Burnt Orange Report

Review of Zell Miller's Book

By Byron LaMasters

Houston blogger (and one of my daily reads) Greg Wythe has a good review of Zell Miller's new book. Needless to say, I won't be reading the book. Zell Miller has pretty much made himself worthless to the national Democratic party. He laments that the Democratic Party has forgotten the south, an understandable arguement with which I respectfully disagree with (as Howard Dean says (and this is another debate, and I'm glad Dean has apologized for the confederate flag thing...), poor white southerns have voted for Republicans for three decades and they have nothing to show for it). For better or for worse, there's been a major realignment in America over the past decade or two. As cultural issues (abortion, gays, guns, racial issues etc.) have shaped the national debate, the south has gone Republican, and I think that many Democrats have reached the point in which we are comfortable writing off the vast majority of the region. Even those dissagreeing with that philosophy would have a tough time finding more than three of the eleven states of the confederacy that will be competetive in 2004 for any Democratic nominee. On the other hand, however, Democrats have gained a solid hold on the northeast and the west coast. Swing states in 1988 like New Jersey and California are now arguably solidly Democratic on the national level.

Anyway, Greg (who considers himself a conservative Democrat, who at this point I believe supports Joe Lieberman) goes on to agree with parts of Zell's book, but in general he feels that it's intelectually lazy and that Zell Miller "now, is that he's nothing more than a Republican with a few contrarian stances". Exactly. He's useless to us now. I'll listen to someone like Charlie Stenholm or John Breaux when they want to critisize the Democratic Party leadership. They may be conservatives, but they and many others vote with us when it matters. Zell Miller doesn't. Why is he still a Democrat? There's room for lots of people in the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is a big tent, but we don't have room for people who go around endorsing Bush and bash our party without offering constructive solutions.