimate generation (counting Sens. Pryor, Lincoln, and Landrieux as the last of their specieis) of white southern moderate Democratic legislators...

So you don't expect Mark Warner to win in November?

And yeah, neither Nunn nor Boren deserves to be called a Dixiecrat.

Posted by Gabriel | April 18, 2008 12:44 PM

Uhm... isn't Dixiecrat kind of a slur? I don't want to be all PC up in here, but Dixiecrats were segregationists?, which I'm pretty sure Nunn and Boren aren't. I don't think anyone elected in the South in the last 25 years is considered a "Dixiecrat".

Posted by J.W. Hamner | April 18, 2008 12:46 PM

Nunn now runs the Nuclear Threat Initiative which works on the issues covered by Nunn-Lugar/Obama-Lugar. If he were remotely pro-choice he'd be a fine VP selection but I think he's a little too so-con.

Posted by SDM | April 18, 2008 12:48 PM

They were conservative southern(ish) Democrats, but dixiecrat is the wrong term.

Boren played the lead role in derailing the early Clinton/Gore attempt to have a 50 cent carbon tax. Some feel that was when any progressivism died in the Clinton presidency, and began the disconnect between the "Democratic" congress and Clinton/Gore presidency.

Similarly Nunn aided and abetted the Republicans on dont-ask dont-tell.

The both represented the sort of conservative Dems who would vote with Repugs wrongly on many economic and social issues.

Posted by dr.steveb | April 18, 2008 12:50 PM

Who was the last major person to endorse Hillary? Barbara Streisand?

Posted by Jake | April 18, 2008 12:51 PM

Sam Nunn is an asshole who teamed up against Bill Clinton at the beginning of his administration to screw gays.

Posted by The Fool | April 18, 2008 12:52 PM

The best thing about this to me is that it confirms Boren and Nunn have given up their flirtation with the ill-conceived bipartisan/consensus non-movement, if indeed there's anything left of it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/29/AR2007122901476.html

Posted by Jake H. | April 18, 2008 12:58 PM

So you don't expect Mark Warner to win in November?

Mark Warner is a pretty different type of Democrat than Sam Nunn or David Boren, and different from anyone we might see getting elected from a deep south state. And this is in keeping with the fact that Virginia these days is a very different state from Georgia, South Carolina, or Louisiana. Warner's base, recall, was NoVa, which is about as un-Southern as you can get.

And yes, Dixiecrat really is not the right term. Strom Thurmond was a Dixiecrat. Mary Landrieu and Sam Nunn aren't.

Either way, they're good foreign policy gets, even if not superdelegates.

Posted by jbryan | April 18, 2008 1:03 PM

Sam Nunn is an asshole who teamed up against Bill Clinton at the beginning of his administration to screw gays.

A little too much to drink at those Beltway cocktail parties?

Posted by Mike | April 18, 2008 1:05 PM

Former Senators Sam Nunn and David Boren, two leading members of what I guess will be the penultimate generation (counting Sens. Pryor, Lincoln, and Landrieux as the last of their specieis) of white southern moderate Democratic legislators

You'd have to include Bill Nelson in the list of current members, but I don't have any idea why you think there won't be more in the future. Republicans aren't going to win in the south in every single Senate election, and when they lose, the Democrats who beat them are going to tend to be moderate and white.

And, as the others above have noted, Dixiecrat is entirely the wrong term here.

Posted by right | April 18, 2008 1:08 PM

Gotta agree with the posters above: "Dixiecrat" has a specific (and nasty) meaning and neither Nunn nor Boren even vaguel resemble Dixiecrats.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | April 18, 2008 1:12 PM

This is somewhat surprising, at least to me. Is it a known fact that Nunn & Boren are in favor of pulling out of Iraq?

Posted by MattF | April 18, 2008 1:12 PM

do people know why David Boren suddenly resigned back in the mid-90's???

Posted by matt | April 18, 2008 1:14 PM

Nunn is an interesting character. Had he voted for the Gulf War he probably would have run for President in 2002. In the past he's been conservative on social issues (he voted to confirm Clarence Thomas, for instance) and decent-for-a-Southernor on economic issues, which is to say, better than John Breaux, but not really a barnburning populist.

I think the distinction MY is trying to draw is that future Southern Democratic politicians will be elected by a "New South" coalition that depends more on urban/suburban/exurban whites and less on rural whites who voted for Democrats because of the War of Northern Aggression. John edwards, Bill Nelson, and Mark Warner all fit into this bucket.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | April 18, 2008 1:16 PM

Boren resigned in the mid-90's because a cushy job opened up (president of the University of Oklahoma), and both Congress and his own state were becoming much more conservative. He obviously still retains influence.

Posted by Clark | April 18, 2008 1:28 PM

Boren resigned in the mid-90's because a cushy job opened up (president of the University of Oklahoma), and both Congress and his own state were becoming much more conservative. He obviously still retains influence.

Nicholas, Nunn would have run for prez in 2002?

Posted by Clark | April 18, 2008 1:29 PM

Boren's endorsement of Obama is curious. He's a very conservative democrat, tends to be very military gung-ho (although he did vote AGAINST Gulf War I for some reason). His politics are clearly more in line with Hillary's centrist/conservatism rather than Obama's more liberal stances.

As for why he left Congress, it might have something to do with Clarence Thomas. He voted to confirm, but later said it was a mistake. He took some political heat over that, and decided to resign in 95. Since then, he's been president at the University of Oklahoma.

Oklahoma is somewhat of a more racist state than others in the surrounding areas (the Tulsa race riots in the 1920s are legendary). Its more white (with fewer blacks and latinos) than Texas or the deep south, and the primary went overwhelmingly for Clinton.

Boren is probably one of the more surprising endorsements for Obama in this race.

Posted by joe blow | April 18, 2008 1:31 PM

Mark Warner's base in the only election he won was anything but Northern Virginia. He did amazingly well in 2001 in rural Virginia and capitalized somewhat on the emerging trend in Northern Virginia. Compare that to Jim Webb or Tim Kaine's victories and you will see that it is they who romped in Northern Virginia while seeing their numbers in rural Va come down to Earth to where they usually are for a Democrat.

Now, you could argue that Warner's base presently is Northern Virginia (though I expect he'll romp equally in all parts of the state) but if you go back to his 2001 campaign I don't think he was sponsoring a stock car to appeal to the DC bureaucrats that reside in Arlington.

Posted by Chris | April 18, 2008 1:33 PM

Did Jim Webb up and disappear?

Posted by tom c | April 18, 2008 1:34 PM

Chris,

I don't mean to imply that Warner didn't see success in other areas of the state as well. And he did run a good campaign aimed at appealing to some of the more rural, Republican-friendly parts of Virginia. Obviously this is all true -- he achieved greater popularity and electoral strength than either Kaine or Webb has (or former Fairfax congresswoman Leslie Byrne who just barely lost the Lt. Gov. race), and he's going to rack up a dizzying margin of victory against the hapless Gilmore this November.

But I still think of him, centrally, as a Nova candidate. He wasn't a Virginian or a southerner, born or bred, and while he stressed rural cred (just as Webb did, of course) and did the whole Nascar thing, he was still running as a tech-savvy (telecommunications) businessman prepared to guide Virginia into the future with technocratic good-government policies following the disastrous Gilmore era. And of course, one of his first objectives was trying to fix the awful Nova traffic mess (along with the other Warner), even though he (sigh) failed. Oh well.

Either way, I still don't see him (or other future emerging Va politicians) as true "southern conservative" politicians anymore simply because of the growing strength and influence of Nova within the state. It's possible we may eventually see something similar happen in North Carolina thanks to the Research Triangle, but it's already happened in Virginia. It's a changed state.

Posted by jbryan | April 18, 2008 1:55 PM

Sam Nunn is an asshole who teamed up against Bill Clinton at the beginning of his administration to screw gays.

OH ... MY ... GOD! Sam Nunn and Bill Clinton were involved in gay orgies? Quick! Somebody call Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos!

Posted by LFC | April 18, 2008 1:57 PM

Chris,

I don't mean to imply that Warner didn't see success in other areas of the state as well. And he did run a good campaign aimed at appealing to some of the more rural, Republican-friendly parts of Virginia. Obviously this is all true -- he achieved greater popularity and electoral strength than either Kaine or Webb has (or former Fairfax congresswoman Leslie Byrne who just barely lost the Lt. Gov. race), and he's going to rack up a dizzying margin of victory against the hapless Gilmore this November.

But I still think of him, centrally, as a Nova candidate. He wasn't a Virginian or a southerner, born or bred, and while he stressed rural cred (just as Webb did, of course) and did the whole Nascar thing, he was still running as a tech-savvy (telecommunications) businessman prepared to guide Virginia into the future with technocratic good-government policies following the disastrous Gilmore era. And of course, one of his first objectives was trying to fix the awful Nova traffic mess (along with the other Warner), even though he (sigh) failed. Oh well.

Either way, I still don't see him (or other future emerging Va politicians) as true "southern conservative" politicians anymore simply because of the growing strength and influence of Nova within the state. It's possible we may eventually see something similar happen in North Carolina thanks to the Research Triangle, but it's already happened in Virginia. It's a changed state.

Posted by jbryan | April 18, 2008 1:58 PM

IIRC, Nunn never liked Social Security too much.

Posted by Thomas allen | April 18, 2008 2:17 PM

In a primary race, aren't there people whose endorsements you don't want? And isn't Boren one of those people?

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | April 18, 2008 2:24 PM

In defense of the point that Yglesias has already surrendered, in the '80s the southern democrats who were democrats primarily becuase the South had traditionally been democratic, although they tended to vote Republican were referred to as Dixiecrats. This was useful because it illustrated the fiction that Reagan was working in a bipartisan manner when he was really just getting votes from Republicans, who like Zell Miller more recently, were stubbornly insisting they were democrats despite not agreeing with any of the party's platform.

Some, like Shelby did eventually switch parties. While Dixiecrat could be reserved for Thurmon's breakaway movement, I don't think that usage has ever been exclusive.

Posted by Lon | April 18, 2008 2:27 PM

What I wanmt to know is when we're going to get some NY senators with a "post New York" aura? Javits, Damato, Moniyhan, Schumer all very ethnic NY and as behind the times as a Dixiecrat. Hilolary is the exception. Yeah Matt, that's what NY needs, another Senator Clinton. Think we can find one?

Posted by Gene | April 18, 2008 2:29 PM

Well, from here in Tallahassee, we call conservative southern Democrats...Dixiecrats. In fact, until our current President, I considered myself a Dixiecrat. There are A LOT of Dixiecrats in the South. The Alabama legislature, for instance, is overwhelmingly Democratic because of Dixiecrats. Arkansas as well.

In Florida, there are all these Sheriffs and county commissioners who were Democrats, but then switched parties to run for the state legislature.

I think Dixiecrat is an accurate term and I do not consider it a slur.

Posted by Hank Porter | April 18, 2008 2:30 PM

Anyone for reviving the c.1981 term Boll Weevil (first used to describe Southern Democrats who voted for the Reagan Economic Plan)? And of course the more recent Blue Dogs were also mainly Southern.

Posted by James Kabala | April 18, 2008 2:44 PM

Um, "post-Southern"? You Yankees really do think of the South as an (outdated) era, not a region, don't you?

Posted by eds | April 18, 2008 3:21 PM

eds,

Did you see National Treasure 2? Southerners are still somewhat dimwitted, tough, mercenary-types, opposed to historical truth and willing to do anything to get what they want--which is clearly still glory for the Confederacy.

Posted by brennakimi | April 18, 2008 3:29 PM

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/04/baracky.html

Posted by thinktwice | April 18, 2008 3:32 PM

Hillary Clinton’s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther, and goes much deeper than anyone realizes. Now Jay Carson may be unable to remember a verbatim quote from thirteen years ago, but I do. Hillary has and does treat all white working class Americans as a species apart, and screw them she did: http://theseedsof9-11.com

Posted by Mata Hari | April 18, 2008 3:33 PM

even though you've added a correction, I still think you have written a gross slander against these two. and I disagree with them about a lot of things. but they certainly aren't former Democrats who left the party because they couldn't abide things like the CRA and the VRA and school integration. why not a post asking what the proper terminology might be, instead of making such an unsubstantiated charge?

Posted by onceler | April 18, 2008 4:18 PM

Sam Nunn probably saw the Clintons for who they really are, "liars". That's probably why he went against him in the 90s. I don't consider Oklahoma as part of the South, but a very conservative state. Sam Nunn is highly regarded with the military.

Posted by Carolyn Grace | April 18, 2008 5:28 PM

Geez, i dunno... how 'bout "old-school white moderate Democrats"?

Posted by rita forte | April 18, 2008 5:29 PM

Actually, Richard Barrett, a recent Democratic-candidate for Governor [finishing third out of eight], who spearheaded the Confederate-flag vote in Mississippi and who Worldnet-Daily describes as a "leading segregationist," has "predicted" an Obama victory. He claims that it will "arouse" the "right" to "take the White House back." While not an "endorsement," it bodes ill for both Hillary and McCain. And, yes, Barrett, although not of the Thurmond-generation, is no "moderate" and amply qualifies as a "Dixiecrat."

Posted by Blue-collar | April 18, 2008 8:30 PM

How much money do Nunn and Boren take from AIPAC?

Also Gene, you are not going to see NY'rs back Obama because AIPAC is not supporting Obama they are supporting Hillary.

Which is why Hillary brings up Hamas, Farrakhan and Wright every single chance she gets, she is bought and paid for by AIPAC.

The largest group opposing Obama is the jewish lobby and NY and FL jews.

Posted by vicissitudes | April 18, 2008 11:51 PM

"Okay, not "Dixiecrats" like Strom Thurmond 1948 segregationists. That's not what I meant, and it's unfair."

Don't you write about politics for a living? This should be as obvious to you as knowing what pork and gerrymandering are.

Posted by Reality Man | April 19, 2008 3:59 AM

Let's look at Boren's record. After the gay press started to out him and accuse him of sexually harassing his male staff members, he resigned from the US Senate and became president of the University of Oklahoma. He has been trying to work his way back to Washington ever since. In January 2008 the fool was hosting his silly "bipartisan forum" and wasting OU resources to promote a Bloomberg independent candidacy. Boren was hoping that he would be Bloomberg's running mate. For 2004 Boren was promoting conservative Joe Lieberman, but now his game is liberal Obama. After Lieberman dropped out he used $100,000 in public funds to host Giuliani at OU. At the time, the rumor was circulating that Bush was going to dump Cheney and pick up Giuliani. Boren was hoping for a Cabinet appointment. For 2000, there was a Reform Party Committee to Draft Boren. Boren was quietly cooperating with them. Boren flip-flops back and forth. The fact is that he is loyal to no one except himself.

Boren is also the mentor and sponsor of George Tenet. He is high in the world of espionage and the CIA. They are experts at infiltration, disruption, and sabotage. Boren is a close friend of the Bush family and a member of Skull and Bones. One possible motive for his joining the Obama campaign would be to sabotage it.

Posted by Michael Wright | April 19, 2008 1:46 PM

"Who was the last major person to endorse Hillary? Barbara Streisand?"

(actually, I think it was McCain & Rush Limbaugh)

Posted by kevin | April 20, 2008 7:46 PM