Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South By Thomas F. Schaller

Instead of "futile pandering to the nation's most conservative voters" in the South, Democrats should build a non-Southern majority to regain dominance, argues Schaller, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County political scientist, in this focused, tactical account. The Republicans' Southern monopoly may have helped them achieve national majorities in the past, but it has never constituted a majority alone, Schaller explains. There are greener pastures for Democrats at all levels of elected government: the Midwest, Southwest and Mountain West.